had cried joyfully when the judge condemned her— "The will of the Lord be done." But the magistrates thought the fright would cure her; after fastening the rope round her neck, they gave her a pardon, and sent her away. The moment she was at liberty she returned to Boston, and began to act as before. Then the magistrates took this brave woman and hanged her.

After hanging one more Quaker, the Puritans began to think that there must be something wrong in their plan, it answered so badly. They were a long time puzzled to see where the mistake could be; but at last they hit upon a new plan which has since been followed in a good many other cases. They made a number of very precise and careful laws against the Quakers; but they privately agreed not to carry them out. After this, when a magistrate was told of a Quaker, he pretended to be very deaf; and when he met one, he looked severely the other way so as not to see him.

While all these atrocities were taking place, the Puritans of New England were busy in other ways as well. In order that every one in the colony should be able to read the Bible, they set up schools for children, and obliged every child to attend and be taught. You know that this is still the case in almost every portion of the United States; and most certainly nothing has done so much for the greatness and glory of this country as this plan of teaching every child to read.

Wherever you find a country falling to decay, or steeped in superstition, or ravaged by quarrels among

its people, you may be sure that there the children are not taught to read: wherever they are, there you are sure to find energy, and religion, and power, and happiness, and freedom.

Another good work which began at this time was the conversion of the Indians to Christianity. This was commenced by JOHN ELIOT, who spent his whole life in teaching the Indians the word of God, and trying to educate them. He made many converts,

but rum made more.

THE

CHAPTER VIII.

Dutch at New Amsterdam were almost ruined, as I said, by the war with the Indians. If it had lasted much longer they must all have gone back to Holland, and no one can tell what difference that might not have made in this history.

Thanks, however, to valiant JOHN UNDERHILL who went to help them to fight-some of the most warlike tribes received such a severe lesson that they agreed at last to make peace. The Dutch were greatly rejoiced at this, as you may imagine, and a day was set apart for thanksgiving at New Amsterdam. Every body was in great spirits, and there was much shouting, and singing, and drinking of beer, and smoking of pipes in the muddy streets of the dirty little place. But the Dutch--though at that time a very brave and high-spirited people at home—were not the sort of men to thrive in this country. They thought more of trading with the Indians and buying furs cheap than of founding a great nation; and besides, I suspect they were fonder of beer and brandy than was good for them.

Their Governor-William Kieft-was a foolish, passionate man, who was always quarreling with the people about him, and cheating them whenever he could. They say that this Kieft, who was a small man, had a wife who used to bully him, and render

his life a burden; and that when she had worried him till he was almost crazy, he would go out and begin to worry the Dutchmen of New Amsterdamwhich may very possibly have been the case. Certain it is that the Dutch were so badly ruled by Kieft that they said they could not be worse treated under a king; and that on one occasion the minister, BOGARDUS, actually preached a long sermon full of hard words against the Governor, who revenged himself by going about and telling every one that Bogardus got drunk.

We can fancy what sort of a place New Amsterdam must have been when the minister called the Governor a tyrant and a thief in church on Sunday, and the Governor retorted by calling the minister a drunkard. Poor silly men! A short while afterward the colony got rid of them both, and they set sail for Holland. As the ship drew near the coast of Wales, a violent storm arose, and she was wrecked; and the Thief and the Drunkard went down together.

If ever the Dutch needed a wise and prudent Governor, it was then. The New Englanders were creeping on, little by little, from Plymouth to Rhode Island, from Rhode Island to the Connecticut, from the Connecticut to Long Island, so that every day they drew nearer and nearer to the Dutch Settlements. At first the Dutch tried to keep them back. They had built a fort on the Connecti cut River, and when the New Englanders settled near it the Dutch made a great fuss, and swore a great many violent oaths, and discharged proclamations a yard long at the head of the Englishmen. But, as

you know, proclamations can't hurt any body, and the Connecticut settlers only laughed.

Then the Dutch said that if the English would not go, they would drive them out. To which the Connecticut men replied:

"Come on and try!"

But the Dutch were, in America at least-in Europe they fought very bravely-better talkers than fighters, and they said the Connecticut men were beneath their notice, as many a man does in the like case even to this day.

On the other side, the famous Queen of Sweden, CHRISTINA, seeing all the other nations of Europe dividing America between them, thought Sweden should have its share, and sent out two ships with Swedes to see what they could do. They sailed up Delaware Bay (which was then called the South River), and finding pleasant places for settlement at its head, planted a small colony there, near where Wilmington now stands, and called the place NEW SWEDEN.

The Dutch had a settlement on the same river, and at first were furious with the Swedes for coming there. They tried the old plan of firing a long proclamation, with tremendous words in it, at the Swedes, but it didn't answer any better than it had done with the New Englanders. So the Dutch made their minds up to bear it for a time. But when some New Englanders, from New Haven, tried to settle there too, the Swedes and the Dutch joined together, and would not let them have any share of the country.