History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century Vol. II, Part 9

Author: Van Rensselaer, Schuyler, Mrs., 1851-1934. 1n
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan Company
Number of Pages: 670


USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century Vol. II > Part 9


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REFERENCE NOTES


PRINCIPAL PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS: Col. Docs., II, III, IX, XII, XIII, XIV (398) ; Records of New Amsterdam, V, VI (360) ; Re- port of State Historian, 1896, Appendix G (454) ; Cal. of Council Minutes (142) ; Cal. Hist. MSS., English (390); Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668 and 1669-1674 (485).


GENERAL AUTHORITIES: Brodhead, Hist. of New York, II (405) ; Stevens, The English in New York (419); histories of Long Island; Blok, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk, V (348) ; Lefèvre-Pontalis, John De Witt (525) ; Lister, Life of Lord Claren- don (100).


CLARENDON TO NICOLLS: in Col. Docs., III. QUARTERING SOLDIERS : Records of New Amsterdam, V.


ROYAL COMMISSIONERS AND NEW ENGLAND : Col. Docs., III; Hutchin- son, Original Papers (311) ; Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668; Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, III (116) ; Doyle, The Puritan Colonies (113); histories of New England. ESOPUS: Col. Docs., III, XIII; Report of State Historian, 1896, Ap- pendix G; Schoonmaker, Hist. of Kingston (260).


LONG ISLAND TROUBLES : Col. Docs., XIV; O'Callaghan, Origin of Legislative Assemblies in New York (60) ; Waller, Flushing (295), and other histories of Long Island. - NICOLLS TO UNDERHILL: in Col. Docs., XIV.


LANDS : Col. Docs., XIV; Report of State Historian, 1896, Appendix G; Pirsson, Dutch Grants (207); Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, II. - PELL TO WINTHROP: in Win- throp Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 5th Series, I. - HAR- LEM: see Reference Notes, Chaps. XIII, XVI.


FRENCH INVASIONS : Col. Docs., III, IX; Papers Relating to De Cour- celles's and De Tracy's Expeditions in Doc. Hist., I (397) : Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668; Colden, The Five Indian Nations (188) ; Parkman, The Old Regime in Canada (191). - NICOLLS TO NEW ENGLAND: in Hutchinson, Original Papers. - WINTHROP TO NICOLLS : in Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 5th Series, VIII. - NICOLLS TO BERKELEY : in Cal. S. P. Col., 1661- 1668.


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REFERENCE NOTES


VAN CORLAER : Col. Docs., III, and see Reference Notes, Chap. V. - COLDEN (quoted) : his Five Indian Nations.


TALON TO COLBERT: in Col. Docs., IX.


DUTCH AND ENGLISH IN WEST INDIES : Sir Charles Wheeler to Council


for Foreign Plantations in Cal. S. P. Col., 1669-1674. - CHILD (quoted) : his New Discourse of Trade (500).


VAN RUYVEN TO STUYVESANT: in Col. Docs., II.


PETITION OF SEVENTY SHIP-OWNERS : ibid.


LAMBRECHTSEN (quoted) : his Korte Beschrijving van . .. Nieuw Nederland (424).


PEPYS (quoted) : his Diary (157).


STUYVESANT AND WEST INDIA COMPANY : Col. Docs., II.


STUYVESANT AND FREE TRADE : Col. Docs., III; Cal. S. P. Col., 1661- 1668; Memorials of Governor Stuyvesant (492).


NICOLLS'S DEPARTURE: WINTHROP (cited) : in Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 5th Series, VIII. - MAVERICK (quoted) : in Col. Docs., III. - HUTCHINSON (quoted) : his Hist. of Massachusetts-Bay, I (313).


LOVELACE: Delavan, Colonel Francis Lovelace and . . . Staten Island (302) ; Notes to W. C. Hazlitt's ed. of Lucasta: The Poems of Richard Lovelace, London, 1864; G. H. Moore, Historical Notes on the Introduction of Printing into New York, New York, 1888, and quoted as Col. Francis Lovelace in Mag. of Amer. Hist., XXI (303). - MAVERICK (cited) : in Clarendon Papers. - LOVELACE'S CORRESPONDENCE : chiefly in Col. Docs., III, XII, XIII, XIV.


