Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net.
[Illustration: The Imperial Austrian Councillors are thrown out of the
window of the castle of the Hradschin, at Prague, by the enraged
Bohemian Deputies, thus precipitating the Thirty Years' War
Painting by Vacslav Brozik]
THE GREAT EVENTS
BY
FAMOUS HISTORIANS
A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS
NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL
ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
NARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.
JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
_With a staff of specialists_
_VOLUME XI_
[Illustration: Decorative]
The National Alumni
COPYRIGHT, 1905,
BY THE NATIONAL ALUMNI
CONTENTS
VOLUME XI
PAGE
_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_, xiii
CHARLES F. HORNE
_Henry Hudson Explores the Hudson River (A.D. 1609)_, 1
HENRY R. CLEVELAND
_Galileo Overthrows Ancient Philosophy_
_The Telescope and Its Discoveries (A.D. 1610)_, 14
SIR OLIVER LODGE
_The Beginning of British Power in India (A.D. 1612)_, 30
BECKLES WILLSON
_The Dutch Settlement of New York (A.D. 1614)_, 44
DAVID T. VALENTINE
_Harvey Discovers the Circulation of the Blood (A.D. 1616)_, 50
THOMAS H. HUXLEY
_The "Defenestration" at Prague (A.D. 1618)_
_The Thirty Years War_, 62
SAMUEL R. GARDINER
CHARLES F. HORNE
_The First American Legislature (A.D. 1619)_, 76
CHARLES CAMPBELL
_Introduction of Negroes into Virginia (A.D. 1619)_
_Spread of Slavery and Cultivation of Tobacco_, 81
CHARLES CAMPBELL
JOHN M. LUDLOW
_English Pilgrims Settle at Plymouth (A.D. 1620)_, 93
JOHN S. BARRY
_The Birth of Modern Scientific Methods (A.D. 1620)_
_Bacon and Descartes_, 116
GEORGE HENRY LEWES
_Siege of La Rochelle (A.D. 1627)_
_Richelieu Rules France_, 129
ANDREW D. WHITE
_The Great Puritan Exodus to New England_
_The Founding of Boston (A.D. 1630)_, 153
JOHN G. PALFREY
_Triumph and Death of Gustavus Adolphus at Luetzen (A.D. 1632)_, 174
BENJAMIN CHAPMAN
_Recantation of Galileo (A.D. 1633)_, 184
SIR OLIVER LODGE
_The Educational Reform of Comenius (A.D. 1638)_, 192
SIMON SOMERVILLE LAURIE
_The First Written Free Constitution in the World (A.D. 1639)_
_Earliest Union among American Colonies (A.D. 1643)_, 205
GIDEON H. HOLLISTER
JOHN MARSHALL
_Abolition of the Court of Star-chamber (A.D. 1641)_
_The Popular Revolt against Charles I_, 215
HENRY HALLAM
LORD MACAULAY
_The Founding of Montreal (A.D. 1642)_, 232
ALFRED SANDHAM
_Presbyterianism Established_
_Meeting of the Westminster Assembly (A.D. 1643)_, 238
DAVID MASSON
_Masaniello's Revolt at Naples (A.D. 1647)_, 253
ALFRED VON REUMONT
_The Peace of Westphalia (A.D. 1648)_
_The War of the Fronde_, 285
ARTHUR HASSALL
_Religious Toleration Proclaimed in Maryland (A.D. 1649)_, 303
G. L. DAVIS
_The Great Civil War in England_
_The Execution of Charles I (A.D. 1649)_, 311
LORD MACAULAY
CHARLES KNIGHT
_Cromwell's Campaign in Ireland (A.D. 1649)_, 335
FREDERIC HARRISON
_Molière Creates Modern Comedy (A.D. 1659)_, 347
HENRI VAN LAUN
_Cromwell's Rule in England_
_The Restoration (A.D. 1660)_, 357
THOMAS CARLYLE
JOHN RICHARD GREEN
SAMUEL PEPYS
_Universal Chronology (A.D. 1609-1660)_, 387
JOHN RUDD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME XI
PAGE
_The imperial Austrian Councillors are thrown out of the
window of the castle of Hradschin by the enraged Bohemian
Deputies, thus precipitating the Thirty Years' War (page
65)_, Frontispiece
Painting by Vacslaw Brezik.
_Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock_, 106
Painting by A. Gisbert.
AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE
TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF
THE GREAT EVENTS
(ERA OF POLITICAL-RELIGIOUS WARS)
CHARLES F. HORNE
Gazing across the broader field of universal history, one comes more and
more to overlook the merely temporary, constantly shifting border lines
of states, and to see Western Europe as a whole, to watch its nations as
a single people guided by similar developments of the mind, impelled by
similar stirrings of the heart, taking part in but a single story, the
marvellous tale of man's advance.
This sense of an all-enfolding unity, an ever-advancing common destiny,
sinks weakest perhaps in the period we now approach. The nations seem
sharply separated in their careers. In the preceding age the power of
Spain and the fanaticism of its monarch, Philip II, had made the
reëstablishment of Catholicism the dominant question throughout Europe.
