USA > New York > Courts and lawyers of New York; a history, 1609-1925, Volume I > Part 3
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The House of Lords strove to conciliate King Charles by a reservation of his "sovereign power." But the Commons demurred. "Our petition," said Pym, "is for the laws of England."-See Green's "Short History of the English People," Book VII, Chap. V.
C.&L .- 2
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They refused to accept a religious creed at the hands of the priesthood and the Crown, Parliament avowing that "the right to determine the belief of a nation lay with the nation itself." Even while this discussion was proceeding, the mem- bers had before them an instance of flagrant violation by the King of their Petition of Rights, so recently acknowledged. Those who had collected customs duties illegally levied by the King were summoned to the bar of the House. They ap- peared, but refused to answer, "pleading the King's command." When the House proceeded to protest, the Speaker announced that he had received an order to adjourn. Knowing that dis- solution was imminent, the members held the Speaker down in his chair, and locked the doors, refusing to adjourn until they had reiterated the responsibility of king and ministers to Parliament. "None have gone about to break Parliaments," declared Eliot, "but in the end Parliaments have broken them." Before Parliament adjourned, the Commons passed resolutions declaring that "whosoever should bring in innovations in religion, or whatever minister indorsed the levy of subsidies not granted in Parliament" would be "a capital enemy to the kingdom and commonwealth"; furthermore, that "every sub- ject voluntarily complying with illegal acts and demands" would be "a betrayer of the liberty of England and an enemy of the same."
Such was the situation in 1629, the year in which the Mas- sachusetts Bay Colony charter was granted-fortunately just before the dissolution of parliament. No other parliament was destined to gather in England during the next decade, to curb the monarchical absolutism. But Puritans grimly re- sisted the King during the period. Rather than betray the liberty of England, thousands elected to risk their lives by crossing the seas and planting a new and free England in the wilderness of America. More than 20,000 Puritans crossed to New England between 1629 and 1640, most of them imbued with the spirit of political freedom. Bringing with them such a heritage, strengthened as they were by the great power
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THE BASES OF AMERICAN LAW
manifested by their own Parliament (which even in its last word, had defied the authority of the King and urged the people not to take on the yoke of worse than serfdom), cog- nizant as they must have been that they in America far out- numbered any other transplanted people, it is hardly surpris- ing that the institutions of Massachusetts and the United States should be patterned after those of England, largely. In the new land wherein they could be free to exercise their instinctive "ancient Aryan liberties, sustained by equally orderly obedience to Law,"15 the Puritans transplanted these principles of freedom, and built their social and political states according to their acknowledged rights, to their English birthright as declared in Magna Charta and defended by them- selves, or by their fellow-countrymen so recently in the Eng- lish Parliament. In America they had greater scope. Burrow- ing royal worms could not eat the heart of the sapling they planted. Growth was vigorous in the fertile soil of America, and the product sustained the colonists through the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, to the time when attempts to draw the sap of the Tree of Liberty for sustenance of the Crown, without sanction by the American people, caused the colonists to fence it with their persons and forbid trespass. The attack defeated and possession conceded, the ex-colonists then began, under better auspices, to build American institu- tions upon the bases of their inherent liberties, guided by prin- ciples such as had probably been instinctive in man for tens of centuries. American law, based on the government of the people by the people for the people follows in some funda- mentals most of the civilizations of the past. The American Constitution was conceived in, and based upon, the noblest instincts of human brotherhood. It was built of the human experience of ages. Therefore, those who enjoy its privileges should prize and uphold it, for in its functioning is the common weal.
15. Werner, in the "Civil List and Constitutional History of the Col- ony and State of New York," 1889 ed.
CHAPTER II. ANTERIOR TO HUDSON'S COMING .*
The year 1609 A. D. was portentous in New York history. From opposite directions two intrepid navigators in that year entered the region now governed by the State of New York, one penetrating from the north, the other from the south. Their fundamental motives were identical, though they rep- resented rival interests; and had they pursued their explora- tions of the beautiful inland waters of New York State a little further, they might have come face to face. The meeting would have been historic; it might well have been dramatic; yet, it is idle to conjecture what would have been the conse- quences to New York had Samuel de Champlain, representa- tive of Henry of Navarre, King of France, and Henry Hudson, an Englishman then serving the Dutch East India Company, encountered each other somewhere in the maze of waterways in the wilderness of New York State in 1609, the year in which Champlain discovered the "Mer des Iroquois," or Lake Cham- plain, and Hudson sailed up the noble river that was after- wards to bear his own name. As a matter of fact, neither explorer can be looked upon as the first white man to set foot on the soil of New York; records of New York exploration go back, though not certainly, beyond the time of Columbus.
