A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon Part 28

[Sidenote: Conquest of New Netherlands.]

But the colony of the New Netherlands was not destined to remain under the government of the Dutch West India Company. It was conquered by the English in 1664, and the conquerors promised security to the customs, the religion, the inst.i.tutions, and the possessions of the Dutch; and this promise was observed. In 1673, the colony was reconquered, but finally, in 1674, was ceded to the English, and the brother of Charles II. resumed his possession and government of New York, and delegated his power to Colonel Nichols, who ruled with wisdom and humanity. But the old Dutch Governor Stuyvesant remained in the city over which he had so honorably presided, and prolonged the empire of Dutch manners, if not of Dutch arms. The banks of the Hudson continued also to be peopled by the countrymen of the original colonists, who long preserved the language, customs, and religion of Holland. New York, nevertheless, was a royal province, and the administration was frequently intrusted to rapacious, unprincipled, and arbitrary governors.

Thus were the various states which border on the Atlantic Ocean colonized, in which English laws, inst.i.tutions, and language were destined to be perpetuated. In 1688, the various colonies, of which there were twelve, contained about two hundred thousand inhabitants; and all of these were Protestants; all cherished the principles of civil and religious liberty, and sought, by industry, frugality and patience, to secure independence and prosperity. From that period to this, no nation has grown more rapidly; no one has ever developed more surprising energies; no one has ever enjoyed greater social, political, and religious privileges.

But the sh.o.r.es of North America were not colonized merely by the English. On the banks of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi another body of colonists arrived, and introduced customs and inst.i.tutions equally foreign to those of the English and Spaniards. The French settlements in Canada and Louisiana are now to be considered.

[Sidenote: Discovery of the St. Lawrence.]

Within seven years from the discovery of the continent, the fisheries of Newfoundland were known to French adventurers. The St. Lawrence was explored in 1506, and plans of colonization were formed in 1518. In 1534, James Cartier, a native of St. Malo, sailed up the River St.

Lawrence; but the severity of the climate in winter prevented an immediate settlement. It was not until 1603 that any permanent colonization was commenced. Quebec was then selected by Samuel Champlain, the father of the French settlements in Canada, as the site for a fort. In 1604, a charter was given, by Henry IV., to an eminent Calvinist, De Monts, which gave him the sovereignty of Acadia, a tract embraced between the fortieth and forty-sixth degrees of north lat.i.tude. The Huguenot emigrants were to enjoy their religion, the monopoly of the fur trade, and the exclusive control of the soil. They arrived at Nova Scotia the same year, and settled in Port Royal.

In 1608, Quebec was settled by Champlain, who aimed at the glory of founding a state; and in 1627 he succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng the authority of the French on the banks of the St. Lawrence. But Champlain was also a zealous Catholic, and esteemed the salvation of a soul more than the conquest of a kingdom. He therefore selected Franciscan monks to effect the conversion of the Indians. But they were soon supplanted by the Jesuits, who, patronized by the government in France, soon made the new world the scene of their strange activity.

[Sidenote: Jesuit Missionaries.]

At no period and in no country were Jesuit missionaries more untiring laborers than amid the forests of North America. With the crucifix in their hands, they wandered about with savage tribes, and by unparalleled labors of charity and benevolence, sought to convert them to the Christianity of Rome. As early as 1635, a college and a hospital were founded, by munificent patrons in France, for the benefit of all the tribes of red men from the waters of Lake Superior to the sh.o.r.es of the Kennebec. In 1641 Montreal, intended as a general rendezvous for converted Indians was occupied, and soon became the most important station in Canada, next to the fortress of Quebec.

Before Eliot had preached to the Indians around Boston, the intrepid missionaries of the Jesuits had explored the sh.o.r.es of Lake Superior, had penetrated to the Falls of St. Mary's, and had visited the Chippeways, the Hurons, the Iroquois, and the Mohawks. Soon after, they approached the Dutch settlements on the Hudson, explored the sources of the Mississippi, examined its various tributary streams, and floated down its mighty waters to its mouth. The missionaries claimed the territories on the Gulf of Mexico for the king of France, and in 1684, Louisiana was colonized by Frenchmen. The indefatigable La Salle, after having explored the Mississippi, from the Falls of St.

Anthony to the sea, was a.s.sa.s.sinated by one of his envious followers, but not until he had earned the immortal fame of being the father of western colonization.

Thus were the North American settlements effected. In 1688, England possessed those colonies which border on the Atlantic Ocean, from Maine to Georgia. The French possessed Nova Scotia, Canada, Louisiana, and claimed the countries bordering on the Mississippi and its branches, from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Superior, and also the territories around the great lakes.

