A Century Too Soon Part 13

"Yes; but he will return."

"The _Silverwing_ has not yet reached London."

"How know you that?" she asked, a momentary shadow coming over her face.

"The _Ocean Star_ hath just arrived, but brought no report from the _Silverwing_."

"It left before the _Silverwing_ arrived. The s.h.i.+p was delayed a little.

It has reached there safely by this time, I am quite sure," and Mrs.

Stevens face grew bright as she made some purchases for which she had not the money to pay. The merchant sold to her reluctantly, and she, without dreaming that calamity could possibly befall her, went on enjoying herself. Ex-Governor Berkeley had invited her to spend a few days at Greenspring, where she met her husband's friend Hugh Price, with other gay cavaliers and ladies.

Dorothe was a thorough royalist, and she heard, while at the governor's, that Cromwell was in poor health, and there was a strong feeling that the exiled Prince Charles would be recalled to the throne. Berkeley had invited him to Virginia. Many of England's n.o.bles, flying from Cromwell's persecutions, had taken refuge with ex-Governor Berkeley, and no other greater pleasure could Dorothe wish than to be a.s.sociated with them.

When she returned to her home, it looked poor and mean in comparison with the governor's excellent manor house; but troubles thickened.

Bills came pouring in upon her, which she was unable to meet, for she had not a farthing, and her creditors became clamorous.

"Why don't John come back with the money?" she asked, angry tears starting from her eyes. "I cannot meet these bills, and he knows I must live."

"You have been grossly extravagant, Mrs. Stevens," one heartless creditor returned. He was a merchant who had smiled on her most sweetly in her prosperous days, and had always welcomed her to his shop. "Had you economized with the money your husband left, you would not be in such sore straits."

Mrs. Stevens was shocked and indignant. She wept and asked for time. Ann Linkon, who had never forgiven Dorothe Stevens for the ducking she had caused her, now boldly declared that she had all along told the truth and, shaking her gray head, repeated:

"She is a hussy. She hath driven John to sea and perchance to death. She is a hussy."

No one attempted to prevent Ann's tongue from wagging, and to the unfortunate Dorothe it was quite evident that she was no longer the favorite of Jamestown.

"When John comes back, all will change," she thought; but, alas, the months crept slowly by, and John came not. There came a rumor which time confirmed that the _Silverwing_ was lost. Dorothe, who was of a hopeful nature, would not believe it at first, though the news had a very disastrous effect to her credit. She was refused at every shop and store in Jamestown. In her distress she sold such articles as she could dispense with; but Jamestown was only a frontier hamlet, it had no such conveniences as p.a.w.nbrokers and secondhand clothiers, and what few articles she could dispose of were sold mainly to freed or indented servants at ruinous prices.

Dorothe's fas.h.i.+onable friends deserted her. The ladies and cavaliers at Greenspring became suddenly cold and she remained at home. Her slaves were taken away, so, finally, was the home, and, with her little children, she took up her abode in a miserable log cabin, where she became an object of charity. A year and a half had rolled away; but she had not wholly given up her husband for dead. The vessel might have blown out of its course, it might have been captured by pirates, or Spaniards, and her husband might yet escape.

She had been so cool toward his relatives, that they had not seen her for a year. She was proud and would have suffered death rather than appeal to them for aid; but her children--his children, were suffering, and, as she had to give up even the log cabin to rapacious creditors, at last she appealed to his mother and sister, whom she had despised.

"You are welcome. Come and share our home," was the response.

Almost heartbroken, yet proud, Dorothe with her children set out for the distant plantation in the county in which lived the relatives of her husband.

Political changes were coming, which were to have a marked effect on Dorothe, who gave up her husband for dead and donned the widow's weeds.

Those changes were the restoration.

In 1658, Cromwell died and named his son Richard as his successor. From the death of Cromwell until the accession of Charles II., the government of England was in a state of chaos and was highly revolutionary without being in a state of actual anarchy. There was in reality no head to the government. Even the Puritans saw that the inevitable must come, and, in 1660, Charles II. was restored to the throne of England without any serious jar to the country or colonies. It was late in May, 1660, when the wandering prince, mounted on a gayly caparisoned steed, entered London between his brothers, the Dukes of York and Gloucester, and took up his abode in the palace of Whitehall, while flags waved, bells rang, cannons roared, trumpets brayed, shouts rent the air and fountains poured out costly libations of wine as tokens of public joy. After a twenty years' struggle between royalists and republicans, the monarchy was restored, and the English people again became subjects of the head of the Scottish house of Stuarts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Oliver Cromwell]

The accession of Charles II. soon caused a change in the affairs of America. The new king a.s.signed to his brother James, Duke of York, the whole territory of New Netherland, with Long Island and a part of Connecticut. Charles had no more right to that domain than to the central province of Spain; but the brutal argument that "might makes right" justified the royal brothers, in their own estimation, in sending s.h.i.+ps, men and cannon, the "last argument of kings," to take possession of and hold the territory. Four men-of-war, bearing four hundred, and fifty soldiers, commanded by Colonel Richard Nicolls, a court favorite, arrived before New Amsterdam in the latter part of August, 1664.