COUNCIL MINUTES : in Calendar of Council Minutes.


SELECT COUNCIL FOR TRADE: Andrews, British Committees, Commis- sions, etc. (77).


COUNCIL FOR TRADE AND SHIPS, and PETITION OF SEVENTEEN NEW YORKERS : Col. Docs., III; Valentine's Manual, 1857 (508) ; Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668 and 1669-1674. - MAVERICK TO WINTHROP : in Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4th Series, VII. SHIP SUSANNA: Upcott Collection of Newspaper Clippings in library of New York Historical Society.


MAVERICK TO NICOLLS: in Col. Docs., III.


PRESENTATION OF SEAL ETC .: Records of New Amsterdam, VI.


CITY MAGISTRATES TO DUKE OF YORK: in Col. Docs., III, and in Free Trade with Holland in Valentine's Manual, 1850.


MERCHANTS' EXCHANGE: Historical Magazine, 1866 (213) [with docu- ments].


WAMPUM CURRENCY : Col. Docs., XIV; and see Reference Notes, Chap. II.


PAULUS RICHARDS : Historical Magazine, 1863.


KIP HOUSE: Valentine's Manual, 1852.


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MILITIA : Records of New Amsterdam, VI.


HARLEM ROAD and POSTAL SERVICE : Records of New Amsterdam, VI; Valentine's Manual, 1857; histories of Harlem; Wilson, New York Old and New (413). - LOVELACE TO WINTHROP: in Win- throp Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 3d Series, X, and in Trumbull Papers, ibid., 5th Series, IX.


CHURCH AFFAIRS: Ecc. Records, I (167); Col. Docs., XIV; G. H. Moore, Work and Materials for American History [includes docu- ments] in Historical Magazine, 1867; George Fox, Journal (255). WITCHCRAFT TRIALS: Doc. Hist., IV; Valentine's Manual, 1853; N. Y. Hist. Soc. Collections, 1869 (214) ; Notes to Smith, Hist. of New York, ed. of 1814 (420).


JOHN CLARKE'S LETTER: New York in 1672-1673 in Historical Maga- zine, 1860.


TRIAL OF ANGLE HENDRICKS: Report of State Historian, 1896, Ap- pendix G; Records of New Amsterdam, VI; Cal. Hist. MSS., English.


SOLDIERS' TRIAL: Gleanings from the Surrogate's Office in Pasko, Old New York, I (412).


LOVELACE TO WINTHROP : in Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 3d Series, X.


DECLARATION OF JONAS WOOD: in Report of State Historian, 1897, Appendix L.


'INTERMENT OF MR. WILLIAM LOVELACE': S. M. Kingsbury in Amer. Historical Review, IX (52) [the document given in full].


LIST OF HOUSEHOLDERS, 1665: in Records of New Amsterdam, V, in Mem. Hist., I (408), and in Capture of the City of New Amster- dam (358).


STATEN ISLAND : Cornelis Melyn Papers, MSS., in library of the New York Historical Society; Col. Docs., XIII; Staten Island and the New Jersey Boundary in Historical Magazine, 1866; Clute, Hist. of Staten Island (496 a) ; Delavan, Colonel Francis Lovelace. - DEED TO INDIANS in Historical Magazine, 1866.


BEDLOE'S ISLAND : Col. Docs., XIV.


LOVELACE TO THE GOVERNOR OF BERMUDA : Col. Docs., XIII.


MAVERICK TO BOND AND TO WINTHROP: in Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4th Series, VII.


RICHARD MORRIS: Spooner, The Morris Family of Morrisania in Amer. Historical Magazine, 1906 (50); Schuyler, Colonial New York (395); histories of Westchester County.


