USA > New York > Courts and lawyers of New York; a history, 1609-1925, Volume I > Part 22
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7. "Moreover, even just cause does not oblige rulers to undertake war for their subjects, except it can be done without damage to all or a majority of them. For the office of governor extends rather over the whole, than over a part; and where a part is greater there it approximates more closely to the nature of the whole; and in regard to Christ's precept, which wills that we be ready to set aside all contentions and discord; conse- quently still more does it discountenance war and, therefore, says Ambrose : 'It is not only generosity in a prudent man to desist somewhat from his right ; but it is also profitable and advantageous.' In like manner Aristides : 'Men must quietly yield and grant a little, for those are prized who will rather suffer wrong than contention.' Zenophon: 'It becometh even the wise not to commence a war for a great cause.' From all that has been here stated on the subject of war, it can readily be concluded how prudently we must proceed in the matter; and how hazardous it is to engage in it, especially with so rude and barbarous a people as these Indians are."-See "Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York," Vol. I ("Holland Documents," III), p. 208, quoted in Chester's "Legal and Judicial Hist. of N. Y.," Vol. I, 119.
8. Kuyter and Melyn brought a formal complaint against Kieft, and asked that a rigid inquiry be made into the alleged abuses of his government. The answer was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. Was it to be ac- cepted as his opinion that it was treason to petition against one's magis-
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while those who dared to raise their voices against the ab- solutism of the governorship were discredited ; for, as Stuyve- sant saw it, they merited only condemnation as rebels. How- ever, though man cannot always properly gauge the signif- icance of events, the guilty do not thereby always go un- punished ; there is one above to whom all is clear. Kieft and his booty sank beneath the waves on the homeward voyage, and Melyn and Kuyter were saved9. They were honored in
trates, whether there was cause or not? The denials of Kieft, he (Stuyve- sant) considered as of more weight than any evidence his antagonists could bring to substantiate their charges. He would not, Stuyvesant declared, recognize them officially as members of the late Board of Eight Men, nor as representatives of the citizens at large; but only as "private persons." He looked upon them, he said, merely as "perturbators of the public peace," hardly worthy of a hearing. In all this he was mindful of the force of precedent. "If this point be conceded," he said to his Council, "will not these cunning fellows, in order to usurp over us a more unlimited power, claim and assume, in consequence, even greater authority against ourselves and our commission, should it happen that our administration do not quad- rate in every respect with their whims?" His despotism was not without forethought. The Council had no will and no opinions of their own; all its members, Van Dincklage, Van Dyck, Keyser, Captain Newton, La Mon- tagne and Van Tienhoven, the Provincial Secretary, hastened to agree with him, and the petition of Kuyter and Melyn was not granted .- See "Stuyve- sant's Address, in O'Callaghan's "History of New Netherland," Vol II, 24, 26.
9. It was on this voyage that there came "the observable hand of God," of which Winthrop writes, and which he interpreted as "against the Dutch at New Netherlands," and showing "so much of God in favor of his poor people here (in New England) and displeasure toward such as have op- posed and injured them." For Kieft, he adds, "had continually molested the colonies of Hartford and New Haven, and used menacings and protests against them upon all occasions." Wherefore, the hand of God was heavy upon him; so that when the "Princess" approached the English coast she ran upon the coast of Wales, near Swansea, instead of up the English Chan- nel, and was lost. Many saw in it a judgment, who did not agree with the Massachusetts governor that Kieft was "a sober and prudent man," "I told Wilhelm Kieft," De Vries had written four years before, "that I doubted not that vengeance for the innocent blood which he had shed in his murderings would, sooner or later, come on his head." Kuyter and Melyn were disposed to agree with him, no doubt. To Kieft himself, there came deathbed repentance, for as the ship was being pounded to pieces on the Welsh rocks, he called Kuyter and Melyn to his side and said: "Friends, I have been unjust towards you; can you forgive me?" So he perished, and with him eighty others; but among the twenty who were saved were Kuyter and Melyn. Kuyter was washed ashore "in a surf so heavy that it threw at the same time a cannon upon the beach"; Melyn escaped upon a raft .- Bryant's "History of the United States," Vol. II, 120.
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Holland, and returned vindicated to New Netherland. And while the persecution of Melyn by Stuyvesant continued until the former was forced to leave the province, Kuyter seems to have so far regained official favor that the governor did not strenuously object to his appointment to the Board of Nine Men in 1652, or as city schout of New Amsterdam in 1654. However, Kuyter was near his end. He was not destined to again take office, for, shortly after being appointed, he was murdered by Indians on his farm near Harlem.
