History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 48

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 48

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195

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

lace of Boston were also offended by it, are well known to the student of the history of that period 1-liow much, also, that aetion of the Committee, in New York, has been made the text of misrepresentation and abuse, whenever it has been referred to, in the historical literature of New England, from that day to this, is known to all who are acquainted with the peculiar peculiarities of that well-filled class of the productions of American home-industry.2

respondence iu Now York ; but, without tho slightest shadow of truth, it stated that the Committee was controlled by Isaac Sears, who was one of the minority of that body ; and that it was opposed by "the To- " ries," not one of which party was then a member of the Committee. Ramsay's History of the United States, London : 1791, i., 114, correctly assigned the origination of the Congress to New York ; but it inaccurately stated that it was douo "at the first meeting of the inhabitants," instead of at the first meeting of the Committee which the inhabitants had chosen, a few days previously, for their political leaders. Hildreth's History of the United States, New York : 1856, First Series, iii, 35, pre- sented the facts as they really took place, giving to the Committee of Correspondence of New York the origination of the Congress ; and Leake's Memoir of General John Lumb, Albany : 1857 ; Dawson's Park and its Vicinity, New York : 1855, 33; McDonald and Blackburu's Southern History of the United States, Baltimoro : 1869, 170; and de Lan- cey's Notes on Joncs's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, New York : 1879, i., 443, 444, follow that excellent example. Ban- croft's History of the I'nited States, original edition, vii., 40, correctly yields the houor of having originated the Congress, to New York ; but, unaccountably, it assigns it, in New York, sometimes to an imaginary " old committee," which had ccased to exist when tho Stamp-Act, which had called it into existence and to which its operations had been limited, was repealed, eight years previously, and sometimes to the cight or ten men who styled themselves and who were known as "the Sous of Lib- "erty," all of whom who were members of the Committee of Correspond- ence, appointed at the Coffee-house, werc notoriously in accord with the men of Bostou, who advocated an immediate suspension of the Commerce of the Continent and opposed the proposition to call a Congress for the general relief of all the Colonies. It is also well known, concerning those "Sons of Liberty " that, after 1766, they mado no pretension that a permanent Committee existed ; that their correspondence was conducted in their individual capacities, and not officially, as a Committee ; that none of their correspondence, as far as it is now known, allnded to a Congress of the Colonies, for any purpose ; and that their especially care- ful historian and eulogist, Isaac Q. Lenke, not only made no such claim, in their behalf, but expressly and in unmistakable words, gave that hon- or to the Committee of Correspondence which had been appointed by the body of the inhabitants, at the Coffee-honsc. (Memoir of the Life and Times of General John Lamb, Albany : 1857, 88.) In the same anthor's centenary edition of that History of the United States, Boston: 1876, iv., 326, the same statement was made, without the slightest change ; and Lodge's History of the English Colonics, New York : 1881, 489, without Bancroft's airy rhetoric, in a far more historical style than that historian employs, in some of his words, and without the slightest change in its substance, perpetuated the error.

Such are the guides which American scholarship, generally fettcred with bouds of Roman and Grecian Literature, has given to the world, for the dircetion of those who shall aspire to the knowledge of a history of America. Such are some of the evidences of the entire untrustworthyi- uess of the greater number of those who, satisfied with that " discipline " to which the Classics have subjected them and without having otherwise qualified themselves for the proper discharge of their honorable duties as historiaus of their own Country, have contented themselves, instcad, by repeating what others, also fettered by similar obsolete prejudices and equally indolent, have written, and by willingly propagating tho errors which local prejudices or indolence or a faulty education or ignorance have produced, while, with greater usefulness to the world and greater honor to themselves, they might rather have attempted to extirpate them.

I An evidence of that feeling may be seen in the letter from Thomas Young to John Lamb, dated "BOSTON, 19th June, 1774," in the " Lamb " Papers," New York llistorical Society's Library.

2 From the days of Doctor Gordon until the present timc, as far as our knowledge extends, Hildreth is the only New Englander, among histori-

The Committee of Correspondenee, in New York, as it was