CAROLINA : Col. Docs., XIV; Cal. S. P. Col., 1669-1674; McCrady, Hist. of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, New York, 1897.


DENTON (quoted) : his Brief Description of New York (389).


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REFERENCE NOTES


NICOLLS TO VAN RENSSELAER: in Col. Docs., III.


MANORS : De Lancey, Manors in New York (306) ; Howard, Local Constitutional History of the United States (130); Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, II; Cheyney, Manor of East Greenwich (307); J. Johnson, Old Maryland Manors, Baltimore, 1883 (Johns Hopkins University Studies). - GARDINER'S ISLAND: see Reference Notes, Chap. V. - SHELTER ISLAND: Lamb, The Manor of Shelter Island in Mag. of Amer. Hist., XVIII. - PELHAM, and FORDHAM: histories of West- chester County and of Harlem; Hague, Old Pelham and New Rochelle in Mag. of Amer. Hist., VIII. - FISHER'S ISLAND PATENT : in Thompson, Hist. of Long Island, I (291).


LONG ISLAND: Col. Docs., XIV ; Cal. S. P. Col., 1669-1674; Thomp- son, and other histories of Long Island.


LOVELACE AND THE DELAWARE REGION : Col. Docs., XII.


MASSACHUSETTS AND THE HUDSON RIVER: Col. Docs., XIV; Report of State Historian, 1896, Appendix G.


LOVELACE AND NEW JERSEY : Col. Docs., XIII.


CHAPTER XVIII


NEW ORANGE


1672-1674


(GOVERNOR LOVELACE, GOVERNOR COLVE)


This day, 10th August, New Style, have the Holland and Zealand fleets captured the Fort at New York in the name of their High Mighti- nesses the Lords States General of the United Netherlands and his Highness the Lord Prince of Orange, and the Fort is renamed Willem Hendrick and the City obtained the name New Orange.


1674, the 10th November, New, or 31st October, Old Style, was the Fort Willem Hendrick again to the English governor yielded up . . . ; the Fort again named Fort James, and the City, New York. - Proclamations of Hendrick Vandervin, Secretary of the Town of New Harlem.


IF Peter Stuyvesant had lived only a little longer he would have seen the flag of Patria floating again over the fort that he had been so loth to surrender. Spending his latter years as a peaceful, honored subject of King Charles, inactive in political but' very active in church affairs, he died at his bouwerie house in February, 1672, aged eighty years, and was buried in a vault that he had prepared for himself under- neath his chapel. His widow, dying in 1687, left the chapel to the Dutch church. According to the terms of the be- quest the vault was preserved although the chapel was allowed to fall into ruin. The Episcopal church, St. Marks- in-the-Bowery, which was erected upon the site in 1799, has been altered more than once but never rebuilt; and here, in


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the oldest piece of consecrated ground in the city where a church still stands, General Stuyvesant still sleeps, and from time to time his descendants are laid beside him. Domine Selyns, in Holland, wrote a laudatory epitaph in rhyme upon his old associate and friend.


Stuyvesant's elder son, Balthazar, removed to the West Indies and died young leaving no male children. The second son, Nicholas William, married as his second wife Elizabeth Slectenhorst; and from their son Gerardus, whose wife was his kinswoman Judith Bayard, are descended the Stuyve- sants of to-day. In 1785 Judith Stuyvesant, a great-great- granddaughter of the governor of New Netherland, married Benjamin Winthrop, a great-great-great-grandson of the gov- ernor of Massachusetts Bay.


