History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 47

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354

USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I > Part 47

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that such principles and such purposes as were thus presented to the several Colonics, found little favor, anywhere, except among those of the assumed leaders of the unfranchised inhabitants of the City of New York, who favored revolutionary measures, and who had not been included in the recently appointed Committee of Correspondence, the Committee of Fifty-one, in that City ?3

On Tuesday evening, the seventeenth of May, Paul Revere, bearing letters from the Committee of Cor- respondence, in Boston, in which were inclosed copies of the Vote of that Town, to which reference has been made, arrived in the City of New York +-there was, also, in his saddlebags, a very interesting letter from one of the master spirits iu that Town, to his corres- pondent in New York, reciting more of the motives of the Massachusetts-men, in their construction of the Resolutions of the Town-meeting in Boston, than was told elsewhere; but there is no evidence that Revere brought auything whatever from the Caucus which had been convened in Faneuil Hall, on the preced- ing Wednesday.6 In accordance with his instructions, Revere immediately proceeded to Philadelphia, to deliver the letters which had been addressed to the Committee of Correspondence in that City ; 7 and

How wonderfully similar thoughts, originated in different minds, will sometimes run in parallel grooves, far apart, as in this instance ; and still more wonderful it is, when, as in this instance, the thoughts are uttered iu words so wonderfully similar.

3 Alexander McDongal and all those of the former revolutionary leaders who were included in that Committee, as will be seen in the course of this narrative, on the twenty-third of May, hy a formal vote, concurred with their aristocratic, anti-revolutionary associates in con- demning the proposition of the Town of Boston und in offering another, in its stead : it remained only for John Lamb and those who had not been favored with seats in that body, to continue their agreement, in political affairs, with the revolutionary leaders, in Boston.

It will be seen, also, in the course of this narrative, that Boston was not sustained, in her nnreasonable demands, by any of the Committees of the larger Towns and Cities, in other Colonies.

4 " On Tuesday Evening, arrived here Mr. Revere, who came Express " from Boston, which he left on Saturday, about 2 o'clock in the After- "noon."-(Holt's New-York Journal, No. 1637, NEW- YORK, Thursday, May 19, 1774.)

5 Reference is made to a letter which was written by Thomas Young, immediately after the adjournment of the Town-Meeting, May 13, and addressed to John Lumb, in the City of New York. It may be seen among the " Lamb Papers," in the Library of the New York Historical Society ; and every student of the history of that eventful period will be amply re-paid for whatever time he may spend in a careful perusal of it.

6 The Minutes of the Committee of Correspondence, " NEW YORK, Monday, " May 23, 1774," contain a record of the reading of " Letters from the "Committee of Correspondence of Boston, with a Vote of the Town of " Boston, of the 13th instant, and a Letter from the Committee of Phil- "adelphia ; " and, in the absence of any allusion to any other letter what- ever, there is no reason for supposing that anything, in muldition to those three letters, was received from any other organization or person, at Bos- ton or elsewhere.

T Revere was at Philadelphia, on the twentieth of May, when the in- habitants of that City appointed its Committee of Correspondence ; und, on the following day, he left that City, on his return, carrying with him, to New York and Boston, if not to other Towns and Cities on his route, copies of a Circular Letter, probably from the pen of John Dickinson, containing the response of Philadelphia to the Boston Resolutions, and, generally, surveying the political situation of the Colonies, from the Philadelphia standpoint .- ( Proceedings of the Meeting which appointed the Committee, May 20, 1774, and a copy of the Circular Letter, written by the

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

those who had been nominated to the Committee of Correspondence in New York, the Committee itself not having been formally established, evidently availed themselves of that opportunity to write to Philadelphia, in which, also, no Committee had been appointed, on the subject of the Boston Resolutions, and, unquestionably, in opposition to the propositions which they contained.1

Those who had been appointed to membership iu the proposed Committee of Correspondence of the City of New York-in the " Committee of Fifty- "one," as it was popularly called-were duly assembled, at the Coffee-House, on Monday, the twenty-third of May, 1774, forty-three of the fifty-one being present; and the Committee was duly organized by the ap- pointment of Isaac Low, as its permanent Chairman, and that of John Alsop, as its permanent Deputy- chairmau 2-at a subsequent Meeting, Joseph Alli- cocke was appointed Secretary, and Thomas Pettit, Messenger, of the Courmittee ; 3 the first two, in whom some authority was vested, being high-toned, anti- revolutionary Merchants ; while the last two, who were not members of the Committee, and to whom no authority was given, were among those unfranchised, revolutionary Workingmen, whom the former had pre- viously looked on with so much disfavor.

