History of the state of New York Vol I, Part 4

Author: Brodhead, John Romeyn, 1814-1873. 4n
Publication date: 1871
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Number of Pages: 844

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* Sir John Popham died on the 10th of June, 1607. He was a "huge, heavy, ugly man," and in his younger days had actually been a highwayman. In 1592 he was mado Chief Justice of England, and in 1603 presided at the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, whom he sentenced to death. Lord Campbell, in his biography of Popham, entirely omits any reference to his early zeal in the cause of American discovery and colonization, which- as much as any other incident in his life-gives lustre to his fame .- Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, i., 226.

NEW VIRGINIA CHARTER OF 1609.

new-arrived ship, and in the new pinnace, the Virginia, CHAP. I. and sct sail for England." Thus ended the Northern En- glish colony upon the Sagadahoc.' On the return of the 1608. faultcring cmigrants to England, their disappointed prin-

Failure of the colony. cipals, vexed with their pusillanimity, desisted for " a long time after" from any further attempts at American colo- 1608 nization ; though a few vessels were still annually employ- 1614. to ed in the prosperous fisheries, and in trafficking with the Indians on the coast of Maine .*

- The year after the failure of the Plymouth Company's Second Vir- ginia chart- colony at the Kennebeck, the London Company obtained er.

1609.

a more ample charter from the king, by which the affairs 23 May. of Virginia were placed upon a much better footing. The new grant essentially modificd the first charter of 1606. " The treasurer and company of adventurers and planters of the city of London for the first colony in Virginia" were made a corporate body, to which the political powers, be- fore reserved to the king, were now transferred. An abso- lute title was also vested in the company to all the terri- tory extending two hundred miles north from Point Com- fort, and the same distance to the south, and stretching from the Atlantic westward to the South Sea.t Thus, while the limits of Virginia were expanded westwardly, across the continent, to the Pacific, they were curtailed one degree of latitude on the north. Their first charter of 1606 gave the Virginia Company the right to plant colo- nics as far north as the forty-first degree. The second charter of 1609 fixed their northern boundary at two hund- red miles north of Point Comfort, or about the fortieth par- allel of latitude. The Plymouth Company continued to enjoy a nominal existence for eleven years longer, under their first charter ; but, though Smith and Gorges several times during that period endeavored to form now settle- ments, not a single English colony was permanently plant- ed north of Virginia, until 1620.

Meanwhile, France had continued to look across the At-

* Strachey, 179, 180 ; Purchas, iv., 1828 ; Gorges, N. E., 19; Mass. Hist. Coll., xix., 4 ; Hubbard, 35-40. t Stith's Virg., App. ii. ; Chalmers, 25; Hazard, i., 58-72.

French en- terprises.

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

CHAP. I. lantic. Nearly eighty years after Verazzano had reported to Francis I. the deep river he had found opening into " a most beautiful lake,"* within the headlands forming the "Narrows," in New York harbor, and nearly seventy years after Cartier had first ascended the Saint Lawrence, a com- 1602. pany of merchants was organized at Rouen, to develop the resources of Canada. An expedition was soon fitted out, under the command of the Sieur du Pont Grave, a wealthy merchant of Saint Malo, who had already made several voyages to Tadoussac, at the mouth of the deep and gloomy Saguenay. By command of the king, Pont Gravé was accompanied by Samuel de Champlain, of Saint Onge, a captain in the French navy, who had just before return- 1603. ed from the West Indies. Early in 1603, Pont Grave and Champlain reached Tadoussac, where leaving their ships to trade with the natives for peltries, they pushed boldly up the Saint Lawrence in a small skiff with five sailors, following the track of Cartier as far as the Sault de Saint Louis at Montreal.t On their return to France, they found that Henry IV. had granted to the Huguenot Sieur de Monts, one of his gentlemen of the bedchamber, who had rendered him great services during the wars, a patent for planting a permanent colony in America, between the for- tieth and the forty-sixth degrees of north latitude.# The king soon after granted to De Monts and his associates a monopoly of the fur trade in Acadia and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.§

Pont Grave and Cham- plain in Canada.