It is easy to understand why Peter Stuyvesant is more distinctly remembered in New York than any other figure of pre-Revolutionary times. The chief actor in so important and so dramatic a scene as the transfer of the province into English hands, naturally he impressed the popular imagina- tion. His vivid personality individualized the picture, and so did the wooden leg with which, says tradition, he beat tattoos on the floor to emphasize his passionate outbursts. His bouwerie house stood until the Revolutionary War had begun, burning in 1778; a pear tree that he planted on the farm after his return from Holland in 1667 lived, at the north- east corner of Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street, until the Civil War had ended, perishing in 1867; and part of the farm is still a green and open space called Stuyvesant Square. Moreover, while the people of New York have cared little for the details of its early history they have always been proud of its Dutch origin and their own Dutch blood; and so, for- getting the faults of the most conspicuous of its Dutch rulers, recalling only his energy, his patriotism, and his misfortunes, they have remembered and loved him as the type of their forefathers, the symbol of the Republic that planted their city. Until quite recent years the children of New York believed, as firmly as they still believe in the visits of the


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Dutch St. Nicholas on Christmas Eve, that on each New Year's Eve - Stedman's poem called The Dutch Patrol tells the story - old Peter rises from his grave and stumps about Manhattan on his wooden leg to note the changes that the twelvemonth has brought about.


Within one month of General Stuyvesant's death his father- land was involved in war again, this time on land as well as on the sea.


Although the conclusion of the Treaty of Breda in 1667 had been a triumph for De Witt, the varying phases of the war had raised internal political dissensions to the boiling point. Nor were they cooled when De Witt thought he had per- manently destroyed the power of the Orangist party, induc- ing the province of Holland to abolish forever the office of stadholder and the Republic to decree that no captain- general or admiral-general of its forces could be a stadholder in any province. Moreover, a rupture was imminent between the Republic and its unwilling ally France. A ruthless tariff war had exasperated both nations, and Holland's opposition to Louis' designs upon the Spanish provinces had made him its bitter enemy. What he intended now was to ruin the Republic and thus make himself master of the lower Rhine as well as of the Scheldt. To balk his ever-growing am- bitions, early in 1668 De Witt and Sir William Temple, who acted as a special agent of the English government, effected a defensive pact, called the Triple Alliance, between the three great Protestant powers - Holland, England, and Sweden; and, as Hume expresses it, 'all Europe seemed to repose her- self with security under the wings of that powerful con- federacy.' But Charles was ready to betray the Alliance when he entered into it, for the mainspring of his policy had come to be the desire to free himself from the control of his parliament by getting pecuniary support elsewhere, and this support he could hope to get only from the king of France. Their secret negotiations continued, and in 1670, secretly still, by an agreement remembered as the Treaty of Dover,


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Louis promised Charles great sums of money to reestablish Catholicism in England and Charles promised to aid Louis in his designs upon Holland and Spain. In 1671 a more open treaty which said nothing of religious changes bound the two kings to dismember the Republic for their own benefit, re- serving the province of Holland for the Prince of Orange if he would join with them. De Witt did all that was possible to avoid the war that threatened except to understand the character of Charles and to penetrate the wiles of Louis. Charles, declaring that he needed to defend his country against both Holland and France, filled one pocket with money that he thus obtained from parliament, the other with the ducats of Louis XIV, and cheated his people in still another way, seizing the funds that had been lent to the nation by the infamous act known as the 'Stop of the Ex- chequer.' Then, in March, 1672, for the second time Eng- land struck a blow at the Dutch before war had confessedly begun, and for the second time by the hand of Robert Holmes attacking the homeward-bound Smyrna fleet. Four days later England declared war. There had been no provocation, John Evelyn wrote, 'but that the Dutch excel us in industry and all things save envy.' In Temple's opinion the two nations had this time come to blows 'without being angry' and on both sides the quarrel was thought 'rather of the ministries than the people.' Early in April Louis also de- clared war against the United Provinces.