It seems probable that European vessels cruised in New York waters more than five hundred years before the "Half Moon," commanded by Hudson, entered New York Harbor. A Norseman, Thorvald (Thorwald), brother of Eric the Red,
*AUTHORITIES-Duruy's "A Short History of France"; Belford's "His- tory of the United States"; Werner's "Civil List and Constitutional His- tory of the Colony and State of New York" (1889) ; Chester's "Legal and Judicial History of New York," Vol. III; "Encyclopedia Britannica"; "Reports of the New York Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commission," 1909; "Chambers Encyclopedia"; "National Encyclopedia of American Biography," Vol. IV; "Champlain's Narrative of his voyages and Discov- eries"; Parkman's "Pioneers of France in the New World."
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is supposed to have explored Long Island Sound to New York Harbor in the year 1003 A. D., finding a wooden shed but no inhabitants. He was killed by "Esquimaux" in the next year, while exploring the New England coast, and was buried on the shore of Massachusetts Bay. During the next decade other Norsemen from Vinland, the name given to the colony at Mount Hope Bay in Rhode Island, quite possibly cruised in New York waters. Later navigators-Prince Madoc, of Wales (1170 A. D.), Nicolo Zeno (1380), John and Sebastian Cabot (1497-99)-may have passed along the New York coast; the Cabots certainly did ; and it is generally believed that Ver- razzano discovered both New York Harbor and the Hudson River eighty-five years before Henry Hudson headed a Dutch expedition into its waters.
Giovanni da Verrazzano (1470-1527), a Florentine naviga- tor, had had a long and adventurous career at sea before the happening of which particular note must here be taken. He had cruised along the coast of North America, and into the St. Lawrence, as early as the year 1508. Later he had become famous, or notorious, as a corsair, preying on the rich Spanish and Portuguese commerce. In 1523 he was in command of one of four vessels fitted out by the French Government for a voyage of discovery. In that year they set sail from Brittany. Verrazzano, however, had to seek shelter in the Madieras, and there his vessel, the "Dauphine" (or "Dalfina"), weathered the storm. In January, 1524, he set sail on a westerly course, which eventually brought him to the American coast, along which he cruised northward. After an adventurous voyage he reached the French port of Dieppe in July, 1524, and lost no time in submitting report of his voyage to the King of France, Francis I. In this report, under date of July 8, 1524, the genu- ineness of which report by the way has been questioned, Verrazzano made reference to New York waters. It appears that he reached "the new land," (Nuova Terra) on March 10 (OS), 1524, in latitude 34°, near Cape Fear, N. C. He explored
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the coast from Florida to Newfoundland, and in April dis- covered the Cape of St. Mary's (Sandy Hook), the Narrows, Upper New York Bay, and the mouth of the "Grande" (Hud- son) River. He coasted along Long Island, anchored in Nar- ragansett Bay, from April 21 to May 6, and then sailed north- ward, as far as 50° N. Verrazzano claimed the whole territory for France, and it was given the name of Francesca. The portion from the Grande (Hudson) River to the Gulf of St. Lawrence was known as La Terre d'Anormee Berge, the "Land of the Grand Scarp," meaning the Palisades on the Hudson. The name, abbreviated, became Noromberge, Nor- emberge, Norumberge, Norumbega. Little is known, with certainty, as to the remainder of Verrazzano's life; he is said to have made his last voyage to America in 1526, and to have been killed by natives, but another account states that he was put to death in Spain for piracy .*
*In Francis Parkman's "Pioneers of France in the New World," p. 231, is the following note on the subject :
The Voyage of Verrazzano-The narrative of the voyage of Verraz- zano is contained in a letter from him, dated at Dieppe, 8 July, 1524. The original does not exist. The Italian translation was printed by Ramusio in 1556, and there is another translation in the Magliabecchian library at Florence. This last is accompanied by a letter concerning the voyage from one Fernando Carli, dated at Lyons, 4 August, 1524. Hieronimo da Varraz- zano, brother of the navigator, made in 1529, a large map of the world, which is preserved in the College of the Propaganda at Rome. The dis- coveries of Verrazzano are laid down upon it. . . . A copper globe made by Euphrosynus Ulpius, in 1542, also affirms the discovery of Verrazzano, and gives his name to a part of the continent, while other contemporary maps, notably that of Visconte di Maiollo, 1527, also contain traces of his voyage. Ramusio says that he had conversed with many persons who knew Verrazzano, and prints a paper called "Discorso d'un gran Capitano di Mare Francese," in which the voyage of Verrazzano is mentioned by a contemporary navigator of Dieppe.