8 Novemb.

De Monts' patent from Henry IV.

1604. 7 March.

Poutrin- court's set- tlement at Port Royal.

In the spring of the next year, a new expedition was accordingly organized and dispatched from Dieppe. Pi- loted by Champlain, and accompanied by the Sieur de Poutrincourt, De Monts safely reached the shores of Aca- dia. The beautiful harbor of Port Royal, now Annapolis, pleasing the taste of Poutrincourt, he obtained permission to establish himself there. De Monts, however, by Cham- plain's advice, selecting for his own colony the island of Saint Croix, in the river which now divides Maine from

De Monts' colony at Saint Croix.

* " Bellissimo Lago ;" see Verazzano's Letter, in N. Y. H. S. Coll., i. (second series), p. 60, quoted, ante, p. 2.

t Voyages de Champlain, p. 40 (edit. 1632).

# Champlain, 42 ; Hazard, i., 45. 6 Lescarbot, i .; Chalmers, 82.

CHAMPLAIN IN CANADA.

New Brunswick, built a fort, and passed the winter there; CHAP. I. and thus, "at a time when there existed no English sub- jects in America, the first permanent settlement was made 1604. in Canada during the year 1604."*

French ex-

Maine and Massachu- setts.

But the situation of Saint Croix proving inconvenient, 1605. De Monts, the next spring, transferred his diminished col- ony to Port Royal ; and, sailing along the coasts of Maine plore the coasts of and Massachusetts, contemporaneously with Weymouth, he claimed for France the sovereignty of the country as far as Cape Malebarre. The following autumn he return- September ed to Europe, leaving his colony in charge of Pont Grave, as his lieutenant, who, with Champlain and Champdore, received instructions to explore the adjacent territory more accurately, and trade among the hostile savages.t On his arrival in France, De Monts entered into a new engage- ment with Poutrincourt, who, accompanied by Marc Les- carbot the historian,# returned to Port Royal with welcome 1606. supplies, just as the dispirited colonists were about embark- ing for home. The French cabins remained at Acadia ; and under judicious management the colony prospered, until it was surprised and broken up by Samuel Argall with a Virginian force, in 1613. Meanwhile, Henry IV., urged by the complaints of the French traders and fisher- men, who were deprived of their accustomed privileges on the coast, revoked the monopoly which he had conferred Revoca- on De Monts, to whom, however, he granted a small in- De Monts' tion of demnity for his loss. But the king soon afterward ratified 1607. patent. and confirmed, by his letters patent, the quiet possession of Port Royal to Poutrincourt.§

After four years absence, Champlain returned to Champlain France, filled with the ambition of founding a French col- Canada.

again in ony upon the River Saint Lawrence. Moved by Cham- plain's earnest representations, De Monts succeeded in ob- 1608. taining from the king a new commission to plant a settle- 1

* Chalmers, 82; Champlain, 60. t Champlain, 66-93 ; Lescarbot.

# Lescarbot, who published, in 1609, his " Histoire de la Nouvelle France," is described by Charlevoix (i., p. 119) as " un avocat de Paris, un auteur exact, et judicieux, un homme qui eût été aussi capable d'établir une colonie, que d'en écrire l'histoire."

§ Champlain, 99.

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

1608. 13 April.

Quebec founded. 3 July.