In the first great battle, a sea-fight in Solebay (or South- wold Bay) off the coast of Suffolk, perished Colonel Richard Nicolls, struck down by a cannon-ball on the deck of the flagship where he stood beside the Duke of York. When Lovelace heard the news he wrote to the inhabitants of the distant dependency of Pemaquid that Nicolls had expected to complete in England the arrangements for the government of their district but had 'most sadly (yet as bravely) laid down his life at his master's feet.' . In his will Nicolls had directed that he be buried in the church of Ampthill in Bed- fordshire, which seems to have been his birthplace, under a


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marble monument bearing the names of his parents and such mention of his own services in America and elsewhere as might seem good to his executors, charging these further- more to be 'earnest solicitors' with the Duke of York for the moneys that the duke owed him. The monument was duly erected in the chancel of the church and still stands intact. In the upper part of it is set the fatal cannon-ball with the explanatory inscription: Instrumentum mortis et immortalitatis. Below, a pompous epitaph reviews at length, in very bad Latin, the colonel's career and says that in North America he had expulsed the Dutch from 'Long Island and other islands' and restored these places to their 'true lord.'


Maintaining themselves at sea against the forces of Eng- land and France the Dutch were quickly overpowered on land. The armies of France overran the three southwestern provinces and threatened Amsterdam itself; and late in June Louis XIV set up his court in Utrecht. The people turned against De Witt who had lost courage and had tried to treat with the invaders. In the young Prince of Orange they saw their only hope. He had refused to exalt himself by betraying the Republic. Now his partisans gained the upper hand. In spite of all antecedent edicts to the con- trary, he was intrusted with the supreme command by land and sea and soon proclaimed as stadholderin the provinces of Holland and Zealand. Everywhere in the Netherlands rang out the old cry Oranje boven! (Orange above !) with a novel supplement, De Witten onder! (The Whites below !) - a play upon the meaning of the name De Witt. John De Witt was thrown into jail and in August was dragged out by an Orangist mob and torn to pieces in the street, his brother Cornelis sharing his fate.


Led by Prince William, then only twenty years of age, the people showed again the spirit of their ancestors. Opening the sluice-gates of their dikes they flooded the lowlands, thus saving their cities; and by August, 1673, their navy, driving off the blockading fleets of England and France, had cleared their ports for the resumption of trade. It


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was just at this time that New Netherland was recovered for Holland.


On May 26 the declaration of war against Holland was published at Boston, the first proclamation of the sort that had been heard there. In New York the news was known by June when Lovelace wrote to Governor Winthrop that all the New York vessels in Dutch ports, four in number and one of them his own large ship the Good Fame, had been put under arrest although not yet confiscated. On the 27th of the month he ordered that, in accordance with the king's proclamation and on account of the war, ships should leave New York only in company, naming the selected dates. Not until July 6 was the proclamation of war published in front of the State House and at the gate of the fort. Then Love- lace also announced that he had increased the number of his councillors. For six months thereafter there was no alarm, but on January 22, 1673, when the official postman started on his first trip from New York to Boston, Lovelace wrote Winthrop that if it were true as reported from Vir- ginia that the Dutch had sent 'forty sail well fitted' to the West Indies, 'it will be high time for us to begin to buckle on our armor.' He and his advisers, wrote John Clarke from the secretary's office to Albany on the 28th, were still forced to 'grope' in a 'dark corner' for, although seven or eight ships had come from England to Boston during the past year and fifty or sixty to Virginia, 'never a one hither.' In March Lovelace was called back from Westchester because of a rumor that a hostile squadron was coming. It was only 'one of Manning's 'larrums,' he said, referring to Captain John Manning whom he always left in command of Fort James when he was away. To Thomas Delavall, then at Albany, he wrote that a person whom Delavall had sent down to Manhattan had made 'so fearful a narrative of the approach of the French' as though the sword were already at the throats of the Albany people; together with Manning's haste in recalling the governor this report had created such a


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panic among 'credulous women' that Lovelace believed only his presence restrained them from fleeing to distant parts. Unafraid himself of the French or the Dutch he did, indeed, summon the soldiers from the North River as well as from the Delaware posts to New York but soon dispersed them again, keeping only three score in the fort.