Immediately after the organization of the Commit- tee had been completed, a letter was received from " the body of the Mechanics, signed by Jonathan " Blake, their Chairman," informing the Conimittec of the concurrence of the Mechanics with the other in- habitants of the City, in their nomination of it; which clearly indicated the entire good faith of the great body of the unfranchised masses, in the transfer of the leadership of the confederated party of the Op- position, from those, witli revolutionary tendencies, who had called themselves "Sons of Liberty," to the aristocratic, conservative elements of the party op- posed to the Colonial policy of the Home Govern- ment, which had been made at the Coffee-house, on the preceding Thursday ; and clearly indicating, also, that whatever the differences between the two fac- tions, on social questions, might be, they were one in all which related to the great political questions of the day, concerning the obnoxious features of the Colo- nial policy of the Home Government, notwithistand- ing the disappointment of some of the assumed leaders of those masses, when they had failed to secure seats iu the Committee +-tlie sinister purposes of those who

Committee-both re-printed in Force's American Archives, Fourth Series, i., 340-342.)

1 The Committee of Correspondence of Philadelphia to the Committee of Correspondence to Boston, " PHILADELPHIA, May 21st, 1774," copies of which "were transmitted to New-York and most of the Southern Colo- "nies."

2 Minutes of the Committee, " NEW-YORK, Monday, May 23d, 1774."

3 Minutes of the Committee, " NEW-YORK, May 30, 1774."

4 Minutes of the Committee, " NEW-YORK, Monday, May 23d, 1774."" See, also Holt's New- York Journal, No. 1638, NEW-YORK, Thursday, May 26, 1774, in which appears the following : " Since the Meeting at the Cof-

had proposed the Caucus which had been assembled at Sam. Francis's had been established; the unfran- chised masses and those who had assumed to be their leaders had been generally hoodwiuked; and even the watchful "Sons of Liberty," with here and there an exception, were apparently contented.

At the same meeting of the Committee, the letters from the Committees of Correspondence in Boston and Philadelphia, to which reference has been made, were laid before it. The letter from Philadelphia be- ing only a reflex of what had been written to that Committee by those who had subsequently been con- firmed as members of this, it received no official at- tentiou, at that time ; but those from Boston, which included the Vote of the Town of which mention has been made, were referred to a Sub-committee, com- posed of Alexander McDougal, Isaac Low, James Duane, aud John Jay, with instructions to consider the subject to which those letters were devoted; to prepare a draft of an answer thereto; aud to report the same, to the Committee, at eight o'clock ou the same evening, to which hour the Committee then ad- journed.5

The disposition of the majority of the Committee of Correspondence, as well as the line of action which those who controlled it 6 intended to take, as far as it related to the great body of the unfranchised inhab- itants and their rapidly increasing influence in the control of the political affairs of the Colony, was clearly defined and boldly presented, at that first op- portunity to do so, in the formation of that very im- portant Sub-Committee, in which the well-known

"fee-House on Thursday last, the Merchants and Mechanicks, who were "opposed to the Committee of Correspondence consisting of Fifty-one "Persons, bave, for the Salutary Purpose of Union among ourselves, "agreed to that Number ; and that the Gentlemen whose Nanies were " pubhshed in Mr. Gaine's last Paper, be the Committee for this City."

The correspondence of Lieutenant-governor Colden with Governor Tryon and with the Earl of Dartmouth very clearly indicates that that remarkable old man was not deceived by the doings, in politics, of the " Merchants and Traders" and Gentry of New York ; that their social and commercial and professional standing did not warrant what he re- garded, very reasonably, their tendency toward rebellion ; and that, while he hoped their influence would restrain the violence of those with whom they were associated, he never regarded them as, truly, friends of the Home Government nor of the Sovereign.

5 Minutes of the Committee, "NEW-YORK, Monday, May 23, 1774."

6 Bancroft, (History of the United States, original edition, vii., 41, 42 ; the sume, centenary edition, iv., 327,) said " the control fell into the " bands of men who, like John Jay, still aimed at reconciling a contin- "ued dependence on England with the just freedom of the Colonies."

The principal purposes of the Committee, in all which related to na- tional politics, were the protection of those who were constantly em- ployed in Smuggling ; the oxemption of the Colonies from the payment of Import Duties and Direct Taxes levied by the Parliament ; and the continued military protection of the Colonies, at the expense of the Motber Country, unless the unlikely contingency should arise of a vol- untary taxation of themselves, for that purpose. Besides these, the chief purpose of the Committee was to relegate the unfranchised masses of the City of New York, of all classes, to the obscurity and dependence of vassals ; and to place itself at the head of all the political elements of the Colony, as the autocratic, anti-revolutionary ruler of both the Colo- nists and the Government-in all of which, unquestionably, James Duane's and John Jay's were the master minds, within the Committee, and William Smith's that which was not within it.

