fèms after the date of this patent. The temporary
retaking of the colony by the Dutch in 1675, did
not affect the inland names generally* as the
province wassoon restored by treaty.
Tire house of Stuart was now draining to its
close. Thirteen years after the last and finàl
surrender of the province to the English crown,
that crown passed, by a violent revolution, the
great revolution of 16&8, to another line: James
the Second, who, as Duke of York and Albany,
had given names to the two leading cities of the
colony, was expelled, arid William of Orange,
who had ceded the New Netherland province,
called to the British throne. To France* however,
this great change was, in the highest degree,
unwelcome. Site regarded it as a double
triumph of the spirit of liberty and protestantisin'.
That remofb çolonres, in another quarter of the
world, arid te s dhan all, an obscure arid unimportant
town, in one. of the fern of est of these,
colonies, had any influence* : even the slightest,
on these events, is most unlikely, and improbable.
But the effects of the change appeared to
fall most heavily on this little town. Small and
remote as it was, it was a frontier, r exposed to
attack; and the barbarity of this attack, and the
shock it gave to the moral sense of the country,
were such as to leave a dèèp and lasting impression.
And it is. hence, and not from the strength
or political importance of the place, that the
burning of Schenectady has ever been a sensitive
prite W our .eqrly hktury.
Iri the researches made by Mr. Brodhead, in
the French state offices, he discovered the following
letter from an officer under Count Frontenac,
giving an account of this expedition, which is
interesting, as being an official document, from
the pen of the secretary of the very man who
had planned and organized the expedition. The
cold-blooded and cowardly barbarity of the massacre
itself, is unworthy of a Christian nation;
while' the expedition, in its general object, may
find an excuste, if not a justification, in the
threatening, arrogant, and triumphant position
of the Iroquois* cantons, at this particular time.
These cantons had, it will be recollected* landed
on the-island of Montreal, with fifteen -hundred
men, iri tbemorith of August* fb89,'and completely
sacked and ravaged the island, killing nren
and cattle, and carrying blond and terror in their
track. * The'Very existence of the French colonies
was a proitem Unsolved, and witbbut some
heater measure1 of ‘energy thair they had yet
shown, these colonies were in danger of annihilation.
'»Courit Frontende landed in Canada with
the commission of Its governor-general, in September,
168$',: ivipkify, forty days after this inroad,
and the first news: lie met, on entering the St.
Lawrence, wastheaceountofit. lie determined
to fetaliate* UQt by marijhing against the bold
cantons, who had thus bearded the government,
had fur-.
nished them armspandivvete their allies and.sup-
potter^. The rekuiCof this plan may be given