Various Spanish and Portuguese documents attest the exploits of Verrazzano as a corsair, and a letter of Silveira, Portuguese ambassador to France, shows that in the spring of 1523 he had announced his purpose of a voyage to "Cathay." On the eleventh of May, 1526, he gave a power of attorney to his brother Hieronimo, the maker of the map, and this paper still exists, bearing his autograph. Various other original papers relating to him are extant, one of the most curious being that of the judge at Cadiz, testifying to his capture and his execution at Puerto del Pico. None of the early writers question the reality of the voyage. Among those
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In 1525 a Spanish ship, under Stephen Gomez, entered the bays of New York and New England. Gomez referred to the region as "the Land of Gomez." In 1528 a Spanish expedition explored Florida, but no European expedition seems to have come north until 1534, when Jacques Cartier, under a commis- sion from Francis I, took possession of Labrador for France. In the same year Cartier entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in the next ascended the St. Lawrence River as far as Hochelaga (Montreal). He claimed the country for France. Spaniards were active along the Mississippi River in that dec- ade, and French fur traders began to make plans for expansion in New York. In about 1540 the fur-factors erected a fortified trading-house, which comes into the record as Le Fort d'Anor- mee Berge, "on an island in a small fresh-water lake on Man- hattan Island.1 In the same year the factors began to build a fort, or castle, on Castle Island (Van Rensselaer's Island), in the Grand River (Hudson), near the site of Albany,2 "but
who affirm it may be mentioned Annibal Caro, 1537; Belleforest, 1570; Herrera, 1601; Wytfleit, 1603; De Laet, 1603; Lescarbot, 1612.
In 1864 Mr. Buckingham Smith questioned the genuineness of the Verraz- zano letter in a pamphlet called, "An Inquiry Into the Authenticity of Doc- uments Concerning the Discovery of North America, Claimed to Have Been Made by Verrazzano." Mr. J. Carson Brevoort answered him in a book entitled "Verrazzano, the Navigator." Mr. Henry C. Murphy followed with another book "The Voyage of Verrazzano," in which he endeavored at great length to prove that the evidence concerning the voyage was fab- ricated. Mr. Henry Harrisse gave a cautious and qualified support to his views in the "Revue Critique." Mr. Major answered them in the "London Geographical Magazine, and Mr. De Costa made an elaborate and effective reply in his work called "Verrazzano the Explorer." An Italian writer, Signor Descimoni, has added some cogent facts in support of the authen- ticity of the documents. A careful examination of these various writings convinces me that the evidence in favor of the voyage of Verrazzano is far stronger than he evidence against it. Abbe Verreau found a con- temporary document in the Bibliotheque Nationale, in which it is mentioned that the "memoirs" of Verrazzano were then in possession of Chatillon (Admiral Coligny). See Report on Canadian Archives, 1874, p. 190.
I. The fresh-water lake on Manhattan Island then covered the district between what are now Franklin, Elm, Duane and Baxter streets, and emptied into the Hudson River at Canal Street; in 1796 John Fitch, navi- gated his steamboat on this lake, which was then called the Collect Pond.
2. "As early as 1540 some French fur traders found their way up the river that many years afterwards was 'discovered' by Hudson, and
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the structure was damaged by a freshet and abandoned."2a In 1542, a French expedition, under Roberval, with Jean Alphonse as pilot, sailed for America, explored Long Island Sound, and "ascended the Norombegue or Grand River (Hudson), to the head of navigation." Maybe, the "head of navigation" meant Albany, and that it was then that it was discovered that a freshet had damaged the "castle"; the record reads that "the French abandon the country in 1543." Roberval sailed from France for America again in 1549, but he never returned to France, and may have perished at sea. One authority states that he was slain at night, in the heart of Paris.2b
In the latter half of the sixteenth century, so far as it shows exploration by Europeans in North America, the interest was focussed mainly on the southern regions, where the Spaniards were more successful than the French or the English. The French in 1578 had one hundred and fifty vessels engaged in the Newfoundland fisheries, and the Marquis de la Roche formed a temporary French settlement on Sable Island, off Nova Scotia, in 1598; but the region covered by New York and the New England States was still exclusively the land of the Indian nations. Two Dutch expeditions, under Bikker and Leyen, voyaged to America in 1597, and in 1600 (or 1604) a written plan for the organization of a Dutch West India Company "was communicated to the States-General, but was
erected a stone fort or castle on the island in the river, near the present southern boundary of the city of Albany. Here seventy-five years later the castle, which had fallen into decay, was rebuilt as Fort Nassau by Hendrick Corstiaensen, of Amsterdam, who bore a license from the Lords States-General of Holland to traffic in furs with the natives of New Netherland. Here Henry Hudson arrived on the 'Half Moon,' September 19 (old style), 1609, under contract with the Dutch East India Company, on his exploration of the Grand (now Hudson) River. Here the Walloons, under the authority of the Dutch West India Company, which had been incorporated by the Holland government to colonize America, erected Fort Orange in 1624, on the shore of the river, near the site of the present steamboat landing."-Vol. III, p. 3, Chester's "Legal and Judicial History of New York (19II).
