USA > New York > New York City > History of New York city from the discovery to the present day, V.1 > Part 13
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CHAPTER III.
THE years 1738 and 1739, were marked by increasing political excitement; and the dividing line of parties, in- volving the great principles of civil liberty on the 1738. one side and the prerogatives of the Crown on the 1739. other, were more distinctly drawn, perhaps, than at any antecedent period. , The administrations of the earlier English Governors, Nicholls and Lovelace, were benevolent and almost parental. Andros, it is true, was a tyrant ; and during his administration parties were formed, as in England, upon the mixed questions of politics and religion, which dethroned the last and most bigoted of the Stuarts, and brought William and Mary upon the throne. Dongan, however, the last of the Stuart Governors in New York, although a Roman Catholic, was nevertheless mild in the administration of the government, and a gentleman in his feelings and manners. It was upon his arrival, in the autumn of 1683, that the freeholders of the colony, as we have seen, were invested with the right of choosing repre- sentatives to meet the Governor in General Assembly. For nearly twenty years subsequent to the revolution of 1689, the colony was torn by personal, rather than politi- cal, factions, having their origin in the controversy which compassed the judicial murder of the unhappy Leisler and his son-in-law, Milburn. These factions dying out in the lapse of years, other questions arose, the principal of which
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was that important one which always, sooner or later, "springs up in every English colony-involving, on the one hand, as I have already remarked, the rights of the peo- ple, and on the other the claims of the Crown. Invaria- bly, almost, if not quite, the struggle is originated upon some questions of revenue-either in the levying thereof, or in its disposition, or both. Thus in the origin of those political parties in New York, which continued with greater or less acrimony until the separation from the parent country, Sloughter and Fletcher had both endeav- , ored to obtain grants of revenue to the Crown for life, but had failed. Subsequently, grants had been occasionally made to the officers of the Crown for a term of years; but latterly, especially during the administration of Governor Cosby, the General Assembly had grown more refractory upon the subject-pertinaciously insisting that they would vote the salaries for the officers of the Crown only with the annual supplies. This was a principle which the Gov- ernors, as the representatives of the Crown, felt bound to resist, as being an infringement of the royal prerogative. Henceforward, therefore, until the colony cast off its alle- giance, the struggle in regard to the revenue and its dis- position was almost perpetually before the people, in one form or another ; and in some years, owing to the obsti- nacy of the representatives of the Crown on one side, and the inflexibility of the representatives of the people on the other, supplies were not granted at all. Mr. Clarke, although he had the address to throw off, or to evade, the difficulty, for the space of two years, was nevertheless doomed soon to encounter it. Accordingly, in his speech to the Assembly at the autumnal session of 1738, he complained that another year had elapsed without any provision being made for the support of his Majesty's gov- ernment in the province-the neglect having occurred by reason of "a practice not warranted by the usage of
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any former General Assemblies." He therefore insisted strongly upon the adoption of measures for the payment of salaries, for the payment of public creditors, and for the general security of the public credit by the creation of a sinking-fund for the redemption of the bills of the colony.
The Assembly was refractory. Instead of complying with the demands of the Lieutenant-Governor, the House resolved unanimously that they would grant no supplies upon that principle ; and in regard to a sinking-fund for the redemption of the bills of credit afloat, they refused any other measure than a continuance of the existing excise. These spirited and peremptory resolutions gave high offense to the representative of the Crown; and on the day following their adoption, the Assembly was sum- moned to the fort, and dissolved by a speech, declaring the said resolutions "to be such presumptuous, daring, and unprecedented steps that he could not look upon them but with astonishment, nor could he with honor suffer their authors to sit any longer."