Cornelis Melyn seems to have suffered, by official disfavor, more than any other patroon. He was a man of superior station in life in the homeland, being a wealthy burgher of Antwerp; and he came to New Netherland in 1639 "to see the country," with his friend, Joachim Kuyter, "another gentle- man of education and ability." He bought land on Staten Island, and became "its first patroon appointed from Holland." In 1641, he extinguished the Indian title by purchase, but his estate brought him little comfort. "He was twice deprived of his property by colonial governors, and his settlement was twice destroyed by fire and massacre." He had some prop- erty in New Amsterdam, on the east side of Broad Street, but this was confiscated by Stuyvesant in 1650. Retreating to Staten Island, Melyn fortified himself upon his manor for a while, but in 1655 another Indian raid razed his buildings. In 1657 he left the province, taking the oath of allegiance to the New Haven Colony, and selling his New Netherland estates to the West India Company. He died in 1674, prob- ably in New York City, leaving a widow and five children, whose descendants are in the families of Conklin, Dickinson, Houston, Kingsbury, Schellinger and others. "He was an upright, clear-headed patriot, of indomitable will and tenacity of purpose. His treatise: 'Wholesome Advice to the United Netherland Provinces,' translated by Dr. H. C. Murphy, Vol. III, 'Historical Collections of New York,' is esteemed by Pro-
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fessor Justin Winsor as the production of a statesman and a patriot."10
George (Joris Jansen de) Rapalje, (Rapelje) a member of the original Board of Twelve Men, was one of the emigrants who came with Peter Minuit in 1626. His daughter, Sarah, said to be the first white girl born of Dutch parentage on Long Island, married Hans Hansen van Bergen, the first res- ident shipbuilder on Manhattan Island. Rapelje, about 1637 acquired about 335 acres, near the present Wallabout, and was a pioneer of Breuckelen, where he lived from about 1655, when he became one of its magistrates. His descendants are still of leading Brooklyn families.
Thomas Hall, of the first board of Eight Men (1643), was one of the first two Englishmen to settle within the present bounds of the State of New York. Born in Gloucestershire in 1614, he crossed to New England early and came into conflict with Dutch authority when he attempted to settle on the banks of the Delaware on Dutch land, without their sanction. He was brought to New Amsterdam as a prisoner, but hav- ing taken the oath of fidelity to the "high and mighty Lords the States General of the United Belgicq Provinces,"11 he and his comrade, George Holmes, were permitted to remain in New Amsterdam. In 1639, they were conducting a tobacco plantation, in partnership, on the banks of the East River. In 1654 Thomas Hall owned property just beyond the city
10. "Nat. Encyc. Am. Biog.," Vol. X, 221.
II. "A Coppie of the Oath of Fidelity to be done and Subscybet by those that are to Come and to Settle under the Government of the Prov- ince of the N. Netherlands. "Wee doe in the Presence of the Almighty God hereby acknowledge, declare and sweare that wee shall be true and faithful unto the high and mighty Lords, the States Generals of the United Belgicq Provinces, the Right Honourable, the Lords Bewinthebbers of the West-India Comp., theire Governour & Counsel in tyme beinge all fittinge & due obedience accordinge as other Inhabitants of this Province in duty are Bound to doe; that wee shal not acknowledge any other Prince or State to have dominion over us, Soo longe as wee shal live and Continue in this thyre Province and Jurisdiction off the N. Netherlands.
"So help may (or us) the God Almighty."
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limits, on the hilltop near what became Beekman Street. He died in 1670.
Another famous Englishman of the Dutch period in New York was John Underhill, about whose activities much has been written in foregoing chapters. He was born in War- wickshire, England, and was a soldier of experience before he came with Winthrop to Massachusetts Bay in 1630. He dis- tinguished himself in the English expedition against the Pequots in 1637. He incurred official displeasure, and was removed from office. Returning to England he published his "Newes From New England." Returning to America, he was appointed governor over Exeter and Dover, in the settle- ment of New Hampshire. In 1644, when the Dutch governor, Kieft, was in sore straits, and the Indians got beyond control, Underhill took command of an expeditionary force of Dutch and English colonists of New Netherland, for a sudden march through the February snows to the Indian town in Connec- icut. With his force of one hundred and fifty colonists, he made a night attack with such vehemence that only eight of the seven hundred Indians escaped. Judged by the standards of our day, it was a massacre; but the victory was so decisive that tension was not so great thereafter in New Amsterdam, and peace came. Of Underhill's somewhat inglorious mili- tary manœuvres against the Dutch during Stuyvesant's period as governor enough has already been written. Besides being a member of the Board of Eight in 1645, he was one of the earliest magistrates of Flushing, and at one time was town schout. He was always one of the leaders in the English towns of Long Island. His death took place about 1672, prob- ably at Oyster Bay, Long Island.
