1654. and seal. CH. XVII. had formerly suffered so much from Stuyvesant's vindictiveness, and to whom it was perhaps now felt that some amends should be made. The city authorities were also required to pay the public salaries out of the wine and beer excise; and, if permitted by the provincial government, they might impose other taxes "with the consent of the commonalty." They were empowered to mortgage and convey real estate within the limits of the city, and were City Hall granted the use of the City Hall. "We have decreed that a seal for the city of New Amsterdam shall be prepared and forwarded," added the directors; but as for arms and ammunition, they must be obtained from the provincial government. The city authorities, gratefully acknowl edging the "benefits" which the Amsterdam Chamber had bestowed, at the same time earnestly justified their own "We Reply of conduct, and repudiated the charge of disaffection. thorities. have never thought of any thing," wrote they, "but of discharging our duties to the utmost ;" and of exhibiting, "to the best of our ability, the situation and necessity of this country." July. the city au Kuyter murdered. 21 July. Kuyter, however, did not live to receive the tardy atonement by which the company proposed to wipe out the memory of Stuyvesant's early tyranny. Not long after his appointment as a schepen of New Amsterdam, he had been murdered by the Indians. The office of city schout was therefore offered by Stuyvesant to Jacques Cortelyou, a tutor in Van Werckhoven's family. But Cortelyou, owing to scruples respecting his instructions, declined the appointment. The burgomasters and schepens, finding that no other steps were taken, urged that the schout might be appointed "in conformity with the orders" of the Chamber at Amsterdam. Yet, notwithstanding all the efforts Van Tien- of the municipal authorities, Stuyvesant obstinately persisted in continuing the two offices of city schout and provincial fiscal in the hands of Van Tienhoven.* hoven continued as schout. * Alb. Rec., iv., 135-143; viii., 96-99; ix., 174; New Amsterdam Rec., i., 497-506 ; O'Call.. ii., 265-268, 429; Doct. Hist. N. Y., iii., 397; Valentine's Manual, 1847, 373; 1848, 378. Not long afterward Cortelyou began the settlement of New Utrecht, on Long Island; post, p. 693. 1654. 1 July. Ferry at Manhattan Up to this time there had been such "daily confusion" CH. XVII. among the ferrymen on Manhattan Island, that the inhabitants often waited "whole days before they could obtain a passage, and then not without danger, and at an exorbitant price." The director and council, therefore, or- regulated. dained that " no person shall ferry from one side of the river to the other without a license from the magistrates;" that "the ferryman shall always keep proper servants and boats, and a lodge on both sides of the river, to protect passengers from the weather;" that he should not "be compelled to ferry any thing over before he is paid,” nor "be obliged to ferry during a tempest or when he can not sail;" and it was expressly provided that "the director and members of the council, the court messenger, and other persons invested with authority, or dispatched by the executive, are to be exempt from toll."* Fresh diffi with the govern New Am In a few days a new difficulty arose. Stuyvesant, com- 2 August, plaining that the burgomasters and schepens had been culties prodigal of fine promises, without any succeeding action, municipal during the last year," required them to make provision for ment of the maintenance both of the political and ecclesiastical sterdam. ministers, and of the troops which the company had sent over in the last ships, as well as those which were soon expected; and to give an account of the income and disbursement of the excise which the city had received. The account was promptly rendered, and the city magistrates 10 August. informed the director that, having estimated the last and present year's expenditure for "outside and inside works" at sixteen thousand guilders, they would make up their quota along with "the other courts of justice;" and they agreed to contribute three thousand guilders as their proportion, provided they should be authorized to lay a tax on all real estate under their jurisdiction. But Stuyvesant was dissatisfied. The municipal authorities had not paid the salaries of the clergymen, and besides, they had * Alb. Rec., vii., 267; ix., 163; Val, Man. for 1848, 385, 386. The rates of toll were as follows: for a wagon and horses, 2 guilders 10`stuyvers, or one dollar; a one-horse wag2 guilders, or 80 cents; a horse or horned beast, one guilder 10 stuyvers, or 50 cents; a savage male or female," 6 stuyvers; "each other person, "each other person," 3 stuyvers. on, War tax laid. CH. XVII. credited their account with the expenses of the agent, Le Bleeuw, whom they had sent to Holland. The provincial 1654. 13 August. government, therefore, determined to resume the control of the surrendered excise, and farm it out for the benefit of 24 August. the company. A special war tax of twenty stuyvers on every morgen of arable land, the hundredth penny on each house and lot in New Amsterdam and Beverwyck, one guilder on every horned beast, and ten per cent. on all merchandise exported during the season, was soon afterward decreed by the provincial government, to meet the loan which had been contracted in the spring. Under these circumstances, the burgomasters and schepens again 31 August. addressed the director and council. They formally offered to support, at the expense of the city, one of the ministers, a "foresinger," to act also as schoolmaster, and a dog-whipper or sexton, of the ecclesiastical officers; and of the civil department, the schout, both the burgomasters, the five schepens, the secretary, and the court messenger. With respect to the support of the soldiers, the burghers were not able to contribute, and should be excused; they had already"continually engaged in the general works, submitting to watchings and other heavy burdens," and had already proved their bravery and willingness in times of calamity. But the provincial government was still dissatisfied. The city authorities had expended the moneys borrowed in defenses for the city, and not in repairs to Fort Amsterdam; they had not fixed their quota of three thousand guilders high enough; and they had failed in their undertakings respecting subsidies and salaries. The director and council, therefore, insisted upon resuming the resumed by excise. It was farmed out to the highest bidder; the salaries of the clergymen were paid up; and the city government again appealed to the Amsterdam Chamber.