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SETTLEMENT OF NEW YORK.

HENDRICK HUDSON, an explorer in the employ of the Dutch, had discovered and sailed up the river which bears his name, in the year 1609. Three or four years after the Pilgrims had landed at Plymouth, the Dutch West India Company resolved to establish a trading post with the Indians. They sent out a settlement in 1623, which located on Manhattan island at the mouth of the (present) Hudson River, and built a town which was afterwards called New Amsterdam. They prospered until they became involved in war with the Indians, when, at times, the colony appeared on the brink of ruin. They built a wooden wall or palisade across the island where Wall Street is now situated. The war came to an end, and for eighteen years afterwards there was a time of peace and prosperity under the government of a wise and sagacious man, Peter Stuyvesant. While his government was not faultless, the province flourished under it, and a continued flow of emigration came in from Europe. In the year 1664, an English fleet appeared in the harbor to demand the territory in the name of their sovereign. Charles II. had given his brother, James, Duke of York, the whole of the territory of New Netherlands embracing New Jersey.

Stuyvesant was willing to fight the invaders, but the English settlers would not fight against their king, and the Dutch, who remembered some of the petty tyrannies of their governor, would not join him. At length he yielded to the entreaties of two ministers and many of the people, and the city of fifteen hundred inhabitants quietly passed into the hands of the English, when its name was changed to New York. With this city the Dutch also gave up their settlements in New Jersey, including those made by the Swedes, which they had absorbed, and so the English had possession of the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts Bay to Georgia.

THE LAND OF PENN.

WILLIAM PENN, the son of an English admiral, who had won many noted victories for the Crown, became a Quaker, to the disappointment of his friends, just at the time when a brilliant future was spread out before him. At first the father was furious and turned his son out of doors, hoping that hunger would soon cause him to recant; but the admiral finally relented and restored him to favor. When his father died, soon after the reconciliation,

young Penn inherited his possessions, and among the rest a claim for $80,000 due the admiral from the king. Penn, who had formed in his mind a design to establish a settlement in America for the persecuted members of his own sect, offered to take payment of the king in land; and Charles was ready enough to bestow upon his subject a vast region stretching westward from the Delaware River. Penn then came to America with the noble purpose of founding a free and self-governing State, where, as he said, he could show men as free and "as happy as they can be." He proclaimed to the men who were already settled within his territory, "Whatever sober and free men can reasonably desire, I will comply with." He was true to his word; and when in 1683, he met representatives of the settlers, in an Assembly, he gave to the people a "Charter of Liberties," signed and sealed by his own hand. He had also dealt honorably and kindly with the Indians, and bought their lands of them, and in return they respected and loved him. The conference with the natives was held under a large elm which stood in the forest where Philadelphia now is, and a monument marked the spot for fully two centuries. All was to be "openness and love," and "no advantage was to be taken on either side." For long years the Indians recounted the words of Penn; and the blood of a Quaker was never shed by an Indian on the soil of Pennsylvania.

The fame of Penn's new State went abroad to all lands, and it grew very rapidly with grave and God-fearing men, who came from all parts of Europe. During the first year, two thousand persons arrived, and Philadelphia became a town of six hundred houses. A few years later Penn returned to England, and reported that "things went on sweetly with the Friends in Pennsylvania; that they increased finely, in outward things and in wisdom."

The settlement of Pennsylvania was founded in 1682.

SETTLEMENTS IN THE OTHER COLONIES.

THE thirteen original States were Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Connecticut was settled by men and women from Massachusetts, in two colonies. One came through the wilderness and settled at Windsor above Hartford; the other came by water and settled at New Haven.

Rhode Island was settled by Roger Williams, a minister of Salem, who,

by his outspoken opinions about "soul liberty" had offended clergy and magistrates. He declared that the State had to do only with the "bodies and goods and outward estates" of men. In the domain of conscience God alone was the ruler. He was banished and went to the wilderness, where he obtained a grant of land from the Indians and laid the foundation of the State of Rhode Island. He founded the city of Providence and proclaimed that his settlement was to become a "shelter for persons distressed for conscience sake." And so has it ever been.

New Hampshire was settled by colonists from Massachusetts, of which it was a part from 1641 to 1679.

Delaware was so named in honor of Lord De la Warr, who came to Virginia as governor, in 1611, and gave great relief to the settlers at Jamestown, who were about to abandon it. It was first settled by Swedes, in 1637, but passed into the hands of the Dutch, in 1655. Penn afterward obtained possession of it, when it was annexed to Pennsylvania. It was returned to its former condition of a separate colony, in 1703.

Maryland was first the recipient of intended settlers in 1731, by a band of adventurers from Virginia under William Clayborne. In 1632, Lord Baltimore received a charter from the King, making it a distinct province, when it was named "Maryland" in honor of the Queen.