193

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

ultra-democratic Chairman was made harmless, in the interest of the conservative aristocracy, by the addi- tion of three of the most conservative members of the Committee, as his associates; and what was known to have been the decided preference of the revolutionary portion of the unfranchised Working- nicn of the City, by whom the policy and the action of the Town of Boston were known to have been gen- erally approved, was openly, if not defiantly, disre- garded.

At eight o'clock, in the evening, the Committee as- sembled in an adjourned Meeting, thirty-eight of the fifty-one members being present; and the Sub-com- mittee, which had been appointed at the forcnoon session, reported the following draft of a letter, as suitable for a response to the letters received from Boston :

" NEW-YORK, May 23, 1774.

" GENTLEMEN :

" The alarming Measures of the British Parliament, "relative to your ancient and respectable Town, " which has so long been the Seat of Freedom, fill the "Inhabitants of this City with inexpressible Alarm. " As a sister Colony, suffering in Defence of the "Rights of America, we consider your Injuries as a " common Cause, to the redress of which it is equally " our Duty and our Interest to contribute. But, what " ought to be done in a Situation so truly critical, " while it employs the anxious Thoughts of every "generous Mind, is very hard to be determined.

"Our Citizens have thought it necessary to appoint " a large Committee, consisting of fifty-one Persons, " to correspond with our sister Colonies, on this and "every other matter of public Moment; and, at ten " o'clock this forenoon, we were first assembled. Your " Letter, enclosing the Vote of the Town of Boston, " and the Letter of your Committee of Correspond- " ence, were immediately taken into consideration." " While we think you justly entitled to the Thanks "of your sister Colonies, for asking their Advice on " a Case of such extensive Consequences, we lament "our Inability to relieve your Anxiety, by a decisive "Opinion. The Cause is general, and concerns a " whole Continent, who are cqnally interested with "you and us; and we foresee that no Remedy can " be of avail, unless it proceeds from the joint Act "and Approbation of all. From a virtuous and "spirited Union, much may be expected; while the " feeble Efforts of a Few will only be attended with " Mischief and Disappointments to themselves, and "Triumph to the Adversaries of our Liberty.

"Upon these Reasons, we conclude that a Congress " of Deputies from the Colonies, in general, is of the " utmost Moment ; that it ought to be assembled, "withont Delay ; and some unanimous Resolution " formed, in this fatal Emergency, not only respect- "ing your deplorable Circumstances, but for the "Security of our common Rights. Such being our " Sentiments, it must be premature to pronounce any 13

"Judgment on the Expedient which you have sug- "gested. We beg, however, that you will do ns the " Justice to believe that we shall continue to Act " with a firm and becoming Regard to American " Freedom, and to co-operate with our sister Colonies, "in every Measure which shall be thought salutary " and conducive to the public Good.

"We have nothing to add, but that we sincerely " condole with you, in your unexampled Distresses, "and to request your speedy Opinion of the proposed "Congress, that, if it shall meet with your Approba- "tion, we may exert our utmost Endeavours to carry " it into execution.

" We are, Gentlemen," etc.

That evidently well-considered paper, probably the production of the mind and the pen of James Duane,1 was so temperate in its tone and so judicious in its suggestions, that, after it had been presented as the Report of the Sub-Committee, it commended itself to the Committee with so much force, that it was ap- proved without a dissenting voiee; 2 and the Chair- man was ordered to send copies of it, duly signed, to the Committees of Correspondence, in Boston and Philadelphia.3

It will be seen that the Committee regarded the dispute with the Home Government as something more than a merely local matter, in which the Town of Boston was the only sufferer ; and that it was not inclined, therefore, to confine its action, as the Vote of that Town had sought to confine it, to the particu- lar subject of the Boston Port-Bill, nor to direct all its efforts, as that Vote had solicited, entirely to the redress of the grievanecs of that particular Town. On the contrary, it recognized the equal importance of "every other matter of publie moment;" it as- serted that " the Cause was general and concerned a " whole Continent, who was equally interested " with themselves ; and it insisted that " no remedy can be " of avail, unless it proceeded from the joint Act and " Approbation of all." It was not inclined, without

1 We are not insensible of the fact that many suppose that the author- ship of this notable letter belongs to Jolin Jay ; but, because the entire spirit of it is so unlike what he would have presented in such a letter, written under such circumstances ; and because he is known to have been more inclined to resort to a Non-Importation Agreement than Jantes Duane was, we prefer to favor the belief that the latter gentleman wrote it.