The temper of the new Assembly, summoned in the spring of the succeeding year, 1739, was no more in uni- son with the desires of the Lieutenant-Governor than that of the former. The demand for a permanent supply-bill was urged at several successive sessions, only to be met with obstinate refusals. The second session, held in the autumn, was interrupted in October by a prorogation of several days, for the express purpose of affording the members leisure "to reflect seriously" upon the line of duty required of them by the exigencies of the country ; for, not only was the Assembly resolutely persisting in the determination to make only annual grants of supplies, but they were preparing to trench yet further upon the royal prerogative by insisting upon specific applications of the revenue, to be inserted in the bill itself. Meantime, on the 13th of October, the Lieutenant-Governor brought the
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subject of his differences with the Assembly formally before his privy council. In regard to the new popular movement of this Assembly, insisting upon a particular application of the revenues to be granted in the body of the act for the support of the Government, the Lieutenant- Governor said they had been moved to that determination by the example of New Jersey, where an act of that nature had lately been passed. He was unwilling to allow any encroachment upon the rights of the Crown. Yet, in con- sideration of the defenseless situation of the colony, he felt ., uneasy at such a turn of affairs, and not being disposed to revive old animosities, or to create new ones by another summary dissolution, he asked the advice of the council. The subject was referred to a committee, of which the Hon. Daniel Horsmanden, an old member of the council. was chairman. This gentleman was one of the most sturdy supporters of the royal prerogative; but, in conse- quence of the existing posture of affairs, and the necessity of a speedy provision for the public safety, the committee reported unanimously against a dissolution. They be- lieved, also, that the Assembly, and the people whom they represented, had the disputed point so much at heart that it would be impossible to do business with them unless it was conceded; and, besides, it was argued, should a disso- lution take place, there was no reason for supposing that the next Assembly would be less tenacious in asserting the offensive principle. Since, moreover, the Governor of New Jersey had yielded the point, the committee advised the same course in New York .* The point was conceded :
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* See the old minutes of the executive or privy council, in manuscript. in the Secretary-of-State's office in Albany. To avoid confusion hereafter, it may be well to state, in this connection, that the council acted in a twofold capacity : first, as advisory ; second, as legislative. " In the first," says Smith, in his chapter entitled Political State, " they are a privy council to the Governor." When thus acting they are often called the executive or majesty's council. Hence, privy council and executive council are synonymous. During the ses
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. and the effect, for the moment, was to produce a better state of feeling in the Assembly. Supplies were granted, but only for the year; and various appropriations were made for placing the city and colony in a posture of defense.
But it is seldom that the wheels of revolution roll backward, and the concession which allowed the General Assembly to prescribe the application or disposition of the supplies they voted, ever before claimed as the legal and known prerogative of the Crown, appeased the popu- lar party only for a very short time. Indeed, nothing is more certain, whether in monarchies or republics, than that the governed are never satisfied with concessions, while each successful demand only increases the popular clamor for more. Thus it was in the experience of Mr. Clarke. It is true, indeed, that the year 1740 passed 1740. without any direct collision upon the question of prerogative ; although at the second short session of that year, the speech alleged the entire exhaustion of the rev- enue; and again demanded an ample appropriation for a term of years. But the controversy was re-opened at the spring session of the following year-1741-on which occasion the Lieutenant-Governor delivered 1741. a speech, long beyond precedent, and enumerating the grievances of the Crown by reason of the continued en- croachments of the General Assembly. The speech began by an elaborate review of the origin and progress of the difficulties that had existed between the representatives of the Crown and the Assembly, in respect to the grant- ting of supplies, evincing-such, indeed, is the inference
sion of the legislature, however, the same council sat (without the presence of the Governor) as a legislative council ; and in such capacity exercised the same functions as the Senate of the present day-so far as regards the passing of laws. The journals of this last or legislative council have recently been pub- lished by the State of New York under admirable editorship and the supervis- ion of Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan. 19
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-a want of gratitude on the part of the latter, in view of the blessings which the colony had enjoyed under the paternal care of the Government since the revolution of 1688. But it was not in connection with the supplies only that the Assembly had invaded the rights of the Crown. It was the undoubted prerogative of the Crown to appoint the Treasurer. Yet the Assembly had de- manded the election of that officer. Not satisfied with that concession, they had next claimed the right of choos- ing the Auditor-General. Failing in that demand, they had sought to accomplish their object by withholding the ' salary from that officer. These encroachments, he said, had been gradually increasing from year to year, until apprehensions had been seriously awakened in England " that the plantations are not without thoughts of throw- ing off their dependence on the Crown." He, therefore, admonished the Assembly to do away with such an im- pression " by giving to his Majesty such a revenue, and in such a manner, as will enable him to pay his own officers and servants," as had been done from the Revolu- tion down to the year 1709-during which period the colony was far less able to bear the burden. than now .*
Thus early and deeply were those principles striking root in America which John Hampden had asserted and poured out his blood to defend in the great ship-money contest with Charles I-which brought that unhappy monarch to the block, and which, fulfilling the appre- hensions of Mr. Clarke, thirty-five years afterward, sepa- rated the colonies from the British Crown-although in the answer of the House to the " insinuation of a suspi- cion " of a desire for independence, with real or affected
* Vide Journals of the Colonial Assembly, vol. 1, Hugh Gain's edition. This (1741) was the year in which the chapel, barracks, Secretary's office, &c, at Fort George (the Battery) were burned, and the speech referred to in the text asked an appropriation for their rebuilding -- but without success.