George Baxter, who was also a member of the Eight Men in 1645, was another of the capable and troublesome English- men of Long Island, an associate of Underhill in most of his enterprises against the Dutch, and probably better acquainted with legal procedure. He was appointed English Provincial
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Secretary by Governor Kieft, about 1642, and was continued as such by Stuyvesant. He was prominently connected with the memorable conventions of 1653, and in the next year plotted to free part of Long Island of Dutch rule. He was arrested, and only the complicated state of intercolonial relations at that time saved him from being hanged, it seems. He was one of the first magistrates of Gravesend.
Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt came to New Amsterdam in 1638 with Director Kieft, in the service of the West India Company as a commissary. He remained in commercial capacity with the Company for ten years, after which he be- came a brewer, and in time a man of wealth and prominence. He was of the Board of Eight Men in 1645, succeeded Van der Donck as president of the Board of Nine Men in 1650, signed the celebrated "Vertoogh" in 1649,12 and in 1655 was one of the burgomasters of New Amsterdam, to which office he was reelected in 1656, 1658, 1659, 1661, 1662, 1663, being in office up to the time when the government passed to the Eng- lish, in 1664. He was one of the commissioners appointed to arrange the terms of capitulation. At one time he was a colonel of militia in New Netherland. He died in New York City April 4, 1684.
Augustine Heermans, member of the Board of Nine Men in 1647, was born in Prague, Bohemia, and came to New Amsterdam in 1633. For some years he continued in the employ of the Company, but when the opportune moment arrived, entered into commercial business for himself, ap- parently in New Amsterdam. He did well, and in 1644, after at least one voyage to Holland, represented the great Amster- dam mercantile house of Gabry in New Amsterdam. He was
12. Van Tienhoven, in attempting a defence of the acts of Stuyvesant by insinuations against those who signed the Remonstrance, said of Van Cortlandt, that he had "profited in the service of the Company, and en- deavored to give his benefactor the world's pay, that is, to recompense good with evil."
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one of the three merchants of New Netherland chosen by Stuyvesant in 1647 to join the Board of Nine Men. He was of that board in 1649 and 1650, but because he had been a party to the "Vertoogh," drafted in 1649, was not favored by Stuyvesant for the board of 1652. Maybe his failure in business in that year is another reason why. But within a year he had compounded with his creditors, and had reëstablished his credit and repute. Possibly the privateering frigate "La Garce," of which he was part owner in 1649, was a losing ven- ture, seeing that the ending of the Thirty Years' War in that year ended the opportunities to prey upon Spanish commerce along the Main. He was of service to New Netherland as a diplomat, going to Rhode Island as an ambassador in 1652 and to Maryland in 1659. In 1660 he acquired an estate in Maryland, but seems to have made New Amsterdam his chief place of residence and business until after 1664. He could not adapt himself to English conditions in the Dutch city, and so removed to Maryland, where upon his vast estate, Bohemia Manor, of 18,000 acres, he lived for the remainder of his life, death coming in 1686.
Arnoldus van Hardenburgh, the second of the merchants to be placed upon the original Board of Nine Men, became a wealthy man by his trading and in merchandizing. He was also a member of the Nine Men of 1649, and signed the famous "Vertoogh," which eventually brought burgher government to the communities of the province.
Govert Loockermanns, the third merchant to be elected to the Board of Nine Men in 1647, was an old servant of the West India Company, in whose employ he was when he came to New Amsterdam in 1633, with Governor Wouter van Twiller. Van Tienhoven described him as at first, "a cook's mate." But he soon became an independent trader, and in 1640 returned to Holland to be married. From 1641 until the year of his death he was a shipping merchant and general trader in New Netherland, becoming one of its wealthiest
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citizens. His yacht "Hope" added to his trading radius. He also did considerable trading with Holland. In addition he was a brewer. His life was an adventurous one, and some of his experiences he regretted; for instance, his part in the Corlaer's Hoeck massacre in 1643. In his trading with the Indians he had gained a knowledge of their language, and on several occasions was called upon to act as interpreter. His signature appears on the treaty signed by Stuyvesant and others with the chiefs of the Esopus Indians in 1664. Loock- ermanns is described as "old Schepens," and also as inter- preter. He was a member of the Schepens Court in 1657 and 1660, and was orphan master in 1663. In 1670 he was lieu- tenant of a militia company.