CHAP. I. ment in Canada, and a monopoly of the fur trade for one year .* Two ships were promptly equipped at Honfleur, and dispatched, under the command of Champlain, to the Saint Lawrence. On the 3d of June, the expedition an- chored at Tadoussac. After a short delay, Champlain as- cended the great river, examining, as he went along, the shores on both sides, for the most appropriate spot on which to establish the future capital of New France. Finding none " more commodious or better situated than the point of Quebec, so called by the savages," the rude founda- tions of a town were laid, near the spot where Cartier had passed the winter about three quarters of a century be- fore.t For five dreary months the secluded colonists en- dured the inhospitable climate, and saw the face of nature all around continually covered with a deep snow. A bright spring again opened the streams ; and in the following summer, Champlain, accompanied by two of his country- men, boldly ascending the River Richelieu or Saurel with a war-party of Hurons and Algonquins on an expedition 1609. against the Iroquois, gave victory to his allies by his Eu- ropean fire-arms, and discovered the beautiful lake on our northeastern frontier, which will ever commemorate his illustrious name.#

30 July. Discovery of Lake Champlain.

The Dutch become competitors with the English and French.

While England and France were thus quietly appropri- ating, by royal charters, nearly all the northern territory of the New World, a fresh competitor in American discov-

* Champlain, 114.

t Ibid., 118-124.

# Champlain (edit. Paris, 1632), page 149, states that on the night of July 29, 1609, his party, while passing up the lake in their canoes, discovered their Iroquois enemies, "at the point of a cape which runs out into the lake from the west side." The enemy barri- caded themselves with trees on this cape; and the next morning, Champlain, advancing at the head of the invaders, killed two of the Iroquois chiefs with a discharge of his arque- buse, and put their frightened followers to flight. He adds (p. 152), that " the place where this attack was made is in forty-three degrees and some minutes of latitude, and I named it the Lake of Champlain." On the map which accompanies his work, Champlain marks the place." where the Iroquois were defeated," as a promontory a little to the northeast of "a small lake by which one goes to the Iroquois, after having passed that of Champlain." These particulars seem to identify Ticonderoga, in Essex county, as the spot where the first encounter took place, between the white man and the red man, on the soil of New York. Champlain distinctly states that he " afterward" saw the " waterfall" or outlet of " another lake, which is three or four leagues long." This lake, now known as Lake George, was first named " Saint Sacrement," by the Jesuit Father Jogues, in 1646. Trans- lated extracts of Champlain's work have just been published in iii. Doc. Hist. N. Y., 1-9. See also Yates and Moulton's History of New York, i., 177-181.

THE DUTCH REPUBLIC.

ery suddenly appeared, to divide with them the magnifi- CHAP. I. cent prize. The red flag of England waved over Virginia, and the white banner of France floated over Canada, as the 1609. tricolor of a new nation was first unexpectedly displayed in the unknown intermediate region .*

A generation of men had lived to see a powerful repub- 1579. lic result from the confederation at Utrecht of the North- vinces of the Neth-

The United ern Provinces of the Netherlands against the bigotry and erlands. despotism of Spain. These provinces, whose whole popu- lation scarcely exceeded two millions of souls, animated by a spirit which Sir Philip Sydney said to Queen Eliz- abeth, "is the spirit of God, and is invincible," after a long and desperate conflict against a powerful adversary, finally triumphed over their vindictive oppressor, and com- 1609. pelled him to acknowledge their independence and sover- 9 April. eignty.

The " Union of Utrecht," originally a league which bound the provinces together for mutual defense and pro- tection, became the Constitution of a Confederated Repub- Their re- lic. This Constitution, though complex and not entirely Constitu- publican popular, was nevertheless a decided and memorable step tion. in human progress ; and it enabled the Dutch to establish and maintain a system of universal toleration, which, while contributing materially to the freedom of their own coun- try, made it an inviting asylum for the oppressed of other lands.t

Providence early indicated to that singular country her Maritime destiny. While foreign despotic power inflamed the pa- Holland. triotism of her people, and forced them to struggle for civ- il and religious freedom, the natural disadvantages of her geographical position stimulated their enterprise, and

destiny of

* The national ensign of the United Provinces was adopted about the year 1582, at the suggestion of William I., prince of Nassau and Orange. It was composed of the prince's colors, orange, white, and blue, arranged in three equal horizontal stripes. After the death of William II. (1650), a red stripe was substituted for the orange ; and the Dutch ensign, at the present day, remains what it was, as thus modified, two centuries ago .- J. C. de Jonge, "Over den Oorsprong der Nederlandsche Vlag," 1831, 26-68.

