like those of the free cities of Holland. But the people were not allowed to choose these officers; that right was reserved to the Director. In February, one thousand six hundred and fifty-three, the city of New Amsterdam (afterward New York) was formally organized, by the installation of Schout Van Tienhoven, Burgomasters Hattem and Kregier, and Schepens Van der Grist, Van Gheel, Anthony, Beeckman, and Couwenhoven, with Jacob Kip as clerk. Stuyvesant was troubled by this

The financial embarrassments in New Netherland were favorable to republicanism. For almost two hundred years Holland had maintained the just principle, that taxation and representation are inseparable. Stuyvesant dared not tax the colonists without their consent, for fear of incurring the displeasure of the States General, so he called a convention of the people, and directed them to choose eighteen proper men, nine of whom he might appoint as their representatives, to form a co-ordinate branch of the local government. Although their prerogatives were hedged round by provisos and limitations, and the first Nine were to nominate their successors without the voice of the Commonalty thereafter, this was an important advance toward the popular government of later times. The Nine formed a salutary check upon the Director, and kept his power within due bounds. They were heard with respect in Fatherland, and they were ever the faithful guardians of the rights of the people. They had far more power and influence than the Twelve under Kieft, and they nourished the prolific germs of democracy which burst into vigorous life in Jacob Leisler's time, fifty years later.

Stuyvesant managed adroitly and prudently with the New England authorities, and in the autumn of sixteen hundred and fifty he settled all boundary difficulties with them in an amicable manner. This cause for irritation on his Eastern frontier being removed, he turned his attention to the Swedes on the Delaware. He visited Fort Nassau the following year, and after holding a satisfactory conference there with the Delaware chiefs, he ordered its demolition, and the erection of a new one, to be called Fort Casimer, on the soil of the present Delaware, four miles below Fort Christina. Governor Printz protested in vain, and finally the two magnates parted with apparent good feelings, mutually promising to "keep neighborly friendship and correspondence together."

The following year an important concession was made to the inhabitants of New Amsterdam, by order of the Holland authorities. The Nine had earnestly sought the privilege of a burgher government for their growing capital. It was granted, and the people were allowed to have "a Schout, two Burgomasters, and five Schepens," who were to form a municipal court of justice,

He had scarcely recovered from his chagrin, when, through the influence of the democratic Van der Donck (who had felt the tyranny of the Director), he was summoned to the Hague, to answer concerning his government in New Netherland. The order was soon revoked, however, and Stuyvesant never left Manhattan until after the sceptre had passed from the Dutch.

Numbers,

"to escape

A new element of social progress had now begun to work vigorously, and in harmony with the free spirit of Dutch policy, in the social and political systems of New Netherland. nay, whole towns," says De Laet, from the insupportable government of New England, removed to New Netherland, to enjoy that liberty denied them by their own countrymen." Only in Rhode Island-the child of Puritan persecution-was conscience allowed free expression in action. Every where else in New England, he who was not of "the strictest sect of the Pharisees," who made their narrow human crced the "higher law," lost social caste, was not allowed the privileges of a "freeman," and suffered continual annoyance at the hands of bigotry and superstition. Liberal-minded, honorable men, whose spirits could not brook such vassalage, following the example of the wise shepherd of the Pilgrim flock, went where they might enjoy, under Belgic rule, the theoretic liberty of the English constitution. They had lands assigned them all around Manhattan, and English settlements were formed in Westchester and at several points on Long Island. The New Englanders intermarried with the Dutch. Being free to act as citizens, they soon exercised considerable influence in public affairs; and more than ten years before a burgher government was given to New Amsterdam, George Baxter was appointed English secretary of New Netherland. The "strangers" readily adopted the republican ideas of the Dutch Commonalty, and bore a conspicuous part in the democratic movements which gave Stuyvesant so much trouble during the latter years of his administration.

Republicanism, like any other truth, has remarkable vitality. It is nourished by persecution, and it grows vigorously under the pressure of the heel of power. The more Stuyvesant attempted to stifle its growth, the more widely it spread and blossomed. The popular will, fully bent on reforms, became bold enough in the autumn of sixteen hundred and fifty-three to decree a convention of the people at New Amsterdam, in spite of the opposition of the Governor. Nineteen delegates from eight communities were chosen, and

assembled in the new Stadt Huys,* at the head | of Coenties Slip, in December. They boldly declared the rights of the Commonalty, according to the laws of Fatherland, and all signed a paper, containing a statement of their grievances, and a remonstrance against the tyrannous rule of the Director, and sent it to the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company. Stuyvesant's ire was fiercely kindled by these proceedings, but it was like a pebble breasting an ocean wave.