It was the Dutch province of Zealand that gave birth to the greatest sea-fighting family in history, the Evertsen family of which it is written that during the wars of the seventeenth century fourteen members were killed in battle. Chief among these were the brothers Cornelis and John, famous admirals both of whom lost their lives in the great battles of 1666. In 1672 the admiralty of the province of Zealand confided a squadron of four men-of-war to the eldest living son of Cornelis, always called by Dutch writers Cornelis Evertsen the Younger, who was then barely thirty years of age. Besides their usual companies these ships carried a hundred and fifty mariniers (fighting sailors or marines) under command of Captain Anthony Colve, a mili- tary man who had formerly been in the naval service and was therefore considered especially competent to lead a force of seamen on shore. A manuscript copy, now in the New York Public Library, of the 'Second Secret Instructions' given for the conduct of this squadron in accordance with a secret resolution passed by the States of Zealand says, under date of October 12, 1672, that the thoughts of the States were directed to the island of Bermuda in case the design against the island of St. Helena, set forth in a preceding resolution, should not be brought to success. This island of Bermuda should be attacked and plundered, or thoroughly subjected if deemed possible and desirable; and furthermore the squadron should proceed


. . . before and along the coasts of the Virginias [and] New Nether- land, not forgetting Newfoundland, in order thereupon to capture and ruin everything there that shall be possible and at the very least -


حديد


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the design against the Island of St. Helena contrary to probability not succeeding - by that means to get so much booty that the cost of this expedition may be fully defrayed therewith.


Sailing from Flushing on December 15 Evertsen touched at Surinam and on May 30, 1673, made Martinique. Here he met four ships of war belonging to the admiralty of Am- sterdam and under command of Jacob Binckes, an officer of Frisian origin who had taken part in the previous war with England and in the famous raid into the Thames. He wrote his name Benckes; it was also written Binks, Bincques, and by the English Bunker; but Binckes is the form always em- ployed by modern writers. Together Evertsen and Binckes successfully assaulted the English island of St. Eustatius and destroyed its fortifications. A force to garrison it they could not spare. Following then Evertsen's instructions to cruise up along the mainland coast, in July they appeared in the James River where, after a fight lasting four hours, they took or burned a number of vessels belonging to a tobacco fleet which was preparing to sail under convoy of an English man-of-war. Passing out of the river they cap- tured a sloop from New York carrying passengers among whom were James Carteret, who had been ordered by the proprietors to leave New Jersey, and his bride, a daughter of Thomas Delavall. These were set ashore in Virginia. Another passenger, Nathan Gould of Connecticut, who re- mained a prisoner, afterwards made a deposition in regard to what he saw. The skipper of the sloop, it says, when offered his freedom and his vessel if he would give true in- formation about New York, declared that the city was pro- tected by a hundred and fifty good guns and that within three hours the governor could raise five thousand men. If that was so, said the Dutchmen, the skipper might have his sloop and they would never see New York. But a certain Mr. Hopkins contradicted him, saying that there might be be- tween sixty and eighty men in the fort, that within three or four days the governor might raise three or four hundred more,


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and that there were less than forty pieces of ordnance which a shot or two would shake 'out of their carriages.' So the Dutch fleet hopefully set sail for Manhattan.


Governor Lovelace was not there. A letter written from Hartford on July 29 by John Allyn the secretary of Con- necticut to Fitz-John Winthrop at New London says that Governor Lovelace had come with Secretary Nicolls and three servants to visit Governor Winthrop. He was intent, it seems, upon business connected with his new postal route. On the day that Allyn's letter was written the Dutch ships entered the harbor of New York. On the 30th the city sur- rendered. Lovelace was already on the way home for on the 31st he wrote to Winthrop:


At New Haven I received an unwelcome news of the Dutch ap- proach before New York ... yesterday about five or six of the clock they stormed it, a hot dispute it seems to have been, how the success was I cannot yet learn. They, I understand, have breakfasted on all my sheep and cattle on Staten Island. I am hastening as fast as I can to make on. God spare me to get in and I doubt not to give a good account of it. . . . I am yet out of their power and am hasten- ing now over to Long Island to raise the militia there. . .. God Almighty preserve you and send us a happy meeting, if not here then hereafter, which is much better.




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