A mutual jealousy, as was to be expected, sprung up between France and England respecting their colonial possessions. Both kingdoms aimed at the sovereignty of North America. The French were ent.i.tled, perhaps, by right of discovery, to the greater extent of territory; but their colonies were very unequal to those of the English in respect to numbers, and still more so in moral elevation and intellectual culture.

But Louis XIV., then in the height of his power, meditated the complete subjection of the English settlements. The French allied themselves with the Indians, and savage wars were the result. The Mohawks and other tribes, encouraged by the French, committed fearful ma.s.sacres at Deerfield and Haverhill, and the English settlers were kept in a state of constant alarm and fear. By the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, the colonists obtained peace and considerable accession of territory. In 1720, John Law proposed his celebrated financial scheme to the prince regent of France, and the Mississippi Company was chartered, and Louisiana colonized. Much profit was expected to be derived from this company. It will be seen, in another chapter, how miserably it failed. It was based on wrong foundations, and the project of deriving wealth from the colonies came to nought; nor did it result in a rapid colonization.

[Sidenote: Prosperity of the English Colonies.]

Meanwhile the English colonies advanced in wealth, numbers, and political importance, and attracted the notice of the English government. Sir Robert Walpole, in 1711, was solicited to tax the colonies; but he n.o.bly rejected the proposal. He encouraged trade to the utmost lat.i.tude, and tribute was only levied by means of consumption of British manufactures. But restrictions were subsequently imposed on colonial enterprise, which led to collisions between the colonies and the mother country. The Southern colonies were more favored than the Northern, but all of them were regarded with the view of promoting the peculiar interests of Great Britain.

Other subjects of dispute also arose; but, nevertheless, the colonies, especially those of New England, made rapid strides. There was a general diffusion of knowledge, the laws were well observed, and the ministers of religion were an honor to their sacred calling. The earth was subdued, and replenished with a hardy and religious set of men.

Sentiments of patriotism and independence were ardently cherished. The people were trained to protect themselves; and, in their town meetings, learned to discuss political questions, and to understand political rights. Some ecclesiastical controversies disturbed the peace of parishes and communities, but did not r.e.t.a.r.d the general prosperity. Some great lights also appeared. David Brainerd performed labors of disinterestedness and enlightened piety, which have never been surpa.s.sed, and never equalled, even in zeal and activity, except by those of the earlier Jesuits. Jonathan Edwards stamped his genius on the whole character of New England theology, and won the highest honor as a metaphysician, even from European admirers. His treatise on the Freedom of the Will has secured the praises of philosophers and divines of all sects and parties from Hume to Chalmers, and can "never be attentively perused without a sentiment of admiration at the strength and stretch of the human understanding." Benjamin Franklin also had arisen: he had not, at this early epoch, distinguished himself for philosophical discoveries; but he had attracted attention as the editor of a newspaper, in which he fearlessly defended freedom of speech and the great rights of the people. But greater than Franklin, greater than any hero which modern history has commemorated, was that young Virginia planter, who was then watching, with great solicitude, the interests and glory of his country, and preparing himself for the great conflicts which have given him immortality.

The growth of the colonies, and their great importance in the eyes of the Europeans, had now provoked the jealousy of the two leading powers of Europe, and the colonial struggle between England and France began.

[Sidenote: French Encroachments.]

The French claimed the right of erecting a chain of fortresses along the Ohio and the Mississippi, with a view to connect Canada with Louisiana, and thus obtain a monopoly of the fur trade with the Indians, and secure the possession of the finest part of the American continent. But these designs were displeasing to the English colonists, who had already extended their settlements far into the interior. The English ministry was also indignant in view of these movements, by which the colonies were completely surrounded by military posts. England protested; but the French artfully protracted negotiations until the fortifications were completed.

It was to protest against the erection of these fortresses that George Was.h.i.+ngton, then twenty-three years of age, was sent by the colony of Virginia to the banks of the Ohio. That journey through the trackless wilderness, attended but by one person, in no slight degree marked him out, and prepared him for his subsequently great career.

While the disputes about the forts were carried on between the cabinets of France and England, the French prosecuted their encroachments in America with great boldness, which doubtless hastened the rupture between the two countries. Orders were sent to the colonies to drive the French from their usurpations in Nova Scotia, and from their fortified posts upon the Ohio. Then commenced that great war, which resulted in the loss of the French possessions in America. But this war was also allied with the contests which grew out of the Austrian Succession, and therefore will be presented in a separate chapter on the Pelham administration, during which the Seven Years' War, in the latter years of the reign of George II., commenced.

[Sidenote: European Settlements in the East.]

But the colonial jealousy between England and France existed not merely in view of the North American colonies, but also those in the East Indies; and these must be alluded to in order to form a general idea of European colonization, and of the causes which led to the mercantile importance of Great Britain, as well as to the great wars which desolated the various European nations.