While thus perplexed by domestic annoyances, the tranquillity of the Director's "foreign relations" was disturbed. His neighborly governor of the Swedes had returned to Europe, and a more warlike successor had arrived, with a military force, under the bold Swen Schute. They appeared before Fort Casimer on Trinity Sunday, just two hundred years ago last June. Commander Bikker said he was out of powder, so he made a virtue of necessity, and gave the Swedes a hearty welcome as friends, while he left the gate of the fort wide open. They seized his hand and the fort at the same time, fired two shots over the latter, in token of its capture, blotted out its Dutch garrison and its name, took possession, and called it Fort Trinity. Intelligence of this indignity reached Stuyvesant at a moment when he was expecting an attack from the English, who were then at war with Holland, and he was at his wits' end. But the cloud soon passed, for the English did not come, and the offended Director prepared to wipe out the stain which the "infamous surrender" of Fort Casimer had imparted to Belgic heroism, by annihilating Sweu. dominion on South River.

An expedition against the Swedes was fitted out in the course of the summer. A day of fast

This was the harberg erected by Kieft in 1642, and known as the City Tavern. It was used for government

purposes after Stuyvesant became Director-General, and

a pillory and whipping-post, seen in front, on the right,

was then erected there.

VOL. IX.-No. 52.-F F

ing and prayer to implore the blessing of Heaven upon the enterprise was observed; and "after sermon" on the first Sunday in September, two centuries and twelve months ago, a squadron of seven vessels, bearing more than six hundred soldiers, under the immediate command of Stuyvesant, sailed from Manhattan for the South River. The cabin of the flag-ship, The Balance, contained the Governor, Vice-director De Sille, und Dominie Megapolensis, the successor of Bogardus, who, with Kieft and others, had been wrecked and drowned on the coast of Wales, when voy. aging to the Fatherland. There, too, was Anthony Van Corlear, who, since the sleepy days of Van Twiller, had blown the trumpet of Dutch valor with great effect wherever the Directorgeneral's presence appeared. He was a little, jolly, "robustous bachelor," with a pleasant visage, and a nose, according to the veracious Knickerbocker, "of a very lusty size, strutting boldly from his countenance like a mountain of Golconda; being sumptuously bedecked with rubies and other precious stones-the true regalia of a king of good fellows, which jolly Bacchus grants to all who bouse it heartily at the flagon."

With such companions and a brave soldiery, Stuyvesant ascended the Delaware, and landed between Forts Casimir and Christina. He instantly ordered Ensign Smit, with a drummer, to hasten to the fort and demand its immediate surrender; while the trumpeter was kept at his side to sound a fearful retributive blast in the event of a refusal. Schute wished to confer with Governor Risingh at Fort Christina; but the boon was denied, and the passes between the fortresses were carefully guarded by the Dutch delay until next morning was allowed, and then Schute surrendered and drank the health of Director Stuyvesant. The Dutch marched into the fort "with flying colors." Dominie Megapolensis preached a sermon to the soldiers, and the Governor sent a courier to the council at New Am

A

suspected the earth of turning over like a ball of yarn, than Stuyvesant did the Puritans of honesty. Society has experienced vast changes here within two hundred years. Unresting activity has taken the place of inertia, and the positive has superseded the negative in every form of social development. And to-day, among our heterogeneous population of more than half a million, there is probably as much virtue and happiness, proportionately, as there was in those "good old times" of stagnation. Who shall strike a balance sheet?

A crisis in the affairs of New Netherland now approached. Cromwell was dead, and the fugitive King Charles was restored to the throne of his father. Early in the year sixteen hundred and sixty-four, he granted to his brother James, Duke of York and Albany, the whole territory of New Netherland, including the whole of Long Island, and a part of Connecticut. The profligate monarch had no more right to the domain thus granted, than had the Tempter to "all the kingdoms of the earth," which he offered to the Redeemer, if he would worship him. "Might makes right"