+ I shall invariably use the term " DUTCH," in its legitimate English sense, as referring exclusively to the inhabitants of the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands and their descendants. A blunder is frequently committed in applying the name "Dutch," instead of their proper denomination " Germans," to the people of Germany in general.

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

CHAP. I. taught them continual lessons of perseverance. A vast 1562. 2 morass, protruding into the sea, and formed by the accu- mulations which the Rhine continually brings down from the foot of the Alps, the Low Countries are only saved from the encroaching ocean by the ceaseless and irrepressible energy of their inhabitants. But the very ocean, which the untiring industry- of the Dutch drives back from their narrow shores, was destined to be their widest scene of triumph, and their open avenue to wealth. A few fisher- men's huts at the mouth of the Amstel, at a period when the cities of Flanders had attained celebrity, soon became the "Venice of the North ;" the sea, subdued by skillful toil, flowed quietly through her splendid canals, and brought treasures from the ends of the earth to the very doors of her cosmopolitan burghers ; and crowded streets, and rich warehouses, and stately palaces, and magnificent churches, usurped the ancient abode of the stork and the heron. Well might Fenelon describe the Tyre of his day as the " queen of all the seas."*

Energetic, undaunted, and persevering at home, the Dutch could not fail to push their enterprising commerce The way of into every zone. The very legend on their earliest coin- age predicted, in holy words borrowed from the Vulgate, the maritime destiny of that people, whose "way is in the sea," and whose "paths are in many waters."t Accus- tomed from childhood to play fearlessly with the waves, the natives of Holland and Zealand were foremost in ad- venture ; and the capital of the merchants of Amsterdam and Middleburg found abundant employment for the hardy crews which their own cities readily furnished. Even while its political existence was yet uncertain, the upstart republic " grasped the whole commerce of the world as its

* " Cette grande ville semble nager au-dessus des eaux, et être la reine de tout la mer. Les marchands y abordent de toutes les parties du monde, et ses habitants sont eux-mêmes les plus fameux marchands qu'il y ait dans l'univers. Quand on entre dans cette ville on croit d'abord que ce n'est point une ville qui appartienne à un peuple particulier, mais qu'elle est la ville commune de tous les peuples, et le centre de leur commerce."-Télé- maque, liv. iii.

+ In 1562, the mint of Zealand issued a penny, stamped with the effigy of a sceptered king riding a sea-horse over the waves, and surrounded by the words " In mari via tua, et semitæ tuæ in aquis multis." See Bizot's "Medalische Historie," 12; Van Loon, i., 58.

the Dutch "in the sea."

MARITIME ENTERPRISE OF THE DUTCH.

portion, and thus supplied itself with resources for a strug- >CHAP. I. gle which was longer and more desperate than that of Greece with Persia."* 1594.

While Charles V. was yet their sovereign, the Dutch ap- pear to have become familiar with part of the New World, Early voy- which the Pontiff had granted, as a perpetual donation, to ages. the kings of Spain. But the Revolution, which followed the accession of Philip II., interrupted for awhile the dis- tant voyages of the insurgent Batavians.t The same sum- mer that the United Provinces declared their independence of Spain, Thomas Buts, an English captain, who had five times visited the Spanish American islands, proposed to 1581. the states of Holland to conduct an expedition to the West 10 June. Indies. But though the projected adventure seems to have been viewed with favor, no results are recorded. "All the while, commerce flourished at home; and in spite of edicts, the Dutch maintained the command of the nearer seas. 1585. One thousand new vessels were annually built in Holland. From the Cape de Verd Islands to the White Sea, a profit- Home corn- able coasting trade was carried on ; out of the Vlie alone the Dutch. merce of sailed nearly six hundred ships, in one year, to bring corn 1587. from the Baltic. Before long, William Usselincx, a native of Antwerp, who had spent many years in Castile, Portu- gal, and the Azores, suggested the advantage of an associ- 1591. ation for trading to the West Indies. The views of Usse- lincx were listened to with respect, but his counsels were not immediately followed. Yet they were not without their effect. A few years afterward, Gerrit Bicker Peters- zoon, of Amsterdam, and Jan Corneliszoon Leyen, of Enck- Voyages to huysen, under the patronage of the States of Holland, Indies. the West organized separate companies for the West India trade. 1597. Their enterprise was the forerunner of eventual success.#