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gravity, they "vouched that not a single person in the colony had any such thoughts ;" adding, "for under what government can we be better protected, or our liberties or properties so well secured ?"
But the popularity of Mr. Clarke was rapidly on the wane. Chief-Justice De Lancey, the master-spirit of the council, having rather abandoned him, and attached him- self to the popular party, managed to preserve a consid- erate coolness on the part of that body toward their execu- tive head, while the house heeded but little his recom- mendations.
The only object of local excitement, however, during the year 1741, was the celebrated plot (supposed to have been discovered), on the part of the negroes, to murder the inhabitants of New York, and ravage and burn the city-an affair which reflects little credit either upon the discernment or the humanity of that generation.
African slavery had existed from an early period in New Netherland. It was encouraged as the most certain and economical way of introducing slavery in a new country, where there was no surplus population. The slave-trade was brought into the Dutch colony by the Dutch West India Company, and, shortly after its intro- duction, became a considerable and profitable branch of its shipping interest. A "prime slave" was valued from one hundred and twenty dollars to one hundred and fifty dollars, and below this price he could not profitably be purchased from Africa or the West Indies. In 1702, there were imported one hundred and sixty-five African slaves; in 1718 five hundred and seventeen. After that year, however, the traffic began to fall off, the natural increase being large .*
" Almost every family in the colony owned one or more negro servants ; and among the richer classes their number was considered a certain evidence of their master's easy circumstances. About the year 1703-a period of pros-
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As far back as 1628. slaves constituted a portion of the population of New Amsterdam; and to such an extent had the traffic in them reached that, in 1709, a slave-market was erected at the foot of Wall Street, where all negroes who were to be hired or sold, stood : in readiness for bidders. Their introduction into the colony was hastened by the colonial establishment of the Dutch in Brazil and upon the coast of Guinea, and also by the capture of Spanish and Portuguese prizes with Africans on board. The boere-knechts, or servants, whom the settlers brought over with them from Holland, soon deserted their field-work for the fur traffic, thus causing European laborers to become scarce and high ; and, as a natural result, slaves, by their cheap- ness, became one of the staples of the new country. In 1652, the Directors at Amsterdam removed the export duty of eight per cent., which had been hitherto paid by the colonists on tobacco. The passage-money to New Netherland was also lessened from fifty to thirty guilders ; and, besides trading to the Brazils, the settlers were al- lowed "to sail to the coast of Angola and Africa to procure as many negroes as they might be willing to employ."*
Several outbreaks had already happened among the negroes of New Amsterdam; and the whites lived in constant anticipation of trouble and danger from them. Rumors of an intended insurrection, real or imaginary, would circulate (as in the negro plot of 1712) and the
perity in wealth and social refinement with the Dutch of New Amsterdam- the widow Van Cortlandt held five male slaves, two female, and two chil- dren; Colonel De Peyster had the same number; William Beekman, two; Rip Van Dam, six; Mrs. Stuyvesant, five; Mrs. Kip, seven; David Pro- voost, three, &c.
* In the year 1755 a census of slaves was taken in all the colonies except Albany, New York, and Suffolk -Borough numbered 91; Manor of Polham. 24; Westchester, 73: Bushwick, 43; Flatbush, 35; New Utrecht, 67; New- town, &t; Oyster-Bay, 97, &c., &c.