But in 1609 Philip III of Spain abandoned his father's attempt to
conquer Holland and again enforce a universal religion. In 1610 Henry IV
of France, who had brought peace and amity out of the savage religious
wars within his own realm, fell under an assassin's knife. These two
events may be accepted as marking a turn in the current of the world, a
change in the thoughts of men. The next half-century saw wars indeed,
bloody and bitter wars, but they were no longer primarily religious. The
strife was more than half political, and men of opposite faiths found
themselves at times allied upon the battle-field. The feeling of
religious brotherhood grew weaker, that of political allegiance
stronger.
GROWTH OF NATIONAL SPIRIT
The triumph of Holland had much to do with this. During almost a
generation the Catholics of the Southern Netherlands had been united
with the Protestants of the Northern Provinces in desperate war against
the tyranny of Spain; and though only Holland finally achieved
independence, her people could scarce forget their long brotherhood with
the Catholic South. And now Holland was a republic, her people were
self-governing! Looking with prophetic vision into the future, we may
assert that this was only the first step toward a broader union of all
the nations when every man shall be self-governing, and hence all shall
be equal and united and progressive. But for its own time at least the
freedom of Holland was a sharp influence toward division among the
people of Europe, toward the establishment of differences, the growth of
national as opposed to universal brotherhood.
There was, to be sure, an earlier republic in Europe, Switzerland. But
the Swiss maintained themselves by their isolation, their remoteness
from other nations and from one another in their bleak mountain valleys.
The Dutch, on the contrary, inhabited a flat sea-coast; they were
traders; their very existence depended on intercourse with other lands.
Hence they had to be ever alert in defence of their hard-won freedom.
The spirit of nationality, of patriotism grew strong within them. At one
time they had been members of the German empire; at another, subjects of
France, of Burgundy, of Spain. Now they were Hollanders, a distinct
nation by themselves, and an example to all others of what a united land
of men might do.
France also had learned a stronger sense of nationality from her
hero-king, Henry IV. Always, through all his religious wars, he had
insisted that he was king of all Frenchmen, both Catholic and
Protestant, and would be a father to them all. He withdrew his
Protestant army from besieging Paris when the surrender of the city
seemed certain, abandoned his triumph "lest Frenchmen starve."
Englishmen, too, in the age of Elizabeth, had learned to regard
themselves not only as different from but as far superior to men of
other races. Spain both by her victories and by her sufferings had
opened a gap between her people and others. Only Germany, through her
very importance and vague imperial predominance over the surrounding
lands, failed to find within herself that necessity for union which made
other kingdoms strong.
By this internal division Germany was now plunged into the awful tragedy
of the Thirty Years' War, a partly political, partly religious contest
in which all the nations of Europe by degrees took some part. Thus the
war forms to a certain extent a centre around which the movements of the
age are grouped. England also had her great religious strife, her
Puritan revolution, which collapsed in 1660. Yet on the whole the age is
political even more than religious, and the ablest statesman of the day,
Richelieu, the most successful guardian France has ever known, reaped
for his own land all the benefits of the world-wide turmoil. France,
which had so often seemed on the point of assuming the foremost place in
Europe and had been so often checked, now advanced definitely to the
front. The Bourbons, descendants of Henry IV, took the rank of the
decaying Hapsburg family as the chief rulers of Europe. Historians often
call this the age of Richelieu.
DECAY OF THE HAPSBURG POWER
Spain and Austria, the two great Hapsburg states, both decayed in power.
Italy, the Hapsburg dependent, lost the last vestiges of her ancient
intellectual supremacy. Everywhere the South of Europe gave place to the
North.
The blight of the Inquisition was upon Spain. The Moors were banished,
the Jews were banished; and it had been the industry of these two races
which had largely supported the pride and laziness of the hidalgos. In
Italy, too, the Inquisition held sway. Galileo with his telescope
revealed facts which proved the theories of Copernicus, and made
impossible the ancient idea that our earth was the centre of the
universe.[1] All Europe rang with his discoveries; but the Church
refused to understand, forbade him to teach doctrines which it declared
heretical. For a time the astronomer's mouth was closed, but not so the
minds of those who had listened to him. In England, where thought was
free, Harvey founded medical science by his proof of the circulation of
the blood;[2] the Lord Chancellor Bacon wrote his celebrated _Novum
Organum_, pointing out to modern investigators the methods they must
follow. In Germany Comenius revitalized the dead world of education.[3]
In France Descartes created within his own mind a revolution scarce less
important than that of Luther. He freed philosophy from its thraldom to
religion. He bade the mind of man to stand by itself, lone in the midst
of an unmeasured universe, and discover of what one thing it could feel
assured by its own unbiassed thought. His famous first conclusion, "I
think, therefore I exist," stands as the corner-stone of modern
philosophy.[4]
Meanwhile Galileo, roused by the encouragement of scientific friends,
began a second time with infinite wit and sarcasm to expound and defend
his doctrines. The Church took him more sternly in hand. He was
imprisoned by the Inquisition and emerged from its dark chambers a
broken and silent man. Philosophy, terrified, fled from Italy, not to
return until over two centuries of the world's advance had prepared for
her a less barbaric greeting.[5]
Southern Italy was ruled by viceroys from Spain, but so feeble had the
Hapsburg grip become that Masaniello, a fisherman of Naples, was able to
rouse his city against its tyrants, and for over a year Spain was unable
to reëstablish her authority. When she did, it was only by the treachery
of the peasant leaders who had succeeded the murdered Masaniello.[6]
The internal decay of Spain and the lassitude of her two feeble
sovereigns, Philip III (1598-1621) and Philip IV (1621-1665), prevented
her from rendering any material assistance to Austria, where the other
branch of the Hapsburgs, descendants of Charles V's brother Ferdinand,
were reduced to struggle for their very existence. Ferdinand and his
immediate successor as Emperor of Germany had kept the religious peace
carefully, and Germany had prospered. But then came new emperors who
repudiated their methods--Ferdinand had been deemed by the Church little
better than a Protestant. In 1608 the Protestant princes, becoming
suspicious, formed a league for mutual defence. The Catholics under
Maximilian of Bavaria formed an answering league in 1609. They almost
came to open war that year over a disputed succession in one of the
smaller duchies, the Protestants appealing to Holland for help and the
Catholics to Spain. Fortunately the terrible example of the civil wars
they had seen in France, held them back for a time. But always there
were arising new grounds for quarrel.