Meanwhile, the Dutch, sharing largely in the carrying trade of Europe, had sought distant regions for a more lu- crative traffic. In 1594, Cornelius Houtman, the son of a

* Heeren. t Sir John Carr on the Commerce of the Dutch.

# Van Meteren, xiii., 260, 261 ; xiv., 283, 324 ; xix., 419 ; Wagenaar, Amst., i., 407, 408, 416 ; Vad. Hist., ix., 152, 153 ; Davies's Holland, ii., 181, 182, 200, 201 ; Muilkerk (Berg Van Dussen), Bydragen tot de Geschiedenis onzer Kolonizatie in Noord Amerika, A., 2-7.

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

CHAP. I. brewer of Gouda, returning from Lisbon, where he had 1594. spent the previous year, brought back tempting accounts of the gorgeous products of the East, which he had seen crowding the quays of the Tagus. His glowing descrip- tions provoked emulation ; and nine merchants of Am- sterdam, forming an association, equipped a flotilla of four ships, equally fitted for war and for trade, of which Hout- First voy- ages to the East In- dies. man undertook the command. Following the track of the Portuguese, he doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and in two 1596. years returned to Amsterdam with rich cargoes of Eastern products .* And thus began the marvelous Indian com- merce of the Dutch. The edicts of Philip could not ex- clude the independent Netherlanders from the free navi- gation of the seas. Thenceforth they determined to vindi- cate, by force of arms, their right to participate freely in that commerce which despotic selfishness was vainly at- tempting to monopolize. The privateers of the Batavian Provinces were every where victorious ; and the ware- 1598. houses of their owners were soon filled with the choicest productions of the Indies, and ornamented with the ensigns of the conquered galleons of Spain. And while the cir- cuitous voyage round the Cape of Good Hope thus gave ample returns, mercantile enterprise sought shorter ave- nues to the East. Under the influence of the vigorous Balthazar Moucheron, of Middleburg, expeditions were dis- 1594. patched from Zealand and Holland to explore a more direct passage to China, and Cathay or Japan, by way of Nova Expedi- Zembla and the Polar Seas. Again, and a third time, un- Polar Seas. 1595-6. successful attempts were repeated ; and the daring enter- prise, in which Barentsen, Cornelissen, and Heemskerk en- dured almost unparalleled trials, and won a renown as last- îng as that of Willoughby or Davis, was at length aban- doned in despair.t

1600.

The wealth of the East, which soon began to pour into Holland, naturally produced competition among the partic- ipants in the open traffic. Influenced by the representa-

* Richesse de la Hollande, i., 35 ; Van Meteren, xxiii., 509.

t Van Meteren, xviii., 371, 376 ; xix., 404, 419 ; Lambrechtsen, 7, 8; Davies, ii., 290- 294, 328 ; Muilkerk, A., 18, 19.

Triumph of Dutch en- terprise in the East.

DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY.

tions of the merchants, who feared in an unrestrained rival- CHAP. I. ry a diminution of their individual profits, and looking also to the political advantages which the republic itself might 1600. gain in its conflict with Spain, the States General now re- solved that the various adventurers engaged in commerce with the East should be united in one corporate body. A charter was accordingly granted in the spring of 1602, by 1602. which those merchants were incorporated for a period of 20 March. twenty-one years, under the name of the "East India The Dutch

East India Company," with a capital of 6,600,000 of livres, the ex- Company. clusive privilege of trading in the Eastern Seas beyond the Cape of Good Hope on the one side and the Straits of Magellan on the other, and large powers for conquest, col- onization, and government within those limits .*

While this powerful commercial monopoly was covering 1607. the Eastern Ocean with its fleets, and returning to its share- holders, in a single year, three fourths of their invested cap- ital,t men's minds had been earnestly considering whether the Western World might not also offer a tempting field for Dutch mercantile enterprise. William Usselincx, who had already suggested an association to trade in the West A West In- Indies, was again among the most zealous to urge the im- ny pro- dia Compa- mediate establishment of a company in the Netherlands, posed. modeled after the one which had proved so successful in the East. He represented his project as an additional means of humbling their arrogant enemy on the very seas from which Philip was endeavoring to shut out the com- merce of the republic ; and besides the mercantile advant- ages which would result from securing the traffic with those affluent regions, he pressed the higher motive of the conversion of their heathen inhabitants to the Christian faith. The proposals which Usselincx circulated won gen- eral assent ; and, aided by the influence of Plancius, Lin- schoten, and other leading scholars and merchants of Hol- land and Zealand, an application was made to the States

* Van Meteren, xxiv., 512. Cape Horn was not known to Europeans at this period. Schouten, who named it after his native city, "Hoorn," in North Holland, first sailed round the Cape in 1616.

t In the year 1606, the East India Company divided 75 per cent. Moulton, 194.

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

1607. Its organi- zation post- poned.

CHAP. General for the incorporation of a "West India Company," to trade exclusively, for thirty-six years, to the coast of Africa, from the tropics to the Cape of Good Hope, and to America, from the Straits of Magellan to Newfoundland. But the Dutch government was now engaged in negotia- tions for a peace with Spain, which Grotius and Barne- veldt feared the proposed charter might prejudice ; and the truce, which was finally concluded in 1609, suspended for several years any definite action on the subject .*

Henry Hudson's voyages from Lon- don to the North.

Meanwhile, a shorter passage to China and Cathay, by way of the Northern Seas, continued to be a favorite the- ory in England, as well as in Holland and Denmark. A company of wealthy and energetic men in London, not dis- couraged by the ill-luck of all previous efforts, determined to attempt again, in 1607, the enterprise in which so many 1 others had failed. Contributing the necessary means for an expedition, they intrusted the command to a skillful and experienced mariner, Henry Hudson, a native of En- gland, and a friend of the famous Captain John Smith, who had just before sailed with the first colony for Virginia, and whom, in boldness, energy, and perseverance Hudson strongly resembled. But the expedition was unsuccess- 1608. ful, as was also a second voyage in the following year, and the London Company suspended further efforts.t

Not disheartened by his two failures, Hudson now re- 1609. solved to go to Holland, in the hope of meeting there encour- goes to Hol- agement to attempt again the venturesome enterprise he Hudson land. was so ambitious to achieve. He was not disappointed. His proposition to the East India Company, though opposed by the Zealand department, where Balthazar Moucheron's long experience in former fruitless voyages influenced his colleagues, found favor with the more liberal Amsterdam The Dutch E. I. Com- directors. By their orders, a yacht, or Vlie-boat, called pany fit out the " HALF MOON," belonging to the company, of forty the Half Moon: lasts or eighty tons burden,# was equipped for the voy-

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History of the state of New York Vol I, Part 4

Author: Brodhead, John Romeyn, 1814-1873. 4n Publication date: 1871 Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers Number of Pages: 844

Author: Brodhead, John Romeyn, 1814-1873. 4n
Publication date: 1871
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Number of Pages: 844