USA > New York > The history of the late province of New-York, from its discovery, to the appointment of Governor Colden, in 1762. Vol. II > Part 1
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01152 1447
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
THE
HISTORY
OF THE LATE
PROVINCE OF NEW-YORK,
FROM
ITS DISCOVERY,
TO THE
APPOINTMENT OF GOVERNOR COLDEN,
IN
1762.
BY THE HON. WILLIAM SMITH,
Formerly of New-York, and late Chief Justice of Lower Canada.
VOL. II.
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Grattan, Print. 1830.
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW-YORK, ss.
Be it remembered, That on the 7th day of November, A. D. 1829, in the 54th year of the Independence of the United States of America, JOHN DELAFIELD, of the said District, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he clainis as proprietor in the words following, to wit:
" The History of the Province of New- York, from its discovery to the appointment of Go- vernor Colden, in 1762. By the honourable William Smith, formerly of New-York, and late Chief Justice of Lower Canada. Published under the direction of the New-York Historical Society.
In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled " An act for the en- couragement of Learning by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned." And also to an Act entitled " An Act, supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of Learn- ing, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints."
FRED. J. BETTS,
Clerk of the Southern District of New- York.
.
Southen_ $12.50 (2 vol)
ADVERTISEMENT1 239354
AT the close of the first volume of my father's History of New-York, he has stated the reasons which induced him not to publish it beyond a certain period : however forcible they might have been at that day, they no longer exist, and I therefore have taken the resolution to offer to the public the CONTINUATION of this History, written with his own hand. I read it with the utmost attention before I resolved upon the publication. I put the work into the hands of some of my friends, conceiving that it would have been pre- sumption in me to have trusted to my own partial decision, and they encouraged me to offer it to the public, as a curious and interesting book. When I resolved to follow this advice, it was a circumstance of great weight with me, that as it would probably be published at some future day, and might fall into the hands of an editor, who, not being actuated by the same sacred regard for the reputation of the author which I feel, might make alterations and additions, and obtrude the whole on the public as a genuine and authentic book. . The continuation of the history is therefore published as it was left by the author, with only a few verbal alterations end corrections.
WILLIAM SMITH,
Member of his Majesty's Council.
/
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE.
FROM Colonel Cosby's appointment to his death ; and the appointment of Mr. Clarke as President of the Province, in 1736,. ... .1
CHAPTER II.
From Governor Clarke's return to England, to the appointment of Go- vernor Clinton,
82
CHAPTER III.
From the resignation of Governor Clinton, to the appointment of Sir Danvers Osborn as Governor, 182
CHAPTER IV.
From the death of Sir Danvers Osborn, to the accession of Lieutenant
Governor Delancey,
.. 196
CHAPTER V.
From the time of Lieutenant-Governor Delancey's ceasing to administer the government, to the arrival of Sir Charles Hardy as Governor, .. ...... .. 263
CHAPTER VI.
From the absence of Sir Charles Hardy on an expedition against Mar- tinico, to the second assumption of the administration by Lieutenant Governor Delancey, .297
CHAPTER VII.
From Lieutenant-Governor Delancey's death, to the appointment of Lieutenant-Governor Colden, during the absence of Sir Charles Hardy, .. ....
.. 347
1
THE
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
CHAPTER I.
FROM COLONEL COSBY'S APPOINTMENT TO HIS DEATH ; AND TO THE APPOINTMENT OF MR. CLARKE AS PRESIDENT OF THE PROVINCE, IN 1736.