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
In 1618 the actual war began. A new leader, Ferdinand II, young and
intensely Catholic, had risen to guide the Hapsburg fortunes in Austria,
had successfully forced that land to resume the old religion, and now
aimed to do the same in Bohemia. The Bohemians, famed fanatics of the
unforgotten Hussite wars, broke into open rebellion, threw Ferdinand's
ministers through a window, and so roused the war that ruined
Germany.[7]
Ferdinand became Emperor of Germany the next year (1619), and called the
Catholic league to his aid in Bohemia. The rebels elected as king one of
the German electors, a son-in-law of the King of England, and head of
the Protestant league. Slowly, unwillingly, the various German states,
and the surrounding countries also, found themselves dragged into the
struggle. At first Emperor Ferdinand was successful, Bohemia was
completely subdued and made Catholic, as Austria had been. A great
general and shrewd contriver, Wallenstein, rose to the Emperor's aid and
laid Germany prostrate at his feet. For a moment the Hapsburgs seemed as
all-powerful as in the proudest days of Charles V. But his own
coreligionists turned against Ferdinand. The princes of the Catholic
league grew frightened; he was indeed crushing Protestantism, but he was
trampling on their rights as well. They fell away from his alliance.
Richelieu, also dreading the Hapsburg aggrandizement, brought France to
take part in the war. Sweden's hero-king Gustavus Adolphus invaded
Germany to defend the Protestant faith. He won splendid victories, but
at last fell in his supreme battle at Luetzen, from which Wallenstein's
troops fled defeated (1632).[8]
The war had now lasted fourteen years. The Emperor could raise no more
armies. His one able general, Wallenstein, was slain as a traitor.
Germany was exhausted. Yet because no one power would consent to the
others' proposed terms of peace, the war dragged on and on, in such
feeble fashion as it could. Its misery fell almost wholly upon the
unhappy peasantry. The armies of both sides lived upon the country; what
they could not devour they destroyed, lest it be of use to the enemy.
Germany became a desert, and its people starved amid their desolated
homes. The troops, brutalized by long familiarity with suffering,
tortured their captives to extort money or sometimes, it would seem, for
the mere pleasure of the sport.
The Emperor Ferdinand died in the midst of the hideous ruin he had
wrought. The Swedes, who had long abandoned the high principles of
Gustavus, demanded territory as the price of peace. So did France. At
last in 1648 the Peace of Westphalia was arranged. By it France became
the foremost state of Europe; Sweden became one of the great powers;
England, engrossed in her own civil war, could pull no chestnuts from
the fire; but the German empire fell practically to pieces. Switzerland
and Holland were formally declared outside of it. Each little prince got
what increase of power he wanted, and the authority of the empire
disappeared. The Hapsburgs still retained their title as its heads, but
their real authority was confined entirely to their personal domains,
Austria, Bohemia, and such part of Hungary as they could hold against
the Turks.[9]
Historians tell us that in those terrible thirty years the population of
Germany had dwindled from thirty million to only twelve million; nearly
two-thirds of its common people had perished, mostly of starvation. The
stored-up wealth of ages had been destroyed. The very character of the
race had changed, broken from its old hardihood to temporary feebleness
and fawning. The land had been set back an entire century, perhaps two,
in its advance toward civilization. That is what war means. That is
glory!
RULE OF RICHELIEU
Meanwhile France, profiting by the feebleness of her neighbors, had made
great strides. At first the death of Henry IV had threatened her with
the old anarchy. Louis XIII, Henry's son, was but a child; the
Queen-mother, who became regent, was an Italian, Marie de' Medici, and
devoted to the Spanish interests. The Huguenots feared renewed
persecution. The nobles of the court grasped after renewed power.
In such turmoil was the land that it seemed necessary to summon the
"States-General," the assembly of all the notables of France, the last
one to be called until that eventful year of 1789. The States-General
talked and dissolved, having done nothing but reveal that there was one
capable man among its members, a young bishop who was to be a cardinal,
Richelieu. His plans for reform and pacification were not adopted, but
he drew the attention of the Queen Regent and became her chief adviser,
later the chief adviser of the King.
