HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY. 13 



tion to their doing likewise. Accordingly, they agreed in June with 

 twelve Indians to whale for them during the following season. " But 

 it fell out soe that foure of the said Indians (competent & experienced 

 men) belonged to Shelter-Island whoe with the rest received of your 

 peticon'^ in pt. of their hire or wages 25s. a peece in hand at the time of 

 the contract, as the Indian Custome is aud without which they would 

 not engage themselves to goe to Sea as aforesaid for your Peticon"." 

 Soon after this there came an order from the governor requiring, iu 

 consequence of the troubles between the English and the aborigines, 

 that all Indians should remain in their own quarters during the winter. 

 "Aud some of the towne of Easthampton wanteing Indians to make up 

 theire crue for whaleing they take advantage of your hon" s*^ Ordre 

 thereby to hinder your peticou" of the said foure Shelter-Island Indians. 

 One of ye Overseers being of the Company that would soe hinder your 

 peticon". And Mr. Barker warned yo"^ peticon" not to entertaine the 

 said foure Indians without licence from your hon'". And although some 

 of your peticoners opposites in this matter of great weight to them 

 seek to prevent yC peticon" from haveing those foure Indians under 

 pretence of zeal in fulltilling y'^ hon" order, yet it is more then apparent 

 that they endeavor to break yo^ peticon" Company in y* maner that 

 soe they themselves may have opportunity out of the other eight East- 

 hampton Indians to supply theire owne wants."' After representing the 

 loss liable to accrue to them from the failure of their design and the 

 inability to hire Easthampton Indians, on account of their being already 

 engaged by other companies, they ask relief in the premises,* which 

 Governer Audross, in an order dated November 18, 1G75, grants them, 

 by allowing them to employ the aforesaid Shelter-Island Indians.t 



Another case is that of the widow of one Cooper, who in 1677 peti- 

 tions Audross to compel some Indians who had been hired and paid 

 their advance by her late husband to fulfill to her the contract made 

 with him, they having been hiring out to other parties since his decease.^ 

 The trade in oil from Long Island early gravitated to Boston and Con- 

 necticut, and this was always a source of much uneasiness to the author- 

 ities at New York. The people inhabiting Easthampton, Southampton, 

 and vicinity, settling under a patent with difierent guarantees from 

 those allowed under the Duke of York, had little in sympathy with that 

 government, and always turned toward Connecticut as their natural ally 

 and Massachusetts as their foster mother. Scarcely had what they 

 looked upon as the tyrannies of the New York governors reduced them 

 to a sort of subjection when they were assailed by a fresh enemy. A 

 sudden turn of the wheel of fortune brought them, in 1673, a second time 

 under the control of the Dutch. During this interregnum, which lasted 

 from July, 1673, to November, 1674, they were summoned, by their then 



* N. Y. Col. MSS., XXV, Sir Ed. Andross, p. 41. 



t Warrants, Orders, Passes, &c., 1674-1679, p. 161. 



tN. Y. Col. MSS., xxvi, p. 153. 



