NEW BRUNSWICK-NEW CONNECTICUT They landed and distributed themselves tance. These orders failed of execution. through the town, and, under the pretence On the morning of the 22d the column of looking for Northern Indians, broke of Germans, under De Heister, began its into several dwellings in search of Van march towards Amboy. The corps of Dyck. The people immediately assembled Cornwallis moved more slowly, for it had at the fort, and summoned the leaders of to cross the Raritan over a narrow bridge, the invasion before them. The Indians near the end of which stood Howe, on agreed to leave the city before sunset. They broke their promise, and in the evening shot Van Dyck. The inhabitants flew to arms, and drove the Indians to their canoes. They crossed the Hudson and ravaged New Jersey and also Staten Island. Within three days 100 white people were killed, and 150 were made captives. See NEW NETHERLAND; NEW YORK. high ground, watching the movements. Greene had a battery of three guns on a hill, but too far distant to be effective. When more than one-half of Cornwallis's column had passed the bridge, his pickets were fiercely attacked by Morgan with his riflemen, and were driven back upon the main column. Howe instantly put himself at the head of the two nearest regiments to meet the attack, when a sharp skirmish for half an hour occurred. The British artillery, having been brought to bear on Morgan's corps, swept the woods with grape-shot and caused the riflemen to retreat. Between fifty and 100 of the British were killed or wounded. The rest of their march to Amboy was unobstructed. New Brunswick, SKIRMISH AT. In June, 1777, Sir William Howe tried to out general Washington in New Jersey, but failed, and was compelled to retreat. Washington held Howe firmly in check at and near New Brunswick, on the Raritan; and on June 20 the former, with his army at Middlebrook, learned that his antagonist was preparing to fall back to Amboy. Hoping to cut off his rear- New Connecticut. Sixteen of the newguard, Washington ordered (June 21) ly formed townships on the eastern side Maxwell to lie between New Brunswick of the Connecticut River, wishing to esand Amboy, and Sullivan to join Greene cape the heavy burden of taxes imposed near the former place, while the main by the Revolutionary War, applied to isobody should rest within supporting dis- lated and independent Vermont to be re ceived as a part of that State. They on a large island abounding with grapes, were adopted (1779) under the pretence which they named Martin's (corrupted that, by Mason's patent of New Hamp- to Martha's) Vineyard. shire, that State extended only 60 miles inland, and that those towns were west of that limit. As Vermont yet hoped to be admitted to the Union, and the Continental Congress, disapproving of the proceeding, sent a committee to inquire into the matter, the connection with the New Hampshire towns was very soon dissolved. An ineffectual attempt was then made (June, 1779) by the towns on both sides of the river to constitute themselves into a State, with the title of "New Connecticut." New Hampshire retaliated by renewing her old claim to the territory of Vermont as the New Hampshire Grants (see NEW HAMPSHIRE). Very soon Vermont began to act on the offensive. The towns on the east bank of the river that were to form a part of New Connecticut were again received as a part of Vermont, and along with them all the new townships of New York east of the Hudson and north of the Massachusetts line. Returning to England at the end of six months, Pring confirmed Gosnold's account of the country. This led to other expeditions; and in 1605 the Earl of Southampton and Lord Arundel fitted out a vessel and placed it under the command of George Weymouth, another friend of Raleigh, who had explored the coasts of Labrador in search of a northwest passage to India. He sailed from England in March, 1605, taking the shorter passage pursued by Gosnold; but storms delayed him so that it was six weeks before he saw the American coast at Nantucket. Turning northward, he sailed up a large river 40 miles and set up crosses. He then entered Penobscot Bay, where he opened traffic with the natives. At length Weymouth thought he observed signs of treachery on the part of the Indians, and he determined to resent the affront. He invited some of the leading Indians to a feast on board of his vessel, but only three New England. Sir Humphrey Gilbert of the cautious natives appeared. These (1583) and Bartholomew Gosnold (1602) he made drunk, and confined them in his visited the New England coast, and the vessel. Then he went on shore with a box latter planted a temporary colony there. of trinkets and tried in vain to induce The account given by