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whole city be thrown into a state of alarm. Whether there was any real danger on these occasions cannot be known, but the result was always the same, viz .: the slaves always suffered, many dying by the fagot or the gallows.
The "Negro Plot" of 1741, however, forms a serious and bloody chapter in the history of New York. At this distance of time it is hard to discover the truth amid the fears and prejudices which attended that public calamity. The city then contained some ten thousand inhabitants, about one-fifth of whom were African slaves, called the " black seed of Cain." Many of the laws for their govern- ment were most unjust and oppressive. Whenever three of them were found together they were liable to be pun- ished by forty lashes on the bare back, and the same penalty followed their walking with a club outside of their master's grounds without a permit. Two justices could inflict any punishment, except amputation or death, for any blow or assault by a slave upon a Christian or a Jew. Such was the outrageous law. New York swarmed with negroes, and her leading merchants were engaged in the slave-trade, at that time regarded fair and honorable. New York then resembled a Southern city, with its cala- boose on the Park Commons and its slave-market at the foot of Wall Street.
The burning of the public buildings, comprising the Governor's residence, the Secretary's office, the chapel, and barracks, in March, 1741, was first announced to the Gen- eral Assembly by the Lieutenant-Governor as the result of an accident-a plumber who had been engaged upon some repairs having left fire in a gutter between the house and chapel. But several other fires occurring shortly after- ward in different parts of the city, some of them, perhaps, under circumstances that could not readily be explained, suspicions were awakened that the whole were acts of
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incendiaries. Not a chimney caught fire-and chimneys .. were not at that day very well swept-but the incident was attributed to design. Such was the case in respect to the chimney of Captain Warren's house, situated near the ruins of the public buildings, by the taking fire of which the roof was partially destroyed ; and other instances might be enumerated. Suspicion, to borrow the language of Shakespeare, "hath a ready tongue," and is "all stuck full of eyes," which are not easily put to sleep. Incidents and circumstances, ordinary and extraordinary, were seized upon and brought together by comparison, until it became obvious to all that there was actually a conspir- acy for compassing such a stupendous act of arson as the burning of the entire town and murder of the people. Nor was it long before the plot was fastened upon the negro slaves, then forming no inconsiderable portion of the population. A negro, with violent gesticulation, had been heard to utter some terms of unintelligible jargon, in which the words " fire, fire, scorch, scorch," were heard articulated, or supposed to have been heard. The crew of a Spanish ship brought into the port as a prize were sold into slavery. They were suspected of disaffection-as well they might be, and yet be innocent-seized, and thrown into prison. Coals were found arranged, as had been supposed, for burning a hay-stack; a negro was seen jumping over a fence and flying from a house that had taken fire in another place; and, in a word, a vast variety of incidents, trifling and unimportant, were collated and talked over until universal consternation seized upon the inhabitants, from the highest to the lowest. As Hume remarks of the Popish plot in the reign of Charles II, "each breath of rumor made the people start with anxiety ; their enemies, they thought, were in their bosoms. They were awakened from their slumbers by the cry of Plot, and, like men affrighted and in the dark.
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took every figure for a specter. The terror of each man became. a source of terror to another, and a universal panic being diffused, reason, and argument, and common sense, and common humanity, lost all influence over them." * A Titus Oates was found in the person of a poor, weak, servant-girl in a sailors' boarding-house, named Mary Burton, who, after much importunity, con- fessed that she heard certain negroes, in the preceding February, conferring in private, for the purpose of setting the town on fire. She at first confined the conspirators to blacks, but afterward several white persons were included, among whom were her landlord, whose name was Hughson, his wife, and another maid-servant, and a Roman Catholic, named Ury. Some other information was obtained from other informers, and numerous arrests were made, and the several strong apartments in the City Hall, called " the jails," were crowded with prisoners, amounting in number to twenty-six whites and above one hundred and sixty slaves. Numerous executions took place upon the most frivolous and unsatisfactory testimony, but jurors and magistrates were alike panic stricken and wild with terror. Among the sufferers were Ilughson, his wife, and the maid-servant. as also the Romanist Ury, who was capitally accused, not only as a conspirator, but for officiating as a priest, upon an old law of the colony, heretofore mentioned as having been passed at the instance of Governor Bellamont, to drive the French missionaries from among the Indians. - " The whole summer was spent in the prosecutions; every new trial led to further accusations; a coincidence of slight circumstances was magnified by the general terror into violent presumptions ; tales collected without doors, min-
* Quoted by Dunlap, who has given a good collection of facts respecting this remarkable plot, though not rendered into a well-digested narrative. See chap. xxi of his HEstory.