New Jersey was first settled by the Dutch, in 1620, and by the Swedes and Danes in 1637. It afterwards passed into the hands of the English,. when they took possession of New Netherland (New York) in 1664.

North Carolina was permanently settled under a grant from King Charles II., in 1663. John Locke, the metaphysician, and the Earl of Shaftesbury, prepared a "fundamental Constitution for the two Carolina colonies," aristocratic in every feature, but it was never accepted by the American settlers, and after many years it was abandoned.

South Carolina received its first well-defined settlement in 1670, when Sir William Sayle and a company of adventurers, under a charter from Charles II., planted a colony on the shores of Port Royal Sound. In 1680, English families settled at Oyster Point, where they founded the city of Charleston. Georgia was the latest of the colonies that formed the original Union, and the farthest south of any of the English possessions in America during the time of colonial history. It was settled in 1733, when General Oglethorpe founded the city of Savannah. He obtained a charter from George II. of all the land between the Savannah River and the Altamaha, extending west

ward to the Pacific Ocean. It was designed chiefly as an asylum for bettering the condition of English prisoners for debt, and for a refuge from persecution of Protestants in Germany and elsewhere. Parliament appropriated $160,000for the enterprise. In 1733, General Oglethorpe, at the head of 120 emigrants, planted the seeds of a colony on the site of the city of Savannah. The next year a hundred Germans came and were assigned a place, which they in gratitude named Ebenezer. They were steady and industrious, and' some of them eagerly applied themselves to the raising of silk and indigo. The fame of the colony spread through Europe and attracted large numbers. Thus was planted on the eastern shore of the continent a chain of English colonies like a vanguard, which was in time to conquer the wilderness and fill the land with busy towns and thriving villages. The hum of machinery was to be heard along its water-courses. Its hills were to resound to the whistle of the shop and locomotive. The wharves of its cities were to be crowded with commerce from all parts of the world, and a stream of emigration was to pour in from all the crowded nations of the East, and an empire would be erected upon the foundation which these feeble colonies were laying. Each distinct, with no common bond but the slight allegiance to a distant sovereign, they were to become united in one mighty compact, and together give the world its highest example of a free government of the people and for the people. These earnest men builded better than they knew, and shaped the. destinies of the unborn millions who should come after them.

THE COLONIAL PERIOD.

AFTER the establishment of the colonies which stretched along the Atlantic coast from the Penobscot to the Altamaha, and owned allegiance to the English king, there came a period of formation and growth in which they developed their natural resources and established their commerce, built colleges and seminaries, and grew in all things which increased their prosperity and strength. The Indian tribes were subdued, the forests were cleared and cities and towns sprang up as if by magic. Manufactories were built and agriculture was flourishing. The colonies were left alone by the home government and allowed to direct their own affairs. In some cases a governor was sent from England to rule the colony, but the laws were enacted by representatives chosen by the people. In others the people had the right to elect their own governors. They regulated their own commerce and inter

nal trade and directed their own taxation and system of religion and education.

We will take a hasty glance at the condition of each colony during this period.

In New England we will find some things that may surprise us. The early settlers had been a religious, sensible people, but when they left Europe there was a universal belief in witchcraft. King James had written a strange book on Demonology, in which he said that to forbear to put witches to death was an odious treason against God," and the people were no wiser than their king.

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The superstition spread to America, or was brought thither by the shiploads of emigrants who were flocking over the sea to find a home here. All at once it burst out like a fearful scourge in the little town of Salem, Massachusetts, now a fine city.

There was here a minister by the name of Parris. The daughter and the niece of this clergyman fell ill of a strange nervous disorder. The doctors claimed that they were bewitched, and the minister set out at once to find out who were the offenders. Three old women were suspected, and taken into custody. From this the mania spread, and every one became alarmed and suspicious. No one was safe. Witches were supposed to ride in the air at night. Even the beasts were not safe; and once a dog was solemnly condemned to death for taking some part in a satanic festival.

The prisons were filled with the accused, and a score of persons were put to death. The town of Falmouth hanged its minister; and the wise and intelligent were no more secure than the low and ignorant. The wild panic lasted for more than six months. Those who confessed that they were wizards or witches were set free for the most part, while those who denied it were judged guilty and punished. Many refused to buy their life by falsehood and miserably perished. The delusion spread wide like a forest fire, until the whole colony was filled with terror. But the reaction came as suddenly as the outbreak of the mania. The Governor put an end to the persecution, stopped the prosecutions, dismissed all the suspected, and pardoned the condemned; and the General Court proclaimed a fast. They entreated that God would pardon the errors of the people "in the late tragedy caused by Satan and his instruments." One of the judges with bowed head stood in his pew in a church in Boston while a paper was read asking the prayers of the congregation, that the innocent blood which he had shed in

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