Gosnold excited de- some of them to go to the vessel; so Weysires on the part of friends of Sir Walter mouth and his men seized two of them, Raleigh to make new efforts to found set- and, after great exertion, they were taken tlements in America, especially in the to the ship, with two handsome birch-bark northeastern parts. Richard Hakluyt, canoes. "It was as much as five or six who was learned in naval and commercial science (see HAKLUYT, RICHARD), Martin Pring, and Bartholomew Gosnold, all friends of Raleigh, induced merchants of Bristol to fit out two ships in the spring Then the anchor was raised, the vessel of 1603 to visit the coasts discovered by sailed to England, and three of the capGosnold. Early in April (a fortnight tives were given to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, after the death of Queen Elizabeth), the governor of Plymouth. This outrage left Speedwell, of 50 tons, and the Discoverer, on the shores of New England the seeds of 26 tons, sailed from Milford Haven under much future trouble with the natives. By the command of Pring, who commanded these voyages and explorations all doubts the larger vessel in person. William about the commercial value of every part Browne was master of the Discoverer, of North America were definitely settled, accompanied by Robert Galterns as super- and led to the almost immediate execution cargo or general agent of the expedition. of a vast plan for colonizing the shores They entered Penobscot Bay early in June, of the Western Continent by obtaining and went up the Penobscot River some from King James I. a patent for a dodistance; then, sailing along the coast, main extending from lat. 34° to 45° N. they entered the mouths of the Saco and This territory was divided, and two comother principal streams of Maine; and panies were formed to settle it-one called finally, sailing southward, they landed the "London Company," and the other of us could do to get them into the boat," wrote Weymouth, "for they were strong, and so naked that our best hold was by the hair of their heads." Prince Charles (afterwards Charles I.), a young man of considerable literary ability and artistic taste. Sir Francis Drake had given the name of New Albion (New England) to the region of the continent which he had discovered on the Pacific coast, and the region now discovered by Smith on the Atlantic coast, opposite Drake's New Albion, was, out of respect to that great navigator, called "New England," or New Albion. It has been so called ever since. the "Plymouth Company." The latter islands, and headlands, Captain Smith company, destined to settle the northern constructed a map, which he laid before portion, possessing much narrower resources than the other, its efforts were proportionably more feeble and inadequate. Some visits to and slight explorations of the region were made during six or seven years by the Plymouth Company after obtaining their charter, but discouragements ensued. At length the restless Captain Smith, who did not remain long idle after his return from Virginia in 1609, induced four London merchants to join him in fitting out two ships for the purpose of discovery and traffic in northern Virginia, the domain of the Plymouth Company. It includes the country from 20 miles east of the Hudson River and the eastern shores of Lake Champlain to the eastern With these ships Smith left the Downs boundary of the United States, and inat the beginning of March, 1614, Capt. cludes the States of Maine, New Hamp Thomas Hunt commanding one of the shire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Convessels, and he the other. They first landed on Mohegan Island, 20 miles south of the mouth of the Penobscot River, where they sought whales but found none. Leaving most of the crew to pursue ordinary fishing, Smith had seven small boats built, in which he and eight men ranged the coast from Penobscot eastward and westward. They went as far south as Cape Cod, bartering with the natives for beaver and other furs. They went up the several rivers some distance in the interior, and after an absence of seven months the expedition returned to England. From his observations of the coasts, necticut, and Vermont. Smith named the promontory at the north entrance to Massachusetts Bay Tragabigzanda, in compliment to a Turkish lady to whom he had been a slave in Constantinople. Prince Charles, however, in filial regard for his mother (Anne of Denmark), named it Cape Anne. Smith gave his name to a cluster of islands, which were afterwards named Isles of Shoals. These and other places, changed from names given by Smith, still retain their new names. The crime of Weymouth was repeated on this expedition. Captain Smith left Hunt, an avaricious and profligate