Richelieu did four things for France. He broke the power of the
Huguenots, who had become a political party, and a very troublesome one,
a state within a state, independent and defiant, with their impenetrable
capital at La Rochelle. After one of the most remarkable sieges of
history Richelieu captured La Rochelle, crushed the resistance of the
Huguenots by repeated defeats elsewhere, and then--granted them complete
religious freedom![10]
It is one of the epochs of the world, the beginning of toleration not
through force, but through free-will. A Catholic and a cardinal, having
complete power to force these Protestants to his will, bids them worship
as they choose, asking only that they become patriotic Frenchmen.
Next Richelieu humbled the great nobles of France, hanging them when
they disobeyed his laws. Next by his part in the Thirty Years' War he
won territory from both Germany and Spain. He was by no means the first
Catholic ruler thus to seek Protestant allies; Francis I and Henry II
had both done so in France; in Germany Charles V had sent a Lutheran
army against the Pope. But it was Richelieu's successful adherence to
this plan that positively and finally relegated religion to a minor
place in statecraft, and made nationality, political supremacy, what
some have called "vainglory," the foremost impulse.
Last, not least, in Richelieu's brilliant career, is to be noted that he
revived literature in France. He created the "French Academy," the
"forty immortals" in whose successors Paris still takes pride to-day.
The French drama was born. Corneille wrote _The Cid_, and the Cardinal
himself took his pen and attempted to produce a better tragedy. Comedy,
too, arose. Molière began the marvellous career which a little later was
to make him the undying idol of the stage in France.[11]
Nor did Richelieu's death (1642) turn his country from the triumphant
course toward which he had led the way. His King died with him, and his
power passed to another cardinal, Mazarin, ruling for another baby-king,
who was to be Louis XIV. Mazarin found himself confronting an almost
similar situation to that which had followed the death of Henry IV.
There was a child upon the throne; an incapable queen-mother as regent,
foreign, and friendly to the Spaniards; the nobles grasped after power;
Paris grumbled under taxation. Mazarin had even to face a feeble,
frivolous civil war against himself, the Fronde.[12] But he soon
established his supremacy, secured for France in 1648 all she had earned
out of the war with Germany, and then ruled with firm hand, bringing
wealth and peace and prosperity to the state until his death in 1661.
Richelieu and Mazarin made possible that most spectacular period of all
French history which immediately followed under Louis XIV.
THE PURITAN REVOLUTION
Turn now to England, to see why she had held so apart from the
continental struggles of the period. James I, her Scotch king of 1603,
had indeed interfered a bit in the Thirty Years' War, seeking to aid
his unlucky son-in-law, the King of Bohemia. But James had soon found
difficulties enough at home. The Elizabethan age had made Englishmen
feel very highly their individual importance. Each man, through the
entire social scale down even to the peasantry, had felt a personal
interest, a personal pride in the repulse of the Spaniards and the
upholding of the Queen. She tyrannized over them as a woman; they
defended her as men. But when this foreigner, this Scotch king, came to
rule them, they saw no need to yield him such exact obedience. Freedom
of thought had brought with it new political ideas, and men talked much
of the authority of Parliament and their right to tax themselves. James,
on the contrary, had a large conception of the "divine right" of kings,
not to be restricted by any law whatever, and a still larger opinion of
his own personal ability and unfailing wisdom. Gradually there grew up a
distinct opposition between King and Parliament, centring always on that
one question--who should lay the taxes, that is, who provide the income
of the King? The English revolution, like the American one to follow,
gave to principles far more noble in themselves the air of a mere money
dispute.
James, dying in 1625, left a very pretty quarrel to his son. Charles I,
more able and kingly than his father, but equally obstinate, equally
devoted to the Stuart doctrine of a king's divinity, finally endeavored
to rule without summoning any of these arguing parliaments. To
accomplish this he had to gather money by other methods, declared
illegal by his people. Always appealing to the law, they grew more and
more bitter as Charles turned it against them, putting in office judges
who would do his will, reëstablishing the ancient Court of Star-Chamber,
with its power to torture witnesses.
Moreover, there was growing up in England a type of more extreme
Protestantism. The English Church had retained many of the forms of
Rome, including its hierarchal system of priests and bishops. These were
dear to the hearts of the Stuart kings, whose Protestantism had never
been very radical. The Scotch Church, on the other hand, had swung far
from Rome indeed, and many Protestants everywhere refused to have any
priestly interpreter intervene between them and their own consciences,
their own beliefs. In England these men came to be called Puritans.
They were deeply earnest; religion was ever in their thoughts; they had
protested even against the wickedness of the theatre in Shakespeare's
time; and now as they watched the light frivolity of the court they
became imbittered. They called Charles the "man of sin." Round these
stern fanatics began to centre the general opposition to the King.