* 16 Sept. The excise Stuyve sant. 22 Sept. 16 April. Affairs at Stuyvesant had, meanwhile, revisited Fort Orange, and, Fort Or to put an end to the unsettled question of jurisdiction, had formally demanded of the patroon's officers to fix the point ange. * Alb. Rec., ix., 182, 189, 204-224; New Amsterdam Rec., i., 507, 517; ii., 16-18; O'Call., ii., 269, 270; Valentine's Manual, 1847, 375; 1848, 378. 1654. of departure for the boundaries of the colonie according to CH. XVII. the charter of Freedoms. These boundaries, however, were not to include "the limits of Fort Orange." But the colonial officers, being uninstructed by their superiors in Holland, asked delay. The next month fresh difficulties occurred. Commissary Dyckman was ordered to levy an 13 May. excise upon all liquors retailed "within a circuit of one thousand rods from the fort;" and the right to collect tithes within that district was also asserted on behalf of the West India Company. But the colonial officers issued orders to refuse the payment of the excise, alleging that the provincial government did not contribute any thing toward their local expenses. And as to the claim of tithes, neither the Taxes at colonists nor the inhabitants of Beverwyck "could be in- wyck. duced, either by monitions or persuasions, to pay them."* Bever quois and The peace with the French, which the Mohawks had The Iroconfirmed in the autumn of 1653 by the restoration of the French. Father Poncet, was more the result of policy than of a desire to be at rest. They were anxious to attract the Hurons from the north to supply the places of the warriors whom they had lost. In this sentiment some of the other Iroquois tribes participated, especially the Onondagas, who began to feel unfriendly toward the Mohawks for treating them ill when they passed through that country to the Dutch at Fort Orange. The Onondagas, therefore, sought the friendship of the French, and sent an embassy to the 5 Feb. governor of Canada, asking that a Jesuit mission might be dagas. established in their country.t Father Simon le Moyne, who had already had eighteen years experience as a missionary among the Hurons, accordingly set out from Que- 2 July. bec for Onondaga, in the hope "of winning the whole West and North to Christendom." Ascending the Saint Lawrence, and coasting along Ontario, or "the Lake of the Iroquois," he landed on the southern shore, and visited the * Alb. Rec., iv., 213; ix., 121-129; O'Call., ii., 304; New Amst. Rec., i., 419. + "The word Onnonta, which in the Iroquois tongue signifies a mountain, has given the name to the village called Onnontaé, or, as others call it, Onnontagué, because it is on a mountain, and the people who inhabit it consequently style themselves Onnontaéronnons, or Onnontaguéronnons."-Relation, 1657-8, 30; i., Doc. Hist. N. Y., 44; ante, p. 83, 564. The Onon 1654. 10 August. Moyne at 66 CH. XVII. principal village of the Onondagas, where he was treated as a brother." Deputies from three of the neighboring tribes soon met in council. A chief, speaking for "five Father Le entire nations," invited the French to establish a settleOnondaga. ment on the banks of the lake, and to fix themselves "in 12 August. the heart of the country." With pious joy, the Jesuit Father now recovered the New Testament once belonging to Brebœuf, and a book of devotion used by Garnier. Just before his return to Canada, Le Moyne immortalized his name by discovering what was afterward to form one of 16 August. the largest sources of the wealth of New York. Coming of the Salt to the entrance of a small lake, full of salmon-trout and other fish, he tasted the water of a spring which his Indian guides did not dare to drink, "saying that there was a demon within which renders it offensive." The Jesuit, however, found it to be "a fountain of salt water," from which he actually made salt "as natural as that of the sea." Taking with him "a sample," Le Moyne descended the Oneida, and, retracing his way along Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence, arrived safely at Quebec with the news of his great discovery.* Discovery Springs. 11 Sept. 4 July. Jealousy of the Mohawks. May. The Mohawks, in the mean time, had sent a deputation to Canada. Finding that they had been anticipated by the Onondagas, they openly expressed their vexation. "We of the five nations," said their orator, "have but one cabin, we make but one fire, and we have always dwelt under the same roof." "You do not enter by the door, which is on the first floor. We Mohawks are that door. You enter by the roof and chimney, for you begin with the Onondagas." The irritation of the Mohawks was promptly appeased; and the embassy returned with the assurance that Father Le Moyne would visit their valley.† A crisis had now occurred on the South River. On reaching New Sweden, Rising, in violation of his instruc * Relation, 1653-4, p. 13, 14, 51-97; Doc. Hist. N. Y., i., 33-44. In Clark's Onondaga, i, 130–138, Le Moyne's visit is erroneously dated in 1653; and the reference, in vol. ii., p. 8, to the Relation of 1645-6, should be to that of 1655-6, as quoted in vol. i., p. 150. + Relation, 1653-4, p. 54; Creuxius, 705-716; Charlevoix, i., 271, 316-320; Bancroft, iii., 142; O'Call., ii., 303; Hildreth, ii., 88; ante, p. 82. |