UPON the death of Mr. Montgomorie, the province was committed to the care of colonel William Cosby: he had formerly governed Minorca, and exposed himself to reproaches in that island, which followed him across the Atlantic. It was by his order that the effects of one Coppodoville, a Catalan merchant, then residing at Lisbon, were seized at Port Mahon, in 1718, several months before the war of that year was declared against Spain ; and he was charged with scandalous practices to secure the booty, by denying the right of appeal, and secreting the papers tending to detect the iniquity of the sentence, and enabling the proprietor to procure its reversal. He arrived here the 1st of August, 1732, and on the 10th spoke to the assembly, who had met several days before, agreeably to an adjournment. After inform- VOL. II. - 1
2
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
ing the house, that the delay of his voyage was owing to his desire of assisting the agents for defeating a bill brought into parliament, partial to the sugar islands, he declared his confidence in their willingness to provide for the support of government, by settling a revenue as ample and permanent as in any former instance ; urged their attention to the Indian commerce, and promised his power and interest to render them a happy and flourishing people.
The assembly were more liberal in the address with their thanks than their promises; for they merely engaged in general to contribute to the ease of his administration, and therefore he repeats his request when they come before him to present it.
From their dread of the success of the sugar act, they did not hesitate about a revenue to support the government for six years ; nor to secure out of it the payment of a salary of fifteen hundred and sixty pounds to the governor, with the emoluments of four hundred pounds per annum in fuel and candles for the fort, and one hundred and fifty pounds for his voyage to Albany, besides a sum for presents to the Indians. But it was late in the session before they voted any compensation for his assistance to the agents, and not till after the support bill had been passed. They then agreed only to present him with the sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds. The governor, who had intelligence of it, intimated his disgust, but in terms which, though it procured him an augmentation of two hundred and fifty pounds more, lost him their esteem. He accosted Mr. Morris, one of the members, on this occasion, in terms
3
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
expressing a contempt of the vote. "Damn them," said he, " why did they not add, shillings and pence? Do they think that I came from England for money? I'll make them know better."
This year was the first of our public attention to the education of youth : provision was then made for the first time to support a free school, for teach- ing the Latin and Greek tongues, and the practical branches of the mathematics, under the care of Mr. Alexander Malcolm of Aberdeen, the author of a Treatise upon Book-keeping. The measure was patronised by the Morris family, Mr. Alexander, and Mr. Smith, who presented a petition to the assembly for that object; such was the negligence of the day, that an instructor could not find bread, from the voluntary contributions of the inhabitants, though our eastern neighbours had set us an example of erecting and endowing colleges early in the last century.
The bill for this school, drafted by Mr. Philipse the speaker, and brought in by Mr Delancey, administered to some merriment. It had this sin- gular preamble : " whereas the youth of this colony are found, by manifold experience, to be not inferior in their natural geniuses to the youth of any other country in the world, therefore, be it enacted," &c.
The opposition to the sugar act, which now engrossed so much the public attention, was unsuc- cessful. Mr. President Van Dam, the council, and the assembly, had all concurred in a petition against it to the king, while Mr. Cosby was in England. They represented the islands as aiming at a mono- poly injurious both to the colony and the mother
4
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
country : asserted that this colony took off more British woollens than all the islands together, except what was imported by Jamaica for the Spaniards ; that the act would reduce them to raise their own clothing; that the provisions, horses, and lumber exported from this, and the colonies of New-Jersey and Pennsylvania, brought returns from the foreign as well as British islands, in money, rum, sugar, molasses, cocoa, indigo, cotton, all which, except the rum and molasses, were either consumed here, or furnished remittances to Great Britain for her balance against us; and the specie sent from this colony alone, they conceived to be more than from all the British islands together, Jamaica only ex- cepted: they denied that the British sugar islands could take off half the provisions raised by the three northern colonies aforementioned, or supply us with rum without lessening the exports of sugar. Nothing could be more importunate than their sup- plications for the king's protection against the West India project : and now the assembly devoted one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, with fifty pounds more for disbursements, to any person whom certain merchants of London should nominate as their agent, to assist this colony in what they con- ceived to be threatening them with ruin; for they apprehended that all purchasers from the foreign islands for our products, were to be totally pro- hibited ; a design, however, not countenanced by the act.