At length the Scotch Protestants broke into open revolt, and the King
found he must have help, must summon a parliament at last. That was the
beginning of the end. The Englishmen who gathered at his call were in no
pleasant mood. They at once took steps to secure other parliaments to
follow immediately on their own. All Charles' encroachments on the law
were overturned; his courts, Star-Chamber and others, were abolished;
his chief minister was declared a traitor and beheaded.[13] The King,
helpless, infuriated, raised the standard of civil war (1642).
The strife was thus in its inception political; but it soon became
religious as well. Since the King was the head of the English Church,
most of its members rallied round him. The Puritans in Parliament
secured the calling of a convention to settle the various religious
questions before the nation. This "Westminster Assembly" established the
Presbyterian Church.[14]
The less extreme members of the opposition to the King grew doubtful;
they saw whither the Puritans would lead them. The war became one of
stern religious fanaticism against gallant reckless Cavalier loyalty--of
the middle classes against the aristocracy and their servitors. Cromwell
rose as the type and model of the Puritans. Under his lead they defeated
the Cavaliers and executed their King. Charles perished on the scaffold,
and England, following Holland's lead, was declared a republic. This was
in 1649, the year after the Peace of Westphalia.[15]
Cromwell remained practically the ruler of England. He defeated the
Scotch, and compelled them to submit to England's sway. He went over to
Ireland and stamped out revolt there, terrorized the land as no
Englishman had ever done before, establishing English colonists,
Protestants, over a considerable portion of its soil.[16] Secure of
power at home, the mighty leader began next to take a part in European
affairs, raising England to higher consideration than she had held even
in Elizabeth's time. Yet toward the end he must have realized that he
had failed in his life's dream, that England was unfitted to be the
united religious republic he had hoped to make her. Even before his
death the land was broken into endless factions, the majority
dissatisfied with the strictness of Puritan rule, a small minority eager
to go much further with its severity. Cromwell found himself compelled
to dissolve his parliaments as autocratically as ever Charles had done;
and when he died, when his iron hand dropped from the helm, no man knew
what was to follow. No one wanted war. Each little wrangling party
looked a different way for peace and security. At length the majority
agreed to call back their Stuart kings. Charles II, son of the Charles I
they had beheaded, was voluntarily replaced upon the English throne.
Religion had once more proved inefficient as the central principle of
government.[17]
ACQUISITION OF COLONIAL POSSESSIONS
Equally important for the future, though not for their own day, were the
movements toward colonization in this period. Even while their war with
Spain was in progress the Dutch merchants had begun to look for
trading-stations in the distant seas. Following the Portuguese, they
sailed around Africa, and wrenched from their feeble predecessors most
of the Indian trade. They took possession of the Eastern isles, Java and
Sumatra. In the very year of the truce, 1609, they turned their
attention westward and sent Henry Hudson to explore the American
coast.[18] Claiming possession of the river he had found, they built
settlements at Albany and New York.[19]
England was their chief rival on the seas. Her ships followed theirs to
India and fought with them, refusing to be dispossessed like the
Portuguese.[20] The English colonists at Jamestown had preceded the
Dutch in defiance of Spain and the denial of her claims upon America.
England and Holland quarrelled for the carrying trade of the world. They
became the two foremost naval powers, and in Cromwell's time fought a
fierce and vigorous naval war. The two Protestant champions of Europe
wasting their strength one against the other for commercial causes!
Clearly indeed do we approach an age when religion becomes of little
international prominence.
France also had the colonizing fever. Henry IV had sent an expedition to
Quebec. Richelieu authorized one which settled Montreal, destined to be
the chief metropolis of Canada.[21]
These early settlements had been movements authorized by their
governments, encouraged by the parent state for its own purposes; but
now there began a civilization very different in character. Some of the
English Puritans finding the oppressive hand of King James I fall heavy
upon them, extracted from his ministers a half-unwilling permission to
settle on his American lands. So came the famous voyage of the Mayflower
and the building of Plymouth on the Massachusetts coast.[22] King James
had been a foster-father to the Virginia colony, he had drawn up a set
of laws for it with his own hand, and when these failed he had granted
it a local assembly of its own, the beginning of representative
government in America.[23] Virginia was prospering. Slavery was
introduced there in 1619 and, much to the royal patron's disgust, the
cultivation of tobacco as well.[24] Soon the new colony was supplying
the world with tobacco.
But the nest of Puritans farther north could expect no such favor from
James. As the hand of oppression grew ever heavier at home, the
Puritans, not yet dreaming of escape by rebellion, looked more and more
thoughtfully to the land beyond the sea. They planned to expatriate
themselves almost in a body. A great preliminary fleet carrying over a
thousand souls left England in 1630 and settled Boston.[25]
During the next ten years twenty thousand Puritans came to
Massachusetts. This was colonization on a scale hitherto unconceived. A
new and powerful commonwealth burst suddenly into being where the
primeval wilderness had so lately been. And it was a commonwealth
rebellious from the start. When the civil war broke out in England
against Charles, large numbers of the Massachusetts men hurried back to
take grim part in it. In America the rule of England became little more
than a name. Other colonies were formed both north and south, and they
stood by themselves with no mother-country to uphold them. They grew
strong through wrestling with the wilderness. Connecticut was settled
from Massachusetts, and its pioneers, seeing no arm of authority long
enough to reach them, drew up a code of laws of their own, the first
written constitution prepared by a free people for their own
government.[26] A few years later we find the New England colonies
uniting in a union for defence against the Indians--and, if necessary,
against King Charles' tyranny as well.[27] Maryland was settled by
English Catholics who had found themselves as oppressed as the Puritans
at home, and there the assembly of burghers proclaimed religious
toleration to all who joined them.[28] Surely the New World had
something to teach the Old! Only Europe's brightest and bravest and best
had ventured to cross the seas for the freedom they desired. It was with
good material indeed, and after sore experience of European blunders,
that the land beyond the ocean began its remarkable career.