Hendrick Hendricksen Kip was one of the burgher mem- bers of the boards of Nine Men in 1647, 1649 and 1650. He came to New Amsterdam before 1643 and seems to have been of good family.13 He became a capable man of politics, a leader in the popular movement which eventually brought burgher government.14 He was a man of strong convictions which he fearlessly followed. He became a member of the Schepens Court of New Amsterdam in 1656.
13. It is believed that he was of noble lineage, probably from the family of De Kype, of Bretagne, France, members of which removed to Holland in the sixteenth century as the result of religious agitation in their native country ; the coat-of-arms which he claimed was on the stained glass win- dows of the first church built in New Amsterdam, and on the Kip's Bay house of his descendants .- Chester's "Legal and Judicial Hist. of N. Y.," Vol. I, 118.
14. In the popular struggle against Director Kieft he was one of the leaders, and as influential as any in the community. His strong personality and his unwearying activity made him one of the most remarkable indi- viduals of his time and place. His hatred of Kieft for the massacre of the Indians at Pavonia and Corlaer's Hook in 1643 never waned, and he never neglected an opportunity to show it. In August, 1645, when peace was being arranged with the Indians after the Kieft Indian wars, the people were called to the fort to hear and consider the proposals for the treaty between the savages and the Dutch. The record has it that all assented to this summons "except Hendrick Kip, the tailor." When Kieft sailed from New Amsterdam for Holland he, almost alone of the community, would not even join in the adieus which the people paid as a matter of form to the deposed ruler .- Ibid., same page.
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Jacob Wolphertsen van Couwenhoven, another of the burgher members of the first Board of Nine Men (1647), came to the province in 1633, with one or more of his brothers. They were traders, and, like most traders, developed the gen- eral commercial lines of New Amsterdam merchants. Pieter was in partnership with his brother Jacob in several lines, milling and brewing being added to their enterprises. They became wealthy, and were respected, this being evidenced by their part in public affairs. Gerrit Wolphertsen van Couwen- hoven was a member of the first Board of Eight Men (1643), Jacob was of the Nine Men of 1647, 1649 and 1650, passing out of official grace and office thereafter because of his associ- ation with the "Vertoogh" against Stuyvesant. Jacob Van Couwenhoven was one of the three who took this Remon- strance to Holland. Pieter was one of the first magistrates of New Amsterdam, being a member of the Schepens Court created in 1653. With this municipal body he was connected in 1654, 1658, 1659, 1661 and 1663. He was a delegate from New Amsterdam to the Convention of 1653, and was one of those who signed the treaty of peace in May, 1664, with the Esopus Indians. In that document he is described as "Lieu- tenant," which was the capacity in which he served under "Captain-Lieutenant" Marten Cregier, in the Esopus cam- paign. The change from Dutch to English sovereignty in 1664 affected his business, and the last years of his life were spent upon his farm in New Jersey.
Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donck, to whom has been accorded, somewhat erroneously, the distinction of being "the earliest lawyer in New York," was born of good family in Breda, North Brabant, about 1620.14a His father was Cor- nelis van der Donck, a prosperous burgher of Breda. His grandfather was Adriaen van der Berg, who thirty years be-
I4a. The "National Cyclopedia of American Biography" (Vol. XII. p. 205) states that he was born "about the end of the 16th century."
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fore had conceived the plan by which the Castle of Breda was captured from the Spaniards, his vessel with its cargo of turfs, screening seventy intrepid soldiers, getting within the castle precincts unsuspected, whence after dark the soldiers emerged and surprised the garrison, the turf boat thus playing a part in the Dutch war of independence somewhat like that of the wooden horse in the siege of Troy. Adriaen van der Donck, in his New Netherland experiences, showed resource- fulness and tenacity of purpose equally commendable if not so colorful as that of his doughty grandfather.