man, to finish the lading of his vessel with fish, and instructed him to take the cargo to Malaga, Spain, for a market. Hunt sailed along the New England coast, and at Cape Cod he enticed a chief named Squanto and twenty-six of his tribe on board his vessel and treacherously carried them to Spain, where all but two of them were sold for slaves. Some benevolent friars took them to be educated for missionaries among the Indians, but only two (one of them Squanto) returned to America. The natives on the New England coast were greatly exasperated; and when, the same year, another English vessel came to those shores to traffic, bringing with them the two kidnapped natives, the latter united with their countrymen in a measure of revenge. In twenty canoes the Indians attacked the Englishmen with arrows, wounding the master of the ship and several others of the company, and the adventurers hastened back to England. The natives of New England long remembered these outrages. The magistrates and ministers, in the early days of the New England colonies, undertook to regulate by law the morals and manners of the people, and made statutes which to-day appear absurd, but were then regarded as essential to the well-being of society. The PURITANS (q. v.) were not only rigid moralists, but inflexible bigots and absurd egotists. They must be judged by the age and the circumstances in which they lived. Among many excellent laws were scattered some of equivocal utility, like the following: They doomed to banishment, and, in case of return, to death, Jesuits, Romish priests, and Quakers. All persons were forbidden to run, or even to walk, "except reverently to and from church," on Sunday, or to profane the day by sweeping their houses, cooking their food, or shaving their beards. Mothers were commanded not to kiss their children on that holy day. Burglars and robbers suffered the extra punishment of having an ear cut off if their crime was committed on Sunday. Blasphemy and idolatry were punishable by death; so also were witchcraft and perjury directed against human life. All gaming was prohibited. The importation of cards and dice was forbidden. Assemblies for dancing were pro scribed. A Massachusetts law, passed in 1646, made kissing a woman in the street, even in the way of honest salutation, punishable by flogging. No one was allowed to keep a tavern unless possessed of a good character and competent estate. Persons wearing apparel which a grand jury should account disproportionate to their positions were to be first admonished, and, if contumacious, fined. Every woman who should cut her hair like a man's, or suffer it to hang loosely upon her face, was fined. Idleness, swearing, and drunkenness were visited with restraining penalties. In the earlier records of Massachusetts it is revealed that John Wedgewood, for being in the company of drunkards, was to be set in the stocks. Catharine, wife of Richard Cornish, was suspected of incontinence, and seriously admonished to take heed. Thomas Pitt, on suspicion of slander, idleness, and stubbornness, was sentenced to be severely whipped. Captain Lovell was admonished to take heed of light carriage. Josias Plaistowe, for stealing four baskets of corn from the Indians, was ordered to "return them eight baskets, to be fined five pounds, and thereafter to be called by the name of Josias, and not Mr., as formerly he used to be." Expansion and aggression were two conspicuous characteristics of the New England colonists. The Plymouth people early sought to plant outlying settlements on the Eastern coasts; and after the beautiful country along Long Island Sound, west of the Pequod (Thames) River, was revealed to the New-Englanders, they planted a settlement at New Haven and, pushing westward, crowded the Dutch not only on the mainland, but on Long Island. In 1639, Lewis Gardiner purchased an island still known as Gardiner's Island, at the east end of Long Island; and James Farrett, sent out by the Earl of Stirling (see ALEXANDER, SIR WILLIAM), took possession of Shelter Island, near by, at the same time claiming the whole of Long Island. In 1640 a company from Lynn, Mass., led by Capt. Daniel Howe, attempted a settlement at Cow Neck, in North Hempstead, Long Island, when they tore down the arms of the Prince of Orange which they found upon a tree, and carved in place of the shield a grinning face. Howe and his and only a few years later, Hempstead, companions were driven off by the Dutch, Jamaica, Flushing, Southampton, East and settled on the eastern extremity of Hampton, Brookhaven, Huntington, and Long Island. Some New Haven people Oyster Bay were settled by the English took possession of Southold, on the Sound; and some of them were united to Connecti |