[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME XII]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See _Galileo Overthrows Ancient Philosophy_, page 14.
[2] See _Harvey Discovers the Circulation of the Blood_, page 50.
[3] See _Educational Reform of Comenius_, page 192.
[4] See _Birth of Modern Scientific Methods: Bacon and Descartes_,
page 116.
[5] See _Recantation of Galileo_, page 184.
[6] See _Masaniello's Revolt at Naples_, page 253.
[7] See _The "Defenestration" at Prague: The Thirty Years' War_,
page 62.
[8] See _Triumph and Death of Gustavus Adolphus at Luetzen_,
page 174.
[9] See _Peace of Westphalia_, page 285.
[10] See _Siege of La Rochelle: Richelieu Rules France_, page 129.
[11] See _Molière Creates Modern Comedy_, page 347.
[12] See _War of the Fronde_, page 285.
[13] See _Abolition of the Star-Chamber: Popular Revolt against
Charles I_, page 215.
[14] See _Presbyterianism Established: Meeting of the Westminster
Assembly_, page 238.
[15] See _Civil War in England: Execution of Charles I_,
page 311.
[16] See _Cromwell's Campaign in Ireland_, page 335.
[17] See _Cromwell's Rule in England: The Restoration_, page 357.
[18] See _Henry Hudson Explores the Hudson River_, page 1.
[19] See _Dutch Settlement of New York_, page 44.
[20] See _Beginning of British Power in India_, page 30.
[21] See _Founding of Montreal_, page 232.
[22] See _English Pilgrims Settle at Plymouth_, page 93.
[23] See _First American Legislature_, page 76.
[24] See _Introduction of Negroes into Virginia: Spread of Slavery and
the Cultivation of Tobacco_, page 81.
[25] See _Great Puritan Exodus to New England: Founding of Boston_,
page 153.
[26] See _First Written Free Constitution in the World_, page 205.
[27] See _Earliest Union among American Colonies_, page 205.
[28] See _Religious Toleration Proclaimed in Maryland_, page 303.
HENRY HUDSON EXPLORES THE HUDSON RIVER
A.D. 1609
HENRY R. CLEVELAND
Although Henry Hudson was not the first discoverer of the
waters to which his name was given, he was a bold sailor whose
achievements justly gave him rank with the foremost navigators
and explorers of his time. He was well versed in scientific
navigation. His first recorded voyage was made in the service
of the Muscovy or Russia Company of England in 1607. His object
was to find a passage across the north pole to the Spice
Islands (Moluccas), in the Malay Archipelago. Though failing in
this purpose, he reached a higher latitude than had before been
attained by any navigator.
His next venture (1608), for the same company, was for "finding
a passage to the East Indies by the northeast," but he failed
to pass in that direction beyond Nova Zembla, and returned to
England. These two failures discouraged the Muscovy Company,
but did not daunt Henry Hudson. Again he determined to sail the
northern seas, and the story of his third great voyage and its
results is here given to the reader.
Hudson, whose mind was completely bent upon making the discovery which
he had undertaken, now sought employment from the Dutch East India
Company. The fame of his adventures had already reached Holland, and he
had received from the Dutch the appellations of the bold Englishman, the
expert pilot, the famous navigator. The company were generally in favor
of accepting the offer of his services, though the scheme was strongly
opposed by Balthazar Moucheron, one of their number, who had some
acquaintance with the arctic seas. They accordingly gave him the command
of a small vessel, named the Half Moon, with a crew of twenty men, Dutch
and English, among whom was Robert Juet, who had accompanied him as mate
on his second voyage. The journal of the present voyage, which is
published in _Purchas' Pilgrims_, was written by Juet.
He sailed from Amsterdam March 25, 1609, and doubled the North Cape in
about a month. His object was to pass through the Vaygats, or perhaps to
the north of Nova Zembla, and thus reach China by the northeast passage.
But after contending for more than a fortnight with head winds,
continual fogs, and ice, and finding it impossible to reach even the
coast of Nova Zembla, he determined to abandon this plan, and endeavor
to discover a passage by the northwest. He accordingly directed his
course westerly, doubled the North Cape again, and in a few days saw a
part of the western coast of Norway, in the latitude of 68°. From this
point he sailed for the Faroe Islands, where he arrived about the end of
May.