While Mr. Van Dam was in the chair, it became a question in council, on drawing the warrants for the governor's salary, whether the whole or only the
5
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
moiety should be received by the president. The assembly were consulted upon it, but declined an opinion. The council then advised warrants to Mr. Van Dam for the whole salary, and he received the money. Mr. Cosby came out with the king's order of the 31st of May, 1732, for the equal par- tition between himself and the president, of the salary and all perquisites and emoluments of government during his own absence. Van Dam was contented, if the governor would also divide with him the sums which came to his hands in England, for he confessed his own receipts to amount to no more than one thousand nine hundred and seventy-five pounds, seven shillings and ten pence, and insisted that the governor's were six thousand four hundred and seven pounds, eighteen shillings and ten pence. Colonel Cosby would not consent to this demand, and the president, who thought him his debtor, refused to tender him a farthing, and demanded a balance ' The governor, to compel the payment and prevent any discount, was advised to proceed against Van Dam in the exchequer, for in a suit at common law he dreaded a set off and the verdict of a jury, the president being a popular and reputable merchant. In chancery no measures could be taken, for there the governor presided, and could not be an unexceptionable judge in his own cause.
The supreme court exercised the ample authorities both of the king's bench and common pleas, and its sittings, or terms, had been fixed by ordinances of the governor, with the advice of the council. In certain instances the judges had proceeded
6
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
according to course of the exchequer, their commis- sions directing them "to make such rules and orders as may be found convenient and useful, as near as may be agreeable to the rules and orders of our courts of king's bench, common pleas, and ex- chequer."
Hence the hint for proceeding in equity before the judges of the supreme court, as barons of the exchequer, the majority of whom, Messrs. Delancey and Philipse, were the governor's intimate friends. In Mr. Morris, the chief justice, he had not equal confidence.
As soon as Bradley, the attorney-general, brought a bill in this court against Mr. Van Dam, the latter resolved to file a declaration at common law against Mr. Cosby, before the same judges, for his moiety as money received by the governor to his use, and required his excellency, by a letter of the 27th August, 1733, to give orders for entering his appear- ance at his suit. The governor slighted his request, and Van Dam, by his counsel, moved the judges in the subsequent term of October, for their letter to his excellency, similar to the practice of the chancery where a peer of the realm is defendant. The judges permitted him to file his declaration, but refused the letter, as unprecedented at law, and left him to choose the ordinary process. A summons was then offered to the clerk of the court for the seal, but he would not affix it to the writ. The attorney-general had in the mean time proceeded before the same judges in equity, to a commission of rebellion, and Van Dam found himself compelled to a defence.
It is natural to imagine that Van Dam's hard and
7
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
singular situation would excite pity, and that the populace might be induced to redeem him from oppression. He had early engaged Messrs. Alex- ander and Smith, two lawyers in high reputation, for his counsel. They took exception to the juris- diction of the court, and boldly engaged in support of the plea. But when judgment was given by the puisne judges for overruling it, the chief justice opposed his brethren, in a very long argument in writing, in support of his opinion; at which the governor was much offended, demanded a copy, and then the judge, to prevent misrepresentation, com- mitted it to the press.
The exceptions were three :- that the supreme court, which claimed this jurisdiction in equity, was established by an ordinance of the late king George the first, and expired at his demise, and had not been re-established in the present reign :- that his present majesty, by his commission to governor Montgomorie, under the great seal of Great Britain, having commanded him to execute all things in due manner, according to the powers granted by that commission, and the instructions therewith given, by the 39th article of which he was required to grant commissions, with the advice of the council, to persons fit to be judges, and that he had com- missioned Mr. Delancey and Mr. Philipse without such advice :- that they had no jurisdiction or authority to compel the defendant to appear upon oath, concerning the matters in the bill; and there is no prescription, act of parliament, nor act of assembly, to establish any supreme court, nor to
8
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
empower any court or persons to hold cognizance of pleas in a court of equity, in or for this province.