2 Because it was so entirely antagonistic to the known principles of the Boston-men with whom the minority of the Committee, in their indi- vidual relations, had heen previously so entirely in accord, this answer to the letters from Boston, approved by the unanimous vote of the Commit- tee, affords additional evidence of the entire good faith of the great body of the unfranchised inhabitants of the City, in its concurrence in the ap- pointment of the Committee of Fifty-one, and of the acquiescence in that appointment of, at least, those of the previously assumed leaders of those inhabitants who had been admitted to seats in that Committee.

3 Minutes of the Committee, (adjourned Meeting) "NEW YORK, May 23, "1774 ;" Ilolt's New-York Journal, No. 1638, NEW-YORK, Thursday, May 26, 1774 ; Gaine's Veic-York G.Cette and Mercury, No. 1175, NEW-YORK, Monday, May 23; No. 1179, NEW-YORK, Monday, May 30, and No. 11-3, NEW-YORK, Monday, June 27, 1774 ; Hirington's New- York Gazelleer, No. 57, NEW YORK Thursday, May 19, and No. 5s, NEW-YORK, Thursday. May 26, 1774.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

due consideration, to paralyze the industries and the commerce of the entire Continent, only for the par- ticular benefit of one Town-it preferred to regard the particular grievance of that Town as only one among many grievances, endured by other Towns, as well as by that, and by the entire Continent ; and it wisely made all those grievances a common cause, and proposed to remedy them, as far as a remedy could be found in America, by a concerted move- ment of all the parties who were suffering from them. It was the first, or among the first, to dis- regard the peculiar selfishness of the popular leaders in Boston, by whom the grievances of that particular Town had been thrust into an undue prominence, for the relief of which, especially, they insisted, the entire efforts of the entire Continent must be directed ;1 and it was the first to propose and to insist on the convention of a Congress of Deputies from all the Colonies, in which all the grievances which were su,- tained by each and every of those Colonies could be duly considered, and concerted action be secured from the entire Continent, for the relief of all who werc aggrieved.2 How much, in that well-considered

1 The Committee of Correspondence of l'hiladelphia, after it had re- ceived and publicly read the opinions of those who had been nominated as members of the similar Committee, in New York, not yet organized, had, to some extent, done so, at an earlier date ; but the reply of the Committee in New York accompanied that of the Committee in Phila- delphia, Paul Revere having taken both, at the same time, on his return to Bo-ton.

2 We are not insensible of the fact that the origin of the Congress of the Continent, which was assembled at l'hiladelphia, in 1774, has been varionsly stated, by many of those who have preceded ns ; and we are cqually sensible of the other fact, that individuals, in different Colonies, without any connection with each other, had suggested, theoretically, that snch a Congress would be useful for various limited and, generally, local purposes, previously to that more general and practical proposition which was made by the Committee of Correspondence in New York, on the occasion under consideration.

The Town of Providence, in Town-meeting, May 17, 1774, was, proba- bly, the first organized body which recommended a Congress of the ser- eral Colonies, for general purposes ; but it only regnested the Depntics of the Town, in the approaching General Assembly, to " use their influ- "ence," in that body, not get assembled, " for promoting a Congress, as soon "as may be, of the Representatives of the General Assemblies of the "several ('olonies and Provinces in North America," for the general purposes of the whole number, (Proceedings of the Town-Meeting, reprint- ed in Force's American Archives, Fourth Series, i., 333 ;) and the Com- mittee of Correspondence of Philadelphia, in its reply to the Committee of Correspondence of Boston, dated " PHILADELPHIA, May 21. 1774," com- pared the proposition of Boston, to enter into an Association of Non- Exportation and Non-Intercourse, with the proposition of New-York, to convene a Congress of the Colonies, without deterimning which of the two it would approve, ( Letter, dated as ahore stated, ) leaving the subject undecided, until the eighteenth of June, when the Congress was deter- mined on, by a Mecting of the Citizens, withont the intervention of the Committee, (Proceedings of the Meeting, reprinted in Force's American Ar- chires. Fourth Series, i., 426, 427.)

