2»'> S. No 63., Mar, 14. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



215 



disorder and faction, which prevailed in the banished 

 court.* In the spring of 1652, the Duke of York obtained 

 the permission of his brother and his council to join the 

 army under the Marshal Turenne, then engaged in the 

 war of the Fronde. Richard NicoUs accompanied him f, 

 and had thus an opportunity, to adopt the words of the 

 Cardinal Mazarin in proposing to the queen to send her 

 son to the wars, of ' learning his mestier, under a general 

 reputed equal to any captain in Christendom.' J The 

 duke afterwards served upon the other side under Don 

 John of Austria and the Prince de Conde, and we may 

 conjecture that he was followed throughout these cam- 

 paigns by Nicolls, who on the return of the royal family 

 to their country in 1G60, was appointed one of the gentle- 

 men of the bedchamber to tlie duke. 



" In 1664, war with Holland being then imminent, the 

 king granted to his brother the Duke of York, the country 

 in North America then occupied by the Dutch Settlement 

 of the Netherlands. The grant to the Duke of York is 

 dated the 12th of March, 1G64, and it comprises Long 

 Island, and ' all the land from the west side of Connec- 

 ticut river to the east side of Delaware bay, and the 

 islands known by the names of Martin's Vineyard or 

 Nantucks, otherwise Nantucket.' § Part of this tract 

 was conveyed away by the duke to Lord Berkeley of 

 Stratton and George Carteret of Saltrum, co. Devon, bj' 

 lease and release dated the 22nd and 23rd of June, 1664, || 

 and received the name of New Jersey from its connexion 

 Avith the Carteret family. 



" Letters patent were issued on the 2oth of April, 1664, 

 appointing Colonel Richard Nichols, Sir Robert Carre, 

 Knt., George Cartwright (Carteret?), esq., and Samuel 

 Maverick, esq., Commissioners, with power for them, or 

 any three or two of them, or the survivors of them, of 

 whom Col. Richard Nichols, during his life, should be 

 alwaj's one, and should have a casting vote, to visit all 

 the colonies and plantations within the tract known as 

 New England, and 'to heare and determine all com- 

 plaints and appeales in all causes and matters, as well 

 military as criminal and civil, and proceed in all things 

 for the providing for and settleing the peace and security 

 of the said country according to their good and sound dis- 

 cretion, and to such instructions as they or the successors 

 of them have, or shall from time to time receive for us in 

 that behalfe, and from time to time to certify ns or our 

 privy councel of their actings and proceedings touching 

 the premisses.'^ 



" The instructions furnished to Colonel Nicolls respect- 

 ing his proceedings with the Dutch, required him to re- 

 duce them to the same obediende with the king's subjects 

 in those parts, without using any other violence than 

 was necessar\- to those ends ; and if necessary, ' to use 

 such force as could not be avoided for their reduction, 

 they having no kind of right to hold what they are in 

 possession of in our unquestionable territories, than that 

 they are possessed of by an invasion of Us.' ** 



" The expedition under Nicolls set sail from Ports- 

 mouth in June, 1664. It consisted of four frigates, and 

 about 300 soldiers. Colonel Nicolls, on board the ' Guyny,' 

 arrived at Boston on ^he 27th July, and required assist- 

 ance towards reducing the Dutch. The council of the 



* Clarendon History, bk. xiii. 



t I state this on the authority of George Chalmers's 

 Political Annals of the United Colonies, p. 573. I do not 

 know where he gained his information. 



J Clarendon, bk. xiii. 



§ Smith's History of New York, p. 14. 



f Ibid. ^ 



% Hutchinson's History of Massaclmssets, vol. i. App. 15. 



** Hazard's Hist. Collect., vol. ii. 640. 



town agreed to furnish 200 men, but the object was 

 effected by Nicolls before this force joined him. On the 

 20th August, his force being now collected at Long 

 Island, Nicolls summoned the Dutch governor to sur- 

 render. Stuyvesant, the governor, would willingly have 

 defended the town, but there was no disposition in the 

 burghers to support him ; and a capitulation was signed 

 on 27th by Commissioners on each side, and confirmed by 

 Nicolls. * In the course of the next months. Sir Robert 

 Carr and Col. Carteret reduced all the remaining Dutch 

 Settlements in the New Netherlands. 



" Upon the reduction of New Amsterdam, Nicolls as- 

 sumed the government of the province, now called New 

 York, under the style of 'Deputy-Governor under his 

 royal highness the Duke of York of all his territories 

 in America.' The American authorities are generally 

 agreed that his rule, though somewhat arbitrary, was 

 honest and salutary. English forms and methods of 

 government were gradually introduced : and in June, 

 1665, the Scout, Burgomasters, and Schepens of the Dutch 

 municipality were superseded by a mayor, aldermen, and 

 sheriffs. His administration lasted three years, and his 

 mode of proceeding is thus summed up byVVilliam Smith, 

 the historian of New York: — 'He erected no courts of 

 justice, but took upon himself the sole decision of all con- 

 troversies whatever. Complaints came before him by 

 petition ; upon which he gave a day to the parties, and 

 after a summary hearing, pronounced judgment. His 

 determinations were called edicts, and executed by the 

 sheriffs he had appointed. It is much to his honour, 

 that, notwithstanding all this plenitude of power, he 

 governed the province with integrity <and moderation. 

 A representation from the inhabitants of Long Island to 

 the General Court of Connecticut, made about the time of 

 the Revolution, commends him as a man of an easy and 

 benevolent disposition ; and this is the more to be relied 

 upon, because the design of the writers was, by a detail 

 of their grievances, to induce the colony of Connecticut 

 to take them under its immediate protection.' f In a 

 letter to the Duke of York, dated Nov. 1665, Colonel 

 Nicolls thus expresses himself : ' My endeavors have 

 not been wanting to put the whole government into one 

 frame and policy, and now the most factious i-epublicans 

 cannot but acknowledge themselves fully satisfied with 

 the way and method they are in.' J 



" Nicolls returned to England in 1667, and resumed his 

 position in the Duke of York's household. In 1672 war 

 was again proclaimed against the Dutch. The distinc- 

 tion between the land and sea services was not then esta- 

 blished, and several landsmen volunteered to serve in the 

 fleet, which was commanded by the Duke of York, the 

 Earl of Sandwich, and the Count D'Estrees. Among 

 these volunteers were several of the Lord High Admiral's 

 household, and among their number Colonel Richard 

 Nicolls. In the engagement which took place at Solebay, 

 on the 28th of May, 1672, in which Lord Sandwich lost 

 his life by the blowing up of the ship which he com- 

 manded, Coh)nel Nicolls, with Sir John Fox, the Captain 

 of the ' Royal Prince ' in which he sailed, and several 

 others of the volunteers, was also killed.§ His age at the 

 time of his death was forty-seven, 



" Colonel Nicolls left no legitimate issue, and, I believe, 

 was never married. His will, dated the 1st of May, 1672, 

 on board the ' Royall Prince' at the Nore, was proved by 

 his executors in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in 



* See this at length in Smith's Hist, of New York, p. 26. 

 t Smith, History of New York, p. 36. 

 X Cited from New York Papers, iv. 6., and Chalmers, 

 Political Annals, p. 599. 

 § Kennett, p..314. 



