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ticles of confederation, for the different states. These were approved, by the legislature of New York, February 6th, 1778.

The repeated incursions of the Indians upon the frontier settlements, particularly the cruel outrage at Wyoming, called loudly for retributive justice. But their crimes were still to assume a deeper dye. In November, 1778, Colonel Alden, the commander at Cherry Valley, received intelligence that an attack was intended, upon that place. With a fatal and unaccountable stupidity, he paid no attention to the report. On the 10th, the Indians and tories, under the command of the bloodthirsty Walter Butler, and the Indian chieftain Brant, approached the settlement, killed Colonel Alden, butchered about twenty of the inhabitants, mostly women and children, took nearly forty prisoners, and, after plundering and burning all their houses, departed.

To punish these depredations, General Sullivan, in August, 1778, at the head of an efficient force, visited the country of the Senecas, destroyed eighteen of their villages, laid waste their whole territory, and most signally defeated them.

In April of the same year, Colonel Van Schaick attacked the Onondagas, who had been the most troublesome of the border tribes, destroyed their villages, took between thirty and forty prisoners, and killed twelve of the Indians. These severe blows, for a time, put these tribes in check.

On the 28th of September, 1778, two detachments of the enemy's troops, sent by Sir Henry Clinton, surprised a part of Colonel Baylor's regiment of cavalry, stationed at Tappan, by night, and butchered sixty-seven out of one hundred and four men, unresisting and asking for quarter.

In May, 1779, Sir Henry Clinton made an expedition in person, up the Hudson, compelled the garrison at Verplanck's Point to surrender, after a short but spirited resistance, and took possession of Stoney Point, which was abandoned by the Americans. At his return, he garrisoned both forts.

On the 16th of July, 1778, General Washington commissioned General Anthony Wayne to storm the British fort at Stoney Point, a strong fortress, which was the resort of tory refugees, who sallied out occasionally, and ravaged the neighboring settlements. The fort was carried at the point of the bayonet, and with trifling loss. Owing to the weakness of the American force, however, it was soon found necessary to abandon it, and it was afterwards re-occupied by the enemy.

Soon after, Major Lee made a daring and successful expedition against Paulus Hook, (Powles Hook,) now Jersey City, and captured the British garrison, consisting of 150 men, di

rectly under the guns of the British ships of war, lying in the Hudson river.

General Arnold had been, thus far, distinguished in the Revolution, for his reckless daring, his chivalric bravery, and his apparently ardent patriotis.n; but amid all, the private character of the man was known to be vicious and corrupt. His reputation was stained by dishonesty, rapacity, and meanness. In consequence of a severe wound, received in the last battle with Burgoyne, he was disabled from active service, and in the summer of 1778, General Washington assigned to him the command of the city of Philadelphia. His extravagance, recklessness, and dishonesty, drew down upon him the displeasure of the citizens, who were loud in their complaints against him; and in March, 1779, he resigned his command.

In April, he married Miss Shippen, a lady who had been a distinguished belle, had received the attentions of the British officers, during their occupancy of that city, and was at heart a loyalist. Through her correspondence with some of the British officers, an opportunity was offered to Arnold, to communicate with the enemy; and he finally took the resolution to sell himself, and his country, for British gold, in order to rid himself of his pecuniary embarrassments. To make his treachery more valuable, in August, 1780, he solicited, and obtained the command of the strong and important post of West Point, the key of the Hudson.

In order to settle finally the terms of his treachery, Sir Henry Clinton despatched Major Andre, an Adjutant General in his army, (who had been Mrs. Arnold's correspondent, and with whom, over a feigned signature, Arnold had also corresponded,) to have an interview with the traitor, and agree upon the details of his infamous treason. They met, made their arrange. ments, and parted; Arnold to return to his post, and Andre to New York.

Before reaching that city, however, the latter was arrested by three militia men, and having been convicted by a Court Martial, was hanged as a spy. Arnold succeeded in making his escape, though not in surrendering the important post which he commanded, and his base treachery was rewarded by the British Government, with the office of a Brigadier General, and the sum of £10,000 sterling. But he was never trusted implicitly by the British, and so strong was the feeling of loathing, on the part of the British officers, of his meanness, that many of them refused to serve under him.

In the hope of securing him and bringing him to a just punishment; and with a view to save the gifted, but unfortunate Andre, from the fate he had brought

upon himself, General Washington commissioned Mr. Champe, a Sergeant Major in Major Lee's regiment, to proceed to the British camp, professedly as a deserter, and to endeavor to seize the person of Arnold. The attempt was unsuccessful.

In 1780, 81, Brant, the Mohawk chief, in conjunction with Sir John Johnson nd Walter Butler, made several incursions upon the frontier settlements, in the Schoharie and Mohawk valleys. In August, a force under Colonel Marinus Willet pursued and routed these marauders, and killed Butler, whose savage cruelties had rendered him notorious. The remaining scenes of the war of the Revolution, mostly occurred in the southern states, and therefore do not come within the scope of - this historical sketch.

In 1782, the English Government resolved to relinquish the hopeless contest with their colonies. On the 30th of November of that year, provisional articles of peace were agreed upon; and on the 25th of November, 1783, the British troops evacuated New York, and Washington, with his army, entered in triumph. On the 4th of December, Washington took an affectionate farewell of his officers; and after resigning to Congress, then in session at Annapolis, Maryland, his commission, retired to Mount Vernon, to spend the remainder of his days in retirement and domestic felicity.

Events which transpired, soon after the Revolution, demonstrated, most conclusively, that the compact, which had connected the different states of the Union together, during the war, would not suffice, to maintain that connection, in time of peace. In 1787, therefore, in accordance with a resolution of Congress, delegates were elected from this state to meet those of the other states, in convention at Philadelphia, in May, to frame a new constitution. The delegates chosen from this state, were Messrs. Yates, Lansing, and Alexander Hamilton.