Having replenished his water-casks at one of these islands he again
hoisted sail, and steered southwest, in the hope of making Buss Island,
which had been discovered by Sir Martin Frobisher, in 1578, as he wished
to ascertain if it was correctly laid down on the chart. As he did not
succeed in finding it, he continued this course for nearly a month,
having much severe weather and a succession of gales, in one of which
the foremast was carried away. Having arrived at the 45th degree of
latitude, he judged it best to shape his course westward, with the
intention of making Newfoundland. While proceeding in this direction he
one day saw a vessel standing to the eastward, and wishing to speak her
he put the ship about and gave chase; but finding as night came on that
he could not overtake her he resumed the westerly course again.
On July 2d he had soundings on the Grand Bank of Newfoundland, and saw a
whole fleet of Frenchmen fishing there. Being on soundings for several
days he determined to try his luck at fishing; and the weather falling
calm he set the whole crew at work to so much purpose that, in the
course of the morning, they took between one and two hundred very large
cod. After two or three days of calm the wind sprang up again, and he
continued his course westward till the 12th, when he first had sight of
the coast of North America. The fog was so thick, however, that he did
not venture nearer the coast for several days; but at length, the
weather clearing up, he ran into a bay at the mouth of a large river, in
the latitude of 44°. This was Penobscot Bay, on the coast of Maine.
He already had some notion of the kind of inhabitants he was to find
here, for a few days before he had been visited by six savages, who came
on board in a very friendly manner and ate and drank with him. He found
that from their intercourse with the French traders they had learned a
few words of their language. Soon after coming to anchor he was visited
by several of the natives, who appeared very harmless and inoffensive;
and in the afternoon two boats full of them came to the ship, bringing
beaver-skins and other fine furs, which they wished to exchange for
articles of dress. They offered no violence whatever, though we find in
Juet's journal constant expressions of distrust, apparently without
foundation.
They remained in this bay long enough to cut and rig a new foremast, and
being now ready for sea the men were sent on shore upon an expedition
that disgraced the whole company. What Hudson's sentiments or motives
with regard to this transaction were we can only conjecture from a
general knowledge of his character, as we have no account of it from
himself. But it seems highly probable that, if he did not project it, he
at least gave his consent to its perpetration. The account is in the
words of Juet, as follows: "In the morning we manned our scute with four
muskets and six men, and took one of their shallops and brought it
aboard. Then we manned our boat and scute with twelve men and muskets,
and two stone pieces, or murderers, and drave the salvages from their
houses, and took the spoil of them, as they would have done of us."
After this exploit they returned to the ship and set sail immediately.
It does not appear from the journal that the natives had ever offered
them any harm or given any provocation for so wanton an act. The writer
only asserts that they would have done it if they could. No plea is more
commonly used to justify tyranny and cruelty than the supposed bad
intentions of the oppressed.
He now continued southward along the coast of America. It appears that
Hudson had been informed by his friend, Captain John Smith, that there
was a passage to the western Pacific Ocean south of Virginia, and that,
when he had proved the impossibility of going by the northeast, he had
offered his crew the choice either to explore this passage spoken of by
Captain John Smith or to seek the northwest passage by going through
Davis Strait. Many of the men had been in the East India service, and
in the habit of sailing in tropical climates, and were consequently very
unwilling to endure the severities of a high northern latitude. It was
therefore voted that they should go in search of the passage to the
south of Virginia.
In a few days they saw land extending north, and terminating in a
remarkable headland, which he recognized to be Cape Cod. Wishing to
double the headland, he sent some of the men in the boat to sound along
the shore, before venturing nearer with the ship. The water was five
fathoms deep within bow-shot of the shore, and, landing, they found, as
the journal informs us, "goodly grapes and rose-trees," which they
brought on board with them. He then weighed anchor and advanced as far
as the northern extremity of the headland. Here he heard the voice of
someone calling to them, and, thinking it possible some unfortunate
European might have been left there, he immediately despatched some of
the men to the shore. They found only a few savages; but, as these
appeared very friendly, they brought one of them on board, where they
gave him refreshments and also a present of three or four glass buttons,
with which he seemed greatly delighted. The savages were observed to
have green tobacco and pipes, the bowls of which were made of clay and
the stems of red copper.
The wind not being favorable for passing west of this headland into the
bay, Hudson determined to explore the coast farther south, and the next
day he saw the southern point of Cape Cod, which had been discovered and
named by Bartholomew Gosnold in the year 1602. He passed in sight of
Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, and continued a southerly course till
the middle of August, when he arrived at the entrance of Chesapeake Bay.
"This," says the writer of the journal, "is the entrance into the King's
river, in Virginia, where our Englishmen are." The colony, under the
command of Newport, consisting of one hundred five persons, among whom
were Smith, Gosnold, Wingfield, and Ratcliffe, had arrived here a little
more than two years before, and if Hudson could have landed he would
have enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing and conversing with his own
countrymen, and in his own language, in the midst of the forests of the
New World. But the wind was blowing a gale from the northeast, and,
probably dreading a shore with which he was unacquainted, he made no
attempt to find them.
