Secession and Annexation of Nantucket. He told them how in the August pre ceeding he had just loaded his ship for England when the Dutch seized New York. He had slipped away in the night and al most reached New Haven when he was captured. Isaac's written declaration lies before us. " Three pinnaces and armed men overtook him," he said, and brought him back to New York, " where they felloniously Robbed and Ranged his ship and goods." Not content with this, the Dutch then pro ceeded to freight his vessel for Holland with "90 barrels of whale oyle, 83 hhds of Tobacco, 473 Feces of Logwood and 150 Cowhides." Isaac stated that this cargo was far less in value than that which the Dutch had robbed him of, but such as it was he in tended to claim it for his own, if only the men of Nantucket would assist him. To dis pose of the cargo himself, since it was con signed to Holland, would have made him liable to arrest for barratry, and the danger was considerable even in those troublous days. The cargo was now stranded on Nan tucket. " The foreseeing providence of God had brought him to this his Majestie's Is land," Isaac said, " with the loss of masts, sayles, rigging and furniture, which their worships might perceive," and he ended by asking their aid and offering them a share of the cargo. The men of Nantucket hesitated to commit themselves. Isaac saw that the sympathy of his hearers was with him, and to remove all possible doubt of his honesty, he drew from his pocket and passed to Edward Macy a letter from the late (English) Governor Lovelace of New York, which certified that Isaac Melyne was a "free deniscn " of that Province. The men were excited and disturbed over the affair. Their sympathies were wholly with Isaac. What right had a Dutchman in New York to rob a man of his cargo and send him unwilling to Holland with another? Then, too, it was plain to them that the grounding of the Venture was not so ob
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viously an accident as at first it had ap peared. Here was an appeal to their Eng lish blood which it was all but impossible for them to refuse, and yet they had a whole some remembrance of the fact that they were no longer subjects of the English crown. Edward Macy was the first of the seamen to speak. " Where do you think you are?" he asked, handing the letter back. "In New England, or may I die for it!" answered Isaac. "Then you are like to die," said Macy dryly. " You are in the Province of New York and every man of us is Dutch." Macy voiced the conservative opinion of the gathering, but many of the men agreed warmly with James Coffin, who retorted. "We're no more Dutch than he is, Edward Macy. I say we help him off the Rip and shift his cargo too." "We'll help float his ship," answered Macy slowly, " but before we share his cargo we'd better lay his claim before the court, For myself, I've no taste to pay for his cargo to the next Dutch ship the governor may send us." This was the better judgment of the meet ing, it was the always sound appeal to the Anglo-Saxon love of law, and so the matter was left to the later decision of the island court. Meanwhile the tide had turned and all hands went to the aid of the Venture, which they easily floated off the bar and towed to a safe anchorage near the town. Ten years before, in 1663, James Coffin had married Mary Severance, of Salisbury, Province of Massachusetts Bay, and from her first coming to Nantucket Mary had played no small part in the island life. The destinies of larger nations than Holland have hinged on the whimsical, but none the less enduring determination of one woman. Rus sia, France and Spain have followed the whispered advice of queen or courtesan; and when a state issue arose in Nantucket, like the sharing of the Venture's cargo, which in