Governor Stuyvesant had been warned of their approach and tried to strengthen the fort; but money, men and will were wanting. The governor's violent temper, with English influence, had alienated the people, and they were indifferent. Some of them regarded the invaders as welcome friends. Stuyvesant began to make concessions to the popular wishes. It was too late; and New Amsterdam became an easy prey to the English freebooters.

Early in this year, revolutionary movements had taken place among the English on Long Island, which the governor could not suppress, and the province was rent by internal discord for several months. A war with the Indians above the Hudson Highlands had also given the governor much trouble; but his energy and wisdom had brought it to a close. The anthems of a Thanksgiving day had died away, and the governor, a.s.sured of peace, had gone to Fort Orange (Albany), when news reached him of the coming English armament. He hastened back to his capital, and, on Sat.u.r.day, the 30th day of August, Nicolls sent to the governor a formal summons to surrender the fort and city. He also sent a proclamation to the citizens, promising perfect security of person and property to all who should quietly submit to English rule.

The Dutch governor hastily a.s.sembled his magistrates at the fort to consider public affairs; but, to his disgust, they favored submission without resistance. Stuyvesant, true to his superiors and his own convictions of duty, would not listen to such a proposition, nor allow the inhabitants to see the proclamation. The Sabbath pa.s.sed without any answer to the summons. It was a day of great excitement and anxiety in Amsterdam, and the people became impatient. On Monday the magistrates explained to them the situation of affairs, and they demanded a sight of the proclamation. It was refused, and they were on the verge of open insurrection, when a new turn in events took place.

Governor Winthrop of Connecticut, who was quite friendly with Stuyvesant, had joined the English squadron. Nicolls sent him as an emba.s.sador to Stuyvesant, with a letter in which was repeated the demand for a surrender. The two governors met at the gate of the fort.

Stuyvesant read the letter and promptly refused to comply.

"Inform the Englishman if he wants my fort, he must come amid cannon and b.a.l.l.s to take it," he said. Closing the gate, he retired to the council chamber and laid the letter before his cabinet and magistrates. After examining it they said:

"Read the letter to the people, and so get their minds."

The governor stoutly refused. The council and magistrates as stoutly insisted that he should do so, when the enraged governor, who had fairly earned the t.i.tle of "Peter the Headstrong," unable to control his pa.s.sion, tore the letter into pieces. The people at work on the palisades, hearing of this, hastened to the Statehouse, where a large number of citizens were soon gathered. They sent a deputation to the fort to demand the letter. Stuyvesant, storming with rage, cried:

"Back to the ramparts! mend the palisades, and we will answer the letter with cannon."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOMB OF STUYVESANT.]

The deputies were inflexible, and a fair copy of the letter was made from the pieces, taken to the Statehouse and read to the inhabitants. At that time the population of New Amsterdam did not exceed fifteen hundred souls. Outside of the little garrison, there were not over two hundred men capable of bearing arms, and it was the utmost folly to resist.

Nicolls, growing impatient, sent a message to the silent governor saying:

"I shall come for your answer to-morrow with s.h.i.+ps and soldiers," and anch.o.r.ed two war-vessels between the fort and Governor's Island.

Stuyvesant's proud will would not bend to circ.u.mstances, and, from the ramparts of the fort, he saw their preparations for attack, without in the least relenting, and when men, women and children, and even his beloved son Balthazzar, entreated him to surrender, that the lives and property of the citizens might be spared, he replied:

"I had much rather be carried out dead."

At last, however, when the magistrates, the clergy and many of the princ.i.p.al citizens entreated him, the proud old governor, who had "a heart as big as an ox, and a head that would have set adamant to scorn,"

consented to capitulate. He had held out for a week. On Monday morning, the 8th of September, 1664, he led his troops from the fort to a s.h.i.+p on which they were to embark for Holland, and an hour after, the red cross of St. George was floating over Fort Amsterdam, the name of which was changed to Fort James as a compliment to the Duke.

The remainder of New Netherlands soon pa.s.sed into the possession of the English, and the city and province were named New York, another compliment to Prince James, afterward James II. Colonel Nicolls, whom the duke had appointed as his deputy governor, was so proclaimed by the magistrates of the city, and all officers within the domain of New Netherland were required to take an oath of allegiance to the British crown.

The new governor took up his abode in the Dutch fort, if the strange structure within the palisades could be called a fort. It contained, besides the governor's house and barracks, a steep gambrel-roofed church with a high tower, a windmill, gallows, pillory, whipping-post, prison and a tall flagstaff. There was generally a cheerful submission to the conquerors on the part of the inhabitants, and after the turmoil of surrender a profound quiet reigned in New York.

So pa.s.sed into the domain of perfected history the Dutch dominion in America after an existence of fifty years, by that unrighteous seizure of the territory which had been discovered and settled by the Dutch.