2a. Belford's "History of the United States."
2b. Parkman, in "Pioneers of France in the New World," p. 231.
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not acted on,"3 In 1602 an English expedition, under Barthole- mew Gosnold, discovered Massachusetts Bay, landed at Cape Cod, and built on Cuttyhunk, one of the Elizabeth Islands, the first house erected in Massachusetts, also a fort for the protec- tion of a colony. The expedition returned to England in the same year. In 1603 Henry IV of France appointed Samuel de Champlain General-Lieutenant of Canada. Champlain sailed in March, entered the St. Lawrence, and selected Quebec as site for a fort. Martin Pring sailed from England in April of same year, and explored the coasts of Massachusetts and Maine. In November, 1603, the French king granted to De Monts the territory described as Acadia, a vast region reach- ing from the latitude of Philadelphia to that of Montreal, i. e., from 40° to 46° N. De Monts sailed from France in the fol- lowing March, and erected a fort at St. Croix Island (Maine). One of his leaders, Poutrincourt, settled at Port Royal (Nova Scotia). De Monts returned to France, but in 1605 came again, with Champlain. They removed the St. Croix colony to Port Royal, entered the River St. John (New Brunswick), landed on Grand Manan Island, afterwards exploring the coast southward as far as Cape Cod, and claiming the whole terri- tory for France. (The Port Royal colony was abandoned in a few years).
The English did not recognize the claims of the French, for an English expedition was operating in the same region
3. "A suggestion was made by William Usselinex, an enterprising mer- chant of Antwerp, in 1604, to organize a West India Company for the purpose of reaping the benefits of commerce, and as the best means to annoy Spain. The proposition was received with favor, and the draft of a charter was prepared and informally approved. Secret overtures for peace, however, postponed the project for some time. These (peace) pro- posals resulted in an armistice, May 4, 1607. A truce for twelve years was agreed upon at Antwerp, April 9, 1609, at the expiration of which period, in 1621, war was renewed and the West India Company was organized." -- Werner's "Civil List, State of New York," 1888, p. 3.
3. "A written plan for a Dutch West India Company is communicated to the States-General in 1600, but is not acted on."-Belford's "History of the United States," p. 17.
SAMUEL de CHAMPLAIN
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at the same time. George Weymouth explored the coast of Maine in May, 1605, entered the Penobscot, and took five natives home with him. Pring was again in Maine in 1606, and in April of that year King James I, of England, granted a patent to colonize "Virginia" to two companies: the London Company could operate in "Southern Virginia" (34° to 38° N.) ; and the West of England Company in "Northern Virginia" 41° to 45° N.); the intermediate district (38° to 41° N.) being open to both. The London Company, under Newport, Gosnold, and John Smith, with 105 emigrants, sailed in Decem- ber, and founded Jamestown in May, 1607. The West of England Company, under Raleigh Gilbert and George Pop- ham, reached Sagadohoc (Kennebec), Maine, in August, 1607, and left forty-five emigrants at "St. George." The story of the Jamestown colony is well known, but Americans are not so familiar with the story of the Maine colony. Popham died in Maine and the settlers suffered such hardships that they were glad to return to England in 1608.