At the time that Adriaen first began to think of the North American province of the United Netherlands he was a stu- dent at the University of Leyden, a young man of about twenty years, "almost finishing his studies of the civil and canon law." He heard of the far-away colony of Rensselaers- wyck on the Hudson River; and adventure in the wilds of America, fur trapping and trading, and encounters with the Red Indians perhaps, were more alluring than the young man could resist. He went to see Patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer in Amsterdam. This keen man of affairs quickly saw that the young student would be of use to him. Writing to one of his partners, he stated: "This young man of proper habits is in truth a good thing for us. I have made him some proposals." Van der Donck had not yet been admitted to practice law in Holland, but his study of law in the university was sufficient for the purpose of the patroon, who, in truth, stood much in need of a voorspraecke, or attorney, to defend his interests in the colony, and a man of law to guide judicial procedure in the patroon court at Rensselaerswyck. So he offered Van der Donck satisfactory terms to become schout-fiscal. He was commissioned as officer of justice of the colony of Rens- selaerswyck on May 13, 1641, to succeed Jacob Planck, who had been "officier" from 1634-37, but who had not been reap- pointed. Planck had also been commies or commissary, as well as schout, but in the former office had not given satis-
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faction,14b and Arendt van Curler, his assistant, had become commies, continuing as such, it seems, after van der Donck assumed the judicial responsibilities.
Van der Donck reached Rensselaerswyck in August, 1641, and leased half of Castle Island for a farm and dwelling place. He was evidently disappointed that he had not been given full charge of the colony, and friction soon developed between Van Curler and himself. Complaints reached Van Rensselaer from Van Curler; and these seemed of such seriousness that the patroon went to infinite pains to draft for van der Donck a treatise on his duties. This paper, it is said, took Van Rensselaer "the better part of four days to compose." He blamed van der Donck "for being too hot-headed; for argu- ing with fractious colonists instead of maintaining his dignity by summoning them before the court of justice." He accused him of overweening ambition. "I tell you roundly," he wrote, "if you set your mark so high, you will study more your own advancement than my advantage."
Soon Van Rensselaer was shocked to realize that the ambi- tion of his schout reached even to the height of a patroonship. By threats of dismissal and imprisonment, van der Donck was forced to give up his plan to interest some capitalist to plant a colony in the valley of the Catskill, just south of the van Rensselaer boundaries; but his position at Rensselaers- wyck was fast becoming untenable. Commissary Van Curler, in the spring of 1643, issued orders that no one should go into the forest to trade with the Indians; that Indians must bring their furs to the colony, and first offer them to
14b. Patroon van Rensselaer wrote to Director-General Kieft in 1639: "I am negotiating about sending some people of capacity to my colony, but they were not able to make up their minds so quickly as to get ready, and in the former officer, Jacob Planck, I do not find a proper manager. He knows more about trading furs, which have been of greater profit to him than to me; however, I wish to part with him in friendship, and not to give the least occasion for dissatisfaction among my people, for they stir one another up."-See the "Minutes of the Court of Rensselaerswyck, 1648-1652." (Van Laer, 1922), p. 10.
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the officials. Furthermore, the colonists were forbidden to buy goods from any of the itinerant merchants who came up the Hudson with their yachts ; all settlers must buy only from the patroon's agents. Van der Donck flatly refused to enforce these unpopular laws; and once, when he was ordered to search the houses of the settlers for woolen cloth, supposed to have been smuggled from a trading vessel, he "went about passing 'Good day,' and giving the people the wink, and re- ported 'nothing found.'"
The first patroon died in 1644 (or shortly before) ; but this happening did not make much change at Rensselaers- wyck. Van Curler was still commissary, and van der Donck was still non-compliant. His opportunity, however, came in 1645. In July of that year Governor Kieft came up the river to negotiate a treaty of peace with the Mohawk Indians. Van der Donck acted as mediator, and also advanced some money that the governor needed, with which to make presents of wampum to the Indian chiefs. In this way the young schout of Rensselaerswyck came favorably before the gov- ernor ; and probably it was at this time that Kieft promised to grant van der Donck a substantial tract of land. They went down to Manhattan together. There van der Donck met and married an English woman, Maria, the daughter of Rev. Francis Doughty, who had taken refuge in New Netherland, having been driven from his pulpit at Cohasset, Massachu- setts, for daring to declare that Abraham's children ought to have been baptized. In the fall of 1645 Van der Donck re- turned to Rensselaerswyck with his wife But his house on Castle Island was burned down in mid-winter and he and Van Curler quarrelled over a point of law, Van Curler con- tending that the lessee (Van der Donck) and not the lessor (Van Rensselaer) should stand the loss of the house. This quarrel reached its height in the spring of 1646, after Van der Donck had sold his interest in the leased farm,14c and had
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