From the difficulties in the American colonies, we turn to those, therefore, which existed in the opposite quarter of the globe. Even to those old countries had European armies penetrated; even there European cupidity and enterprise were exercised.

As late as 1742, the territories of the English in India scarcely extended beyond the precincts of the towns in which were located the East India Company's servants. The first English settlement of importance was on the Island of Java; but, in 1658, a grant of land was obtained on the Coromandel coast, near Madras, where was erected the strong fortress of St. George. In 1668, the Island of Bombay was ceded by the crown of Portugal to Charles II., and appointed the capital of the British settlements in India. In 1698, the English had a settlement on the Hooghly, which afterwards became the metropolis of British power.

[Sidenote: French Settlements in India.]

But the Dutch, and Portuguese, and French had also colonies in India for purposes of trade. Louis XIV. established a company, in imitation of the English, which sought a settlement on the Hooghly. The French company also had built a fort on the coast of the Carnatic, about eighty miles south of Madras, called Pondicherry, and had colonized two fertile islands in the Indian Ocean, which they called the Isle of France and the Isle of Bourbon. The possessions of the French were controlled by two presidencies, one on the Isle of France, and the other at Pondicherry.

[Sidenote: La Bourdonnais and Dupleix.]

When the war broke out between England and France, in 1744, these two French presidencies were ruled by two men of superior genius,--La Bourdonnais and Dupleix,--both of them men of great experience in Indian affairs, and both devoted to the interests of the company, so far as their own personal ambition would permit. When Commodore Burnet, with an English squadron, was sent into the Indian seas, La Bourdonnais succeeded in fitting out an expedition to oppose it, and even contemplated the capture of Madras. No decisive action was fought at sea; but the French governor succeeded in taking Madras. This success displeased the Nabob of the Carnatic, and he sent a letter to Dupleix, and complained of the aggression of his countrymen in attacking a place under his protection. Dupleix, envious of the fame of La Bourdonnais, and not pleased with the terms of capitulation, as being too favorable to the English, claimed the right of annulling the conquest, since Madras, when taken, would fall under his own presidency.

The contentions between these two Frenchmen prevented La Bourdonnais from following up the advantage of his victory, and he failed in his attempts to engage the English fleet, and, in consequence, returned to France, and died from the effects of an unjust imprisonment in the Bastile.

Dupleix, after the departure of La Bourdonnais, brought the princ.i.p.al inhabitants of Madras to Pondicherry. But some of them contrived to escape. Among them was the celebrated Clive, then a clerk in a mercantile house. He entered as an ensign into the company's service, and soon found occasion to distinguish himself.

But Dupleix, master of Madras, now formed the scheme of founding an Indian empire, and of expelling the English from the Carnatic. And India was in a state to favor his enterprises. The empire of the Great Mogul, whose capital was Delhi, was tottering from decay. It had been, in the sixteenth century, the most powerful empire in the world. The magnificence of his palaces astonished even Europeans accustomed to the splendor of Paris and Versailles. His viceroys ruled over provinces larger and richer than either France or England. And even the lieutenants of these viceroys frequently aspired to independence.

The Nabob of Arcot was one of these latter princes. He hated the French, and befriended the English. On the death of the Viceroy of the Deccan, to whom he was subject, in 1748, Dupleix conceived his gigantic scheme of conquest. To the throne of this viceroy there were several claimants, two of whom applied to the French for a.s.sistance.

This was what the Frenchman desired, and he allied himself with the pretenders. With the a.s.sistance of the French, Mirzappa Juy obtained the viceroyalty. Dupleix was splendidly rewarded, and was intrusted with the command of seven thousand Indian cavalry, and received a present of two hundred thousand pounds.

The only place on the Carnatic which remained in possession of the rightful viceroy was Trichinopoly, and this was soon invested by the French and Indian forces.

To raise this siege, and turn the tide of French conquest, became the object of Clive, then twenty-five years of age. He represented to his superior the importance of this post, and also of striking a decisive blow. He suggested the plan of an attack on Arcot itself, the residence of the nabob. His project was approved, and he was placed at the head of a force of three hundred sepoys and two hundred Englishmen. The city was taken by surprise, and its capture induced the nabob to relinquish the siege of Trichinopoly in order to retake his capital. But Clive so intrenched his followers, that they successfully defended the place after exhibiting prodigies of valor.

The fortune of war turned to the side of the gallant Englishman, and Dupleix, who was no general, retreated before the victors. Clive obtained the command of Fort St. David, an important fortress near Madras, and soon controlled the Carnatic.