Champlain, who had returned to France in 1607, was again on the high seas in the early months of 1608, bound for America, acting for merchants of Dieppe and St. Malo. At Quebec he founded the first permanent French colony estab- lished in America. Maybe, he thought the St. Lawrence River would prove to be a northwest passage to the East Indies. It seems more probable, however, that he looked upon the water course as merely a convenient route for trading with the Indians of the interior of the American continent. At all events that seems to have been his immediate purpose, even though the nobler aim of adding to the dominions of France and of finding a westerly route to India undoubtedly was the underlying purpose of all his voyages to and explorations in America.4 The winter of 1608 was spent by Champlain in
4. "With the hope of finding the highway to the riches of India, the fervor of his ardent spirit led him in his first voyage (in 1599) to project a canal across the Panama. And later on, still dreaming that a pathway might yet be found which would lead him to this golden land, he pene-
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making the fort and buildings at Quebec secure and habitable. Three-fourths of the colonists died of disease during the win- ter.5 Champlain did not despair, however. He had succeeded in establishing good relations with the Indians of the St. Law- rence, the Algonquin nation, and "preparations were made for a tour of exploration during the approaching summer," to the "lake of many fair islands" which the Algonquins had described to Champlain. Beyond the lake was the home of the Iroquois nations, the inveterate foes of the Algonquin and Huron nations. The latter proposed an expedition against the Iroquois Confederacy; and Champlain favored the pro- posal, maybe to see what effect a gun would have on the aborigines. So in June, 1609, he set out from Quebec accom- panied by some Frenchmen, and sixty or more Indians, in twenty-four canoes. Champlain, with two compatriots, and the friendly Indians, eventually skimmed into "the Sea of the Iroquois," the lake now known by his name. On July 29, 1609, he gave battle to and defeated the Iroquois bands, spread- ing consternation by the use of his arquebuse.6 It was an unfortunate day for France. Champlain, by some accounts, sought to be an evangelizing pioneer, to Christianize the Indians, but this affray showed him to be a warrior. Orgies
trated through the St. Lawrence as far as the great inland seas."-Hon. Rodolphe Lemieux, in "The Champlain Tercentenary, State of New York" (1909), p. 269.
5. During the fall there were twenty-eight men in the colony, but in the early winter disease made its appearance, which worked fearful havoc among them, and twenty of them were carried to their graves."-Ibidem, p 358, address by Hy. W. Hill.
6. "I looked at them and they looked at me. When I saw them getting ready to shoot their arrows at us, I levelled my arquebus, which I had loaded with four balls, and aimed straight at one of the three chiefs. The shot brought down two and wounded another. On this our Indians set up such a yelling that one could not have heard a thunder-clap, and all the while arrows flew thick on both sides. The Iroquois were greatly aston- ished and frightened to see two of their men killed so quickly, in spite of the arrow-proof armor. As I was reloading, one of my companions fired a shot from the woods, which so increased their astonishment that, seeing their chiefs dead, they abandoned the field, and fled into the depths of the forest." -- Champlain's "Voyages and Discoveries," translated.
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of torture which his savage allies inflicted upon the wounded captives on that day were probably no worse than victorious Indians had been wont to practice upon the vanquished in earlier years; and Champlain implored his allies to be more merciful; but from that day the Iroquois nations linked the French with their natural enemies, the savage Algonquins, and to the end were their implacable foe, defeating all subse- quent attempts of the French, over a century and a half, to penetrate far into New York State.7
Champlain did not follow up his victory. He seemed con- tent that it should have proved the supremacy of the gun over the arrow. Had he entrenched himself in the Lake Champlain region and planned a permanent settlement; had he even formally taken possession of the territory in the name of his king, Henry IV of France, instead of going quietly back to Quebec, the history of New York State might have been very materially changed.8 Still, France had already laid claim to
7. It followed that Champlain's adventure in the summer of 1609 had a two-fold inspiration. Beyond question he was eager to explore, to find new lands and waters for his king . . . ; but when in early July he came up the Richelieu and into the lake which bears his name, it was less as an avowed explorer than as a warrior armed with a gun-a device for killing heretofore unheard of in that wilderness. It was not at all as a trader or a missionary that he, first of all white men, made his way through the lake; but as the friend and ally of his savage Algonquin escort, who rejoiced at the chance to guide him, with his death-dealing weapon, against their ancient and unsuspecting Iroquois enemy. When the rival bands met, a shot or two put to flight those of the enemy who were not killed; and the white warrior retraced his way to the St. Law- rence. Although history must accord to Champlain priority as an explorer of the region, it won no new territory for his king, nor was there any wholesome extension of awe or respect for the power of French arms. On the contrary, the affair of the first killing by gunshot in what is New York State gained for the French the enmity of the Iroquois federation, which for well nigh a century and a half was to be, to the rulers of New France, a source of vexation, of cost in money and blood, ending only with the conquest of Canada by the British."-Frank H. Severance in "The Champlain Tercentenary," Part I, pp. 385-86.
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