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gling with the proofs given at the bar, poisoned the mind- .of the jurors, and this sanguinary spirit of the day suf- fered no check until Mary, the capital informer, bewil- dered by frequent examinations and suggestions, began to touch characters which malice itself dare not suspect." Then, as in the case of the Popish plot and the prose- cutions for witchcraft in Salem, the magistrates and jurors began to pause. But not until many had been sent to their final account by the spirit of fanaticism which had bereft men of their reason as innocent of the charges laid against them as the convicting courts and jurors themselves. Thirteen negroes were burned at the stake, eighteen were hanged, and seventy trans- ported .*
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The year 1742, if for no other reason, is memorable in the annals of the city from the fact that in that year was built the house now standing on the site of No. 1 1742. Broadway, and known as the " Washington Hotel." and the oldest house in the city. Previous to this year (1742) the site was occupied by an old tavern kept by a Mrs. Kocks, built the century previous by her husband. Pieter Kocks, an officer in the Dutch service and an active leader in the Indian war of 1693. The late Mr. David T. Valentine-to whom New York is indebted more than
* Daniel Horsmanden, the third Justice of the Supreme Court, published :Le history of this strange affair in a ponderous quarto. He was concerned in the administration of the judicial proceedings, however, and wrote his history ??- fore the delusion had passed away. Chief-Justice De Lancey presided at less: at some of the trials, and he, too, though an able and clear-minded mon, was carried away by the delusion. James De Lancey was the son of Steplien De Lancey, a French Huguenot gentleman from Caen, in Normandy, who fled from: persecution in France. Settling in New York in 1686, he married a daughter of M. Van Cortlandt, and was thus connected with one of the most opules: families in the province. He was also an active inember of the House . : Assembly during the administration of Governor Hunter. His son James was sent to Cambridge University (England), for his education, and bred to the I! - fession of the law. On being elevated to the bench, such were his talents and application, he became a very profound lawyer .- Smith.
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to any other man for the preservation of its local history, and for which she can never be sufficiently grateful -- usually remarkably accurate, states that the building No. 1 Broadway was built by Archibald Kennedy (afterward Earl. of Cassilis), then Collector of the Port of New York. This, however, is an error. It was built by Sir Peter, afterward Admiral, Warren,* K. C. B .- whose name is so identified with the naval glory of England-during his
NO. 1 BROADWAY FIFTY YEARS AGO.
residence in New York city. Neither pains nor expense were spared to make it one of the finest mansions in this country. The plans were all sent out from Lisbon-the exterior and interior being similar in every respect to that of the British embassador's residing at the Portuguese cap-
* After whom Warren Street is named. 20
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ital. The house was fifty-six feet on Broadway, and when erected the rear of the lot was bounded by the North River. Greenwich Street was not then opened or built- the North River washing the shore. One room of this edifice deserves particular notice, being the banqueting- : room, twenty-six by forty, and used on all great occa- sions. After the British forces captured New York, in the war of the American Revolution, as the most prominent house, it was the headquarters of the distinguished British commanders. Sir William. Howe, Sir Henry Clinton, and Sir Guy Carlton, afterward Lord Dorchester, all in succes- sion occupied this house; and it is a memorable fact that the celebrated Major Andre, then Adjutant-General of the British forces, and aid to Sir Henry Clinton, resided in this house, being in the family of Sir Henry, and departed from its portals never to return, when he went up the North River and arranged his treasonable project with the traitor Arnold at West Point .*
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