About this time, the settlements on the Hooghly were plundered by Suraj-w Dowlah, Viceroy of Bengal. Bengal was the most fertile and populous province of the empire of the Great Mogul. It was watered by the Ganges, the sacred river of India, and its cities were surprisingly rich. Its capital was Moorshedabad, a city nearly as large as London; and here the young viceroy lived in luxury and effeminacy, and indulged in every species of cruelty and folly. He hated the English of Calcutta, and longed to plunder them. He accordingly seized the infant city, and shut up one hundred and forty of the colonists in a dungeon of the fort, a room twenty feet by fourteen, with only two small windows; and in a few hours, one hundred and seventeen of the English died. The horrors of that night have been splendidly painted by Macaulay in his essay on Clive, and the place of torment, called the _Black Hole of Calcutta_, is synonymous with suffering and misery. Clive resolved to avenge this insult to his countrymen. An expedition was fitted out at Madras to punish the inhuman nabob, consisting of nine hundred Europeans and fifteen hundred sepoys. It was a small force, but proved sufficient. Calcutta was recovered and the army of the nabob was routed. Clive intrigued with the enemies of the despot in his own city; and, by means of unparalleled treachery, dissimulation, art, and violence, Suraj-w Dowlah was deposed, and Meer Jaffier, one of the conspirators, was made nabob in his place. In return for the services of Clive, the new viceroy splendidly rewarded him. A hundred boats conveyed the treasures of Bengal down the river to Calcutta. Clive himself, who had walked between heaps of gold and silver, crowned with diamonds and rubies, condescended to receive a present of three hundred thousand pounds. His moderation has been commended by his biographers in not asking for a million.

The elevation of Meer Jaffier was, of course, displeasing to the imbecile Emperor of India, and a large army was sent to dethrone him.

The nabob appealed, in his necessity, to his allies, the English, and, with the powerful a.s.sistance of the Europeans, the forces of the successor of the great Aurungzebe were signally routed. But the great sums he was obliged to bestow on his allies, and the encroaching spirit which they manifested, changed his friends.h.i.+p into enmity. He plotted with the Dutch and the French to overturn the power of the English. Clive divined his object, and Meer Jaffier was deposed in his turn. The Viceroy of Bengal was but the tool of his English protectors, and British power was firmly planted in the centre of India. Calcutta became the capital of a great empire, and the East India Company, a mere a.s.semblage of merchants and stockjobbers, by their system of perfidy, craft and violence, became the rulers and disposers of provinces which Alexander had coveted in vain. The servants of this company made their fortunes, and untold wealth was transported to England. Clive obtained a fortune of forty thousand pounds a year, an Irish peerage, and a seat in the House of Commons.

He became an object of popular idolatry, courted by ministers, and extolled by Pitt. He was several times appointed governor-general of the country he had conquered, and to him England is indebted for the foundation of her power in India. But his fame and fortune finally excited the jealousy of his countrymen, and he was made to bear the sins of the company which he had enriched. The malignity with which he was pursued, and the disease which he acquired in India, operated unfortunately on a temper naturally irritable; his reason became overpowered, and he died, in 1774, by his own hand.

[Sidenote: Conquest of India.]

The subsequent career of Hastings, and final conquest of India, form part of the political history of England itself, during those administrations which yet remain to be described. The colonization of America and the East Indies now became involved with the politics of rival statesmen; and its history can only be appreciated by considering those acts and principles which marked the career of the Newcastles and the Pitts. The administration of the Pelhams, therefore, next claims attention.

REFERENCES.--The best histories pertaining to the conquests of the Spaniards are undoubtedly those of Mr. Prescott.

Irving's Columbus should also be consulted. For the early history of the North American colonies, the attention of students is directed to Grahame's and Bancroft's Histories of the United States. In regard to India, see Elphinstone's, Gleig's, Ormes's, and Mills's Histories of India; Malcolm's Life of Clive; and Macaulay's Essay on Clive. For the contemporaneous history of Great Britain, the best works are those of Tyndal, Smollett, Lord Mahon, and Belsham; Russell's Modern Europe; the Pictorial History of England; and the continuation of Mackintosh, in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE REIGN OF GEORGE II.

The English nation acquiesced in the government of Sir Robert Walpole for nearly thirty years--the longest administration in the annals of the country. And he was equal to the task, ruling, on the whole, beneficently, promoting peace, regulating the finances, and encouraging those great branches of industry which lie at the foundation of English wealth and power. But the intrigues of rival politicians, and the natural desire of change, which all parties feel after a long repose, plunged the nation into war, and forced the able minister to retire. The opposition, headed by the Prince of Wales, supported by such able statesmen as Bolingbroke, Carteret, Chesterfield, Pulteney, Windham, and Pitt, and sustained by the writings of those great literary geniuses whom Walpole disdained and neglected, compelled George II., at last, to part with a man who had conquered his narrow prejudices.

But the Tories did not come into power on the retirement of Walpole.