He continued to ply to the south for several days, till he reached the
latitude of 35° 41', when he again changed his course to the north. It
is highly probable that if the journal of the voyage had been kept by
Hudson himself we should have been informed of his reasons for changing
the southerly course at this point. The cause, however, is not difficult
to conjecture. He had gone far enough to ascertain that the information
given him by Captain Smith with respect to a passage into the Pacific
south of Virginia was incorrect, and he probably did not think it worth
while to spend more time in so hopeless a search. He therefore retraced
his steps, and on August 28th discovered Delaware Bay, where he examined
the currents, soundings, and the appearance of the shores, without
attempting to land. From this anchorage he coasted northward, the shore
appearing low, like sunken ground, dotted with islands, till September
2d, when he saw the highlands of Navesink, which, the journalist
remarks, "is a very good land to fall with and a pleasant land to see."
The entrance into the southern waters of New York is thus described in
the journal: "At three of the clock in the afternoon we came to three
great rivers. So we stood along to the northernmost, thinking to have
gone into it, but we found it to have a very shoal bar before it, for we
had but ten foot water. Then we cast about to the southward and found
two fathoms, three fathoms, and three and a quarter, till we came to the
southern side of them; then we had five and six fathoms, and anchored.
So we sent in our boat to sound, and they found no less water than four,
five, six, and seven fathoms, and returned in an hour and a half. So we
weighed and went in and rode in five fathoms, oozy ground, and saw many
salmons, and mullets, and rays very great." The next morning having
ascertained by sending in the boat that there was a very good harbor
before him, he ran in and anchored at two cables' length from the shore.
This was within Sandy Hook Bay.
He was very soon visited by the natives, who came on board his vessel,
and seemed to be greatly rejoiced at his arrival among them. They
brought green tobacco, which they desired to exchange for knives and
beads, and Hudson observed that they had copper pipes and ornaments of
copper. They also appeared to have plenty of maize, from which they made
good bread. Their dress was of deerskins, well cured, and hanging
loosely about them. There is a tradition that some of his men, being
sent out to fish, landed on Coney Island. They found the soil sandy, but
supporting a vast number of plum-trees loaded with fruit, and grapevines
growing round them.
The next day, the men, being sent in the boat to explore the bay still
farther, landed, probably on the Jersey shore, where they were very
kindly received by the savages, who gave them plenty of tobacco. They
found the land covered with large oaks. Several of the natives also came
on board, dressed in mantles of feathers and fine furs. Among the
presents they brought were dried currants, which were found extremely
palatable.
Soon afterward five of the men were sent in the boat to examine the
north side of the bay and sound the river, which was perceived at the
distance of four leagues. They passed through the Narrows, sounding all
along, and saw "a narrow river to the westward, between two islands,"
supposed to be Staten Island and Bergen Neck. They described the land as
covered with trees, grass, and flowers, and filled with delightful
fragrance. On their return to the ship they were assaulted by two
canoes; one contained twelve and the other fourteen savages. It was
nearly dark, and the rain which was falling had extinguished their
match, so that they could only trust to their oars for escape. One of
the men, John Colman, who had accompanied Hudson on his first voyage,
was killed by an arrow shot into his throat, and two more were wounded.
The darkness probably saved them from the savages, but at the same time
it prevented their finding the vessel, so that they did not return till
the next day, when they appeared, bringing the body of their comrade.
Hudson ordered him to be carried on shore and buried, and named the
place, in memory of the event, Colman's Point.
He now expected an attack from the natives, and accordingly hoisted in
the boat and erected a sort of bulwark along the sides of the vessel,
for the better defence. But these precautions were needless. Several of
the natives came on board, but in a friendly manner, wishing to exchange
tobacco and Indian corn for the trifles which the sailors could spare
them. They did not appear to know anything of the affray which had taken
place. But the day after two large canoes came off to the vessel, the
one filled with armed men, the other under the pretence of trading.
Hudson, however, would only allow two of the savages to come on board,
keeping the rest at a distance. The two who came on board were detained,
and Hudson dressed them up in red coats; the remainder returned to the
shore. Presently another canoe, with two men in it, came to the vessel.
Hudson also detained one of these, probably wishing to keep him as a
hostage, but he very soon jumped overboard and swam to the shore. On the
11th Hudson sailed through the Narrows and anchored in New York Bay.
He prepared to explore the magnificent river which came rolling its
waters into the sea from unknown regions. Whither he would be conducted
in tracing its course he could form no conjecture. A hope may be
supposed to have entered his mind that the long-desired passage to the
Indies was now at length discovered; that here was to be the end of his
toils; that here, in this mild climate, and amid these pleasant scenes,
was to be found that object which he had sought in vain through the
snows and ice of the Arctic zone. With a glad heart, then, he weighed
anchor on September 12th, and commenced his memorable voyage up that
majestic stream which now bears his name.
The wind only allowed him to advance a few miles the first two days of
the voyage, but the time which he was obliged to spend at anchor was
fully occupied in trading with the natives, who came off from the shore
in great numbers, bringing oysters and vegetables. He observed that they
had copper pipes, and earthen vessels to cook their meat in. They seemed
very harmless and well disposed, but the crew were unwilling to trust
these appearances, and would not allow any of them to come on board. The
next day, a fine breeze springing up from the southeast, he was able to
make great progress, so that he anchored at night nearly forty miles
from the place of starting in the morning. He observes that "here the
land grew very high and mountainous," so that he had undoubtedly
anchored in the midst of the fine scenery of the Highlands.