England became the mistress of all the domain stretching along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean from Florida to Acadie, and westward across the entire continent; but in New Netherland, in that brief s.p.a.ce of half a century, the Dutch had stamped the impress of their inst.i.tutions, their social and religious habits, their modes of thought and peculiarities of character, so that they remained unconquered in the loftier aspect of the case. The characteristics of the Dutch of New Netherland were so indelibly stamped, that, after a lapse of more than two centuries, they are still marked features of New York society.

Saucy New England underwent fewer changes by reason of the restoration than all the other colonies. The New Englanders were men and women of iron who dared everything. They were always cool, cautions, yet bold, and when they made an effort to gain a right, they always won. They clung to all their rights and demanded more. The bigotry of the Puritans of Ma.s.sachusetts was vehemently condemned at the time of their iron rule and has been ever since; but their theology and their ideas of church government were founded upon the deepest heart-convictions of a people not broadly educated. Having encountered and subdued a savage wilderness for the purpose of planting therein a church and a commonwealth, fas.h.i.+oned in all their parts after a narrow but cherished pattern, they felt that the domain thus conquered was all their own, and that they had the right to regulate the internal affairs according to their own notion of things. They boldly proclaimed the right to the exercise of private judgment in matters of conscience, and so tacitly invited the persecuted of all lands to immigrate and settle among them. This invitation brought "unsettled persons," libertines in unrestrained opinions, from abroad to disseminate their peculiar views. The Puritans, fearing the disorganization of their church, early took alarm and, with a mistaken policy, resisted such encroachments upon the domain and into their society with fiery penal laws implacably executed.

Among the sects of the time dangerous to Puritanism, were the Quakers or Friends. The first of the sect who appeared conspicuously in New England were Mary Fisher and Anna Austin, who arrived at Boston in the summer of 1656, when John Endicott was governor. There was no special law against them; but under a general act against heretics, they were arrested; their persons were searched to find marks of witchcraft, with which they were suspected; their trunks were searched, and their books were burned publicly by the hangman. After several weeks of confinement in prison, they were sent back to England. Mary Fisher, a violent religious enthusiast, afterward visited the Sultan of Turkey and, being mistaken for a crazy woman, was permitted to go everywhere unmolested.

The harsh treatments of the first comers fired the zeal of the more enthusiastic of the sect in England, who sought martyrdom as an honor and a pa.s.sport to the home of the righteous. They flocked to New England and fearfully vexed the souls of the Puritan magistrates and ministers.

One woman came from London to warn the authorities against persecutions.

Others came to revile, denounce and defy the powers of the church. From the windows of their houses they would rail at the magistrates, and mock the inst.i.tutions of the country, while some fanatical young women appeared nude on the streets and in the churches, as emblems of "unclothed souls of the people." Others with loud voices proclaimed that the wrath of the Almighty was about to fall like destructive lightning on Boston and Salem. The Quakers of 1659 were quite different from that honorable body of people of the present age.

Horrified by their blasphemies and indecencies, the authorities of Ma.s.sachusetts pa.s.sed some cruel laws. At first they forbade all persons "harboring Quakers," imposing severe penalties for each offence, then followed mild punishment on the Friends themselves. These proving ineffectual, the Puritans pa.s.sed laws which authorized the cropping of the ears, boring the tongues with hot irons, and hanging on the gibbet offending Quakers.

Even these terrible laws could not keep them away. On a bright October day in 1659, two young men named William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, with Mary Dyer, wife of the Secretary of State of Rhode Island, were led from the Boston jail, with ropes around their necks and guarded by soldiers, to be hanged on Boston Common. Mary walked between her companions hand in hand to the gallows, where, in the presence of Governor Endicott, the two young men were hung. Mary was unmoved by the spectacle. She was given into the care of her son, who came from Rhode Island to plead for her life, and went away with him; but the next spring this foolish woman returned and began preaching and was herself hung on Boston Common.

The severity of these laws caused a revulsion of public sentiment. The Quakers stoutly maintained their course, and were regarded by the more thoughtful as real martyrs for conscience sake, and, in 1661, the severe laws against them were repealed. Puritanism, which had flourished under republicanism in England, with the restoration of the Stuarts was threatened, and doubtless fear of the vengeance of the church party caused the New Englanders to temper their laws.

A restless spirit on the part of the New Englanders with an uneasy feeling in regard to the result of the restoration caused many to emigrate to Carolinia, which was a mysterious, far-away land where everybody lived at peace. Removed from the grasp of kings and tyrants, many went to the infant town planted on Old-town Creek, near the south side of Cape Fear River. However, the Carolinias were growing from fugitive settlements into commonwealths, and, in 1666, William Drummond, the friend of John Stevens, was appointed governor of North Carolinia.

Claybourne, who, after a struggle of twenty years, had succeeded in conquering Maryland, saw, with the decline of the commonwealth of England, his own hopes go down. In 1658, the Catholics of St. Mary's and the Puritans of St. Leonard's consulted, and the province was surrendered to Lord Baltimore. Claybourne had no sooner gained that for which he had battled, than his power began to crumble beneath his feet, and he was even ejected from the Virginia council.