The constitution prepared by this convention was not at first satisfactory to a majority of the citizens of New York. But the powerful exposition and defence of it, by Mr. Hamilton, John Jay and others, in the essays published under the title of "The Federalist," tended to bring about a change of feeling, in regard to it; and on the 26th of July, 1788, it was ratified, in convention, by the state, not, however, without the recommendation of several amendments, which were not adopted.

During this period, and until 1795, George Clinton, whose services in the Revolution had been so eminent and valuable, held the office of Governor.

A general organization act was passed, in 1788, by the legislature, dividing the state into fourteen counties, which were subdivided into townships. The western and central portions of the state, now free from the hostile inroads of savages, prospered, and rapidly increased in population and wealth.

In 1790, the difficulties, which for twenty-six years, had existed between New York and Vermont, and which had been the cause of bloodshed and bitter hostility, between the citizens of the two states, were amicably adjusted.

But for the patriotism and prudence of her leaders, Vermont would probably have been, to this day, an integral portion of the British empire. In addition to other and more patriotic motives, it cannot be denied that the jealousy of the increasing influence of the southern states in Congress, tended to predispose New York favorably, to a settlement.

Commissioners having been appointed, by both states, in 1789, met and reported in October, 1790, in favor of the payment, by Vermont, to New York, of the sum of $30,000, for the extinction of the land claims, held by the latter; and that New York, upon such payment, should relinquish all claims, either to land, or jurisdiction, in Vermont, and acquiesce in her admission to the Union. This report was approved by both states, and in 1791, Vermont was received into the confederacy.

In 1791, the agriculture of the state received a new impulse, from the organization of a society for the promotion of agriculture, arts and manufactures.

The same year, a committee was appointed by the legislature, to inquire into the most eligible method, of removing obstructions from the Hudson and Mohawk rivers. The next year, (1792,) two companies were formed, styled the Northern and Western Inland Lock Navigation companies, to improve the navigation of the Hudson and Mohawk, and to connect the Oneida and Ontario lakes with the latter, and Lake Champlain with the former. For the purpose of aiding them in this enterprise, the state became a subscriber to their stock, to the amount of $92,000. This, though productive of no great practical results, was the first step, in that system of internal improvement, so ably advocated and carried out, by the genius and perseverance of De Witt Clinton.

During this period manufactures did not prosper; and our country was supplied with most of the products of art, from England and France. In 1785, Governor Clinton having declined being a candidate for re-election to the office of Governor, John Jay, whose patriotic services in the Revolution, as a statesman, have been already noticed, was chosen his successor.

The legislature, in 1796, granted to the Oneida, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Brothertown Indians, $9852, to extinguish their title, to certain lands previously possessed by them. In 1798, Governor Jay was re-elected, and continued in office till 1801. The legislature passed, in 1801, another general organization act, by which the state was divided into thirty counties.

In 1801, a convention was called, by an act of the legislature, to amend the constitution. Colonel Aaron Burr was elected President of the convention. By the act, under which the convention assembled, they were limited, in their amendments, to two points: the first, as to the number of the members of each house of the legislature, and the second, the determination of the question, whether the right of nomination to office, should be vested exclusively in the Governor, or in the Governor and Council jointly. The convention decided upon the latter interpretation of the constitution.

The same year, 1801, Governor Jay having refused to be again a candidate for office, Governor Clinton was again elect

ed to the chief magistracy. In 1804, Governor Clinton being elected Vice President of the United States, Morgan Lewis was chosen as his successor. Daniel D. Tompkins succeeded Mr. Lewis as Governor, in 1807. The same year, Albany was made the capital of the State.

In August, 1807, Robert Fulton made his first trip with the Clermont, the first steamboat which ever plied successfully the waters of the World. In this enterprise he was aided by Robert R. Livingston, one of the most distinguished statesmen of the state or nation.

The embargo laid this year by Congress, on all American shipping, at Mr. Jefferson's recommendation, in order to counteract the injurious effects of the British orders in council, and Napoleon's Berlin and Milan decrees, bore hard upon New York, and excited much opposition, for a period.

Governor Tompkins was re-elected in 1810.

The difficulties between Great Britain and our own country, to which we have already alluded, had for several years been the subject of anxiety and bitter feeling; and every year they had assumed a more unpleasant character. In addition to the injuries already inflicted by England, on our commerce, as a neutral power, she claimed the right to search our merchant vessels; and if her officers found on board of them, men, whom they chose to regard as British subjects, they seized them and compelled them to serve in their navy.

Our government. remonstrated, but remonstrances proved unavailing; the outrage upon our national flag was repeated. Under these circumstances our statesmen conceived that they had no alternative, but to declare war upon that nation. Accordingly, on the 19th of June, 1812, the President, being duly authorized by Congress, proclaimed war against Great Britain,

Deeming it of the greatest importance to subjugate the Canadas, and thus deprive the enemy of their strong holds, measures were taken to concentrate a large force on the northern frontier of this state, and the eastern border of Michigan,

General Dearborne was appointed to the command of the forces, and by his direction, General Harrison assumed the command of the north western division, making Detroit his headquarters. General Stephen Van Rensselaer, having his headquarters at Lewistown, commanded the central division, and the commander-in-chief, the eastern, making Plattsburg his place of rendezvous.

There are three other competitors for the honor of introducing steamboat navigation to the notice of the world, viz. John Fitch, of Hartford, Conn., Robert L. Stevens, of New York, and Mr. Evans, of Philadelphia. All undoubtedly deserve credit for the construction of vessels propelled by steam; but it is believed that to Fulton and Livingston belongs the honor of having demonstrated the practicability and advantages of this mode of navigation.

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