48 Industrial Experiments in Colonial America. 



without foundation. The deaths and sickness had resulted from 

 a distemper caught on the passage over, for which doctors and 

 medicine had been provided. Mr. Clarke, Secretary of the 

 Council of New York, wrote an account of the mutiny to the 

 Board of Trade and expressed his opinion that the deprivation 

 of their arms would bring the Palatines to reason ; and, in a 

 second letter, he was able to inform their Lordships that the 

 more sober-minded had met together and resolved to beg the 

 governor's pardon. The governor forgave them, with the 

 understanding that the first disobedience would be punished 

 with the utmost rigor of the law. Whereupon the penitents 

 " began to demonstrate their sincerity by inquiring when they 

 should be set to work."^ 



For the better management of the Palatines, Governor 

 Hunter now formed a court, of which Robert Livingston was 

 to be a permanent member, to take cognizance of all misde- 

 meanors of the people and for general regulation of their labor.- 

 The commissioners soon found matters to occupy their atten- 

 tion, such as the difficulty in getting the coopers to make staves 

 enough for the tar barrels. This they managed by detaching 

 certain men to work alternate weeks, requiring the list masters 

 to keep a strict account of each man's time. In July, 171 1, Mr. 

 Cast wrote to Governor Hunter that the people were more sub- 

 missive, but that better meat must be provided. It was undoubt- 

 edly easier to retrench bad than good food, but matters had been 

 carried too far, and he begged that the people be relieved from 

 salted provisions. A bridge was being built to carry the tar to 

 the other side of the river. The people viewed this bridge with 

 suspicion, as an indication that a very extensive manufacture 

 of tar was contemplated, and they cynically remarked that it 

 would rot before it was put to that use.^ 



To make the afifairs at the settlements worse, unfortunate 

 dissensions arose in the court itself. Everybody suspected his 

 fellow commissioners, while the cupidity and arbitrary behavior 



iDoct. Hist, of New York, Vol. Ill, p. 667. 

 2Doct. Hist, of New York, Vol. HI, p. 669. 

 ^Doct. Hist, of New York, Vol. HI, p 672. 



