George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 2, 17th edition.

[255] The people ran to arms: general discontent threatened

Chap XIV.}

an insurrection. The governor, in a new country, without soldiers and without a citadel, was compelled to practise moderation. Tyranny was impossible; it had no powerful instruments.¹ Despotism sought in vain to establish itself in Virginia; when the prerogative of the governor was at its height, he was still too feeble to oppress the colony. Virginia was always ‘A land of liberty.’

Nor let the first tendencies to union pass unnoticed. In the Bay of the Chesapeake, Smith had encountered warriors of the Five Nations; and others had fearlessly roamed to the shores of Massachusetts Bay, and even invaded the soil of Maine. Some years before Philip's war, the Mohawks committed ravages near Northampton, on Connecticut River; and the General

1667

Court of Massachusetts addressed them a letter:— ‘We never yet did any wrong to you, or any of yours,’—such was the language of the Puritan diplomatists—‘neither will we take any from you, but will right our people according to justice.’ Maryland and Virginia had repeatedly negotiated with the Senecas. In July, 1684, the governor of Virginia and of New York, and the agent of Massachusetts, met the sachems of the Five Nations at Albany, to strengthen and burnish the covenant-chain, and plant the tree of peace, of which the top should reach the sun, and the branches shelter the wide land. The treaty extended from the St. Croix to Albemarle. New York was the bond of New England and Virginia.² The north and the south were united by the conquest of New Netherland.