Mr. Cosby went to his government in Jersey very soon after the order for overruling the plea, which was the 9th April, 1733, in the presence of a crowded and exasperated audience ; and upon his return in August presented Mr. Delancey, at the council board, with a commission to be chief justice, and had issued another advancing Mr. Philipse to the second seat. The members present, besides Delancey, were Clark, Harison, Colden, and Ken- nedy, so that he could not form a board for this step, there wanting the necessary quorum of five compe- tent members. He did not ask their opinion or advice on this unguarded measure, which added fresh oil to the flame already spread through the colony, and excited the fears of the multitude.
The assembly meeting soon after in autumn, Mr. Morris was chosen to represent the county of West- chester, in the place of a deceased member ; but he did not present the indenture of his return till the last day of a short session, in which nothing of much moment was transacted.
The court (for all the province was already divided into two parties) made an ineffectual oppo- sition to Mr. Morris's introducing his son Lewis into the assembly, as the burgess of the town of West- chester. One Forster, a schoolmaster, and appointed clerk of the court by Mr. Cosby, was set up against Mr. Morris, and supported by Mr. Delancey and Mr. Philipse, who canvassed against the old judge, who offered himself to the county. The quakers were
9
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
all set aside by the sheriff, Cowper, who insisted upon an oath instead of the affirmation, to prove their freeholds ; a violence, however, which laid the foundation for a law in their favour, while it added, for the present, to the general discontent, already risen so high in the capital, that their joy on Mr. Morris's next arrival there was announced by the explosion of the cannon of the merchants' ships in the harbour, and by the citizens meeting and con- ducting him, with loud acclamations, to a public and splendid entertainment.
The arts, common in such ferments, were played off by the leaders of the opposition. Zenger's Weekly Journal was engaged in their service, and a great part filled with extracts from the spirited papers of Trenchard, Gordon, and other writers on the popular side ; while Bradford's Gazette was employed to defend the governor and his party.
In the course of the winter of 1734, two vessels arrived for provisions from Louisburgh, where such strong fortifications were erecting as excited the jealousy of all the northern colonies ; and the cir- cumstance of their sounding the passage up from the Hook being discovered, an advantage was taken of it, and an affidavit, taken to prove it, published in the papers. The odium fell on the governor, as countenancing the design of exposing the port and colony to the French ; and Mr. Van Dam made this one of the articles of the charge of mal-adminis- tration which he transmitted against him, though there did not appear the least ground for the imputation.
VOL. II .- 2
.
10
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
At the parting of some company from Mr. Alex- ander's, late in the evening of the 1st February, an incendiary letter was picked up in the hall. It had been shoved under the outer door, and was instantly pronounced, by Mr. Alexander, to be the hand- writing of Mr. Harison, then a member of the council. It was in these words :-
" To Mr. Alexander :
" I am one who formerly was accounted a gentleman, but am now reduced to poverty, and have no victuals to eat ; and, knowing you to be of a generous temper, desire you would comply with my request, which is, to let me have ten pistoles to supply my necessaries and carry me to my native country. This is a bold request, but I desire you will comply with it, or you and your family shall feel the effects of my displeasure. Unless you let me have them, I'll destroy you and your family by a stratagem which I have contrived. If that don't take the desired effect, I swear, by God, to poison all your tribe so surely, that you shan't know the perpetrator of the tragedy. I beg, for God's sake, that you would let me have the money, and hinder me from committing such a black deed. I know you can spare it, so desire you would let me have it. Saturday night, about seven o'clock, leave it by the cellar door, wrapped up in a rag, and about an hour after, I will come and take it : put it on the ground just where I put the stick. If you don't leave it, I advise you not to drink your beer, nor eat your bread, if you value your life and healths, for, by my soul, I will do what I have mentioned. If I find any watch to guard me in taking of it, I'll desist and
11
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
not take it, but follow my intended scheme, and hinder you from acting any more on the stage of life. If you comply, I'll never molest you more ; but if not, I'll hazard my life in destroying yours, and continue what I am."
From the neglect to disguise the hand, which Mr. Smith, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Lurting the mayor, all pronounced to be Mr. Harison's, it was con- jectured that his design was to provoke a criminal prosecution, establish the precedent of convicting on the proof of a similitude of hands, and then, by counterfeiting the writing of one of the demagogues of the day, to bring him to the gallows, while the governor's friends were to escape by pardon.