Because the General Assemblies of the greater number of the Colonies, at that time, could not have elected Deputies to the proposed Congress, even if they had been willing to have done so-the Governor having. in each case, the power of prorogning or dissolving the Assembly, which, in the greater number of instances, he would have certainly done-the action of the Town of Providence, although well intended, could not re- sult in the convention of a Congress ; and what was doue by the Com- mittee of Correspondence in Philadelphia, was not entitled to the hon- orable mention of it, which Frothingham and others have made, since it amounted to nothing, either of approval or disapproval of the New-

and judicious action, the Committee of Correspond- ence, in New York, offended those of the revolu- tionary clique, in that City, who had not been invited to places and seats in that Committee, and how much the revolutionary leaders and the revolutionary popu-

York proposition to convene a Congress. The honor, what there was of it, remains, therefore, with the Committee of Correspondence of New- York, as related in the text, of having originated the Congress, on the twenty-third of May, with the additional honor of having established the proposition for such a Congress, in the face of and notwithstanding the determined opposition of the Massachusetts-men, in Boston, led by Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, and their well-enlogized associates.

The Committee of Correspondence of the Colony of Connecticut con- enrred in the recommendation which the Committee in New York had made, on the fourth of June, (The Committee of Correspondence of the General Assembly of New York to the Committee of Correspondence of the Colony of Connecticut, " NEW YORK, June 24, 1774 ; ") the General As- sembly of Rhode Island did so, on the fifteenth of June, (Journal of the General Assembly, June 15, 1774-Records of Rhode Island. vii., 246 ;) the General Court of Massachusetts did so on the seventeenth of June, (Jour- will of the House of Representatives, June, 1774;) and the City of Phila- delphiia, as above stated, did so on the eighteenth of June.

It has suited the purposes of some to bring forward the doings of eighty-nine members of the dissolved llonse of Burgesses of Virginia, assembled at the Raleigh Tavern, at Williamsburg, on the twenty-sev- enth of May, as a contestant for the honors of New York, in this matter ; but that Meeting was held four days after the proposition had been made in New York ; and what it did was only to " recommend to the Com- " mittee of Correspondence that they communicate with the several Cor- "responding Committecs, on the expediency of appointing Deputies from "the several Colonies of British America, to meet in a General Con- "gress," etc., which was done on the following day, in which, however, nothing else was done than to solicit, from each Committee, its " senti- "ments on the subject." (Proceedings of the Meeting, reprinted in the Boston Gazette of June 13, 1774, quoted by Frothingham, in his Rise of the Republic, 333.)

The reliability of what is known as " history " may be seen in what has been published concerning this first proposition to convene a Con- gress of the Colonies. Frothingham, (Rise of the Republic, 322,) is the only one who has alluded to the really original, but impracticable, pro- position by the Town of l'rovidence. Without making the slightest allu- sion to what was done in New York, Burke's Annual Register for 1775, 6 ; History of the War in America, Dublin : 1779.i., 21; Andrews's His- tory of the War with America, London : 1785. i., 135 ; Soule's Histoire des Troubles de l'Amérique Anglaise, Paris : 1787, i., 48 ; Chez et Lebrun's Histoire politique et philosophique de'la Revolution, Paris: an 9, 109; Sted- man's History of the American War, London: 1794, i., 94, 95 ; Adolphns's History of England, London : 1×05, ii., 124; " Paul Allen's" History of the American Revolution, Baltimore : 1822, i., 184; Pitkin's History of the Unted States, New Hlaven : 1828, i., 271, 272; Wilson's History of the American Revolution, Baltimore : 1834, 100 ; Grahame's History of the United States, London : 1836, iv., 349; Lossing's Screnteen hundred and seventy-six, New York : 1847, 123 ; his Field-Book of the Revolution, New York : 1851, ii., 486 ; Ridpath's History of the United States, New York : 1880, 296 ; A. H. Stephens's History of the United States, New York : 1874, 166, 167 ; Hohes's History of the United States, New York : 1871, 105, and several others. assigned the proposition for a Congress to Virginia. Mercy Warren's History of the American Revolution, Boston : 1805, i., 135; Lendium's History of the American Revolution, Exeter : 1836, i., 63 ; De Rochelle's États Unis d'Amerique, Paris : 1815, 173 ; Lossing's Histo- ry of the United States, New York : 1857, 227; and the series of small Histories of the United States, by the same anthor, without alluding to what was done in New York, preferred to regard what was done by the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, on the seventeenth of June, as the origin of the Congress. Frothingham's Rise of the Republic, 322, 323, ostentatiously presented what was donc in Massachusetts and "the "other New England Colonies," and then said with questionable integrity, as he was acquainted with the facts, " the sentiment and determination "of the patriots south of New England were represented in the pro- " ceedings of the Virginia meeting, " which he described, at considerable length, without making the slightest allusion to the earlier proceedings of Pennsylvania aud New York, where the Congress certainly originated. Gordon's History of the American Revolution, London : 1788, i, 362, cor- rectly assigned the origination of the Congress to the Committee of Cor-

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History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 47

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co. Number of Pages: 1354

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354