It was therefore, with great earnestness, that Mr. Alexander, under the influence of that suspicion, when called , before the grand jury, contended against their finding an indictment only upon such evidence, and with caution and reserve that he mentioned Mr. Harison's name, as the grand jurors themselves afterwards certified. They con- tented themselves with an address to the governor, acquainting him that they could not discover the author, being able to have the evidence no higher than a resemblance between the letter and his writing : that, least a presentment or indictment by them upon such evidence, should prove a trap to ensnare some innocent person upon the oath they had taken, they durst not accuse any individual. They besought him, nevertheless, to issue a procla- mation, with a promise of reward, for detecting the author of the villany.
This matter was laid before the council, and
12
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
referred to Messrs. Harison, Van Horn, Kennedy, Delancey, Courtlandt, Lane, and Horsmanden, who, as a committee, proceeded to make the necessary inquiries preparatory to a report. As Mr. Alexander and Mr. Smith, who were summoned to attend there, refused to appear, while Harison, the suspected author, was of the committee, and Mr Alexander, a member of the board, left out, they proceeded only upon the testimony of Mr Hamilton and Mr. Lurting ; and, though they advised a proclamation, offering fifty pounds for a discovery, yet they reported it as their opinion that Mr. Harison was entirely innocent of the infamous piece of villany laid to his charge ; that he was incapable of being guilty of so foul a deed, and that the letter was a most wicked scandalous, and infamous counterfeit and forgery, calculated by some artful, malicious, and evil-minded persons to traduce and vilify the character of an honorable member of his majesty's council of this province, and thereby render him odious and infamous to mankind.
Whether the governor was let into the design of the author of the letter. was never discovered, though some stress was laid upon words dropped by a man intimate in the family. who, coming home in his cups late in the evening, shortly before the letter was found, said a scheme was executed to hang Alexander and Smith ; and Mrs. Cosby, fre- quently, and without reserve, had declared that "it was her highest wish to see them on a gallows at the fort gate."
Harison was generally suspected, in spite of the testimonial of the council, of which he made all the
13
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
use in his power in an exculpatory address to the city corporation, whose recorder he then was, sug- gesting that Mr. Alexander and Mr. Smith had forged the letter to ruin him. They published a refutation of the scandal, which, by assigning proofs of his enmity, strengthened the general suspicions then prevalent against him,
Harison had been concerned with them and others in the design of procuring a patent for part of the great oblong, surrendered to this colony on the settlement with Connecticut.
The petitioners were in this way to be recom- pensed for two thousand pounds expended in effecting the establishment of the eastern line of the colony. While the business of the surrender was negotiating, Harison had perfidiously revealed the design to sir Joseph Eyles, the duke of Chandois, and others, and prompted them to sue out a patent in England It issued there on the 15th May, 1731, upon erroneous suggestions, and with a description which did not include the lands meant to be taken up, and which were fortunately granted by Mr. Montgomerie before the English patent arrived, or Mr. Harrison had time to correct the information by which they had been deceived, and on which account he had justly exposed himself to censure on both sides of the water.
Add to this, that at the very time of finding the incendiary letter, Mr. Harison was under a prose- cution tending to overwhelm him with disgrace : he had promoted an action for two hundred pounds in the name of Wheldon, against one Trusdel, who had been his servant. The defendant was reduced
-
14
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
to great straits by the action, and complained to his creditor, who, knowing nothing of the prosecution, took Trusdel to be insane. When it was discovered that Mr. Harison had ordered the writ in October, 1732, to gratify a pique of his own, and. without any authority from Wheldon, he retained Mr. Alexander, and Mr. Smith, to avenge the poor man he had injured. The grand jury presented Harison, and Trusdel in a civil process was cast in the trial. It was afterwards published, and exhibited such proofs of the ingrati- tude, cruelty, dissimulation, and injustice of Mr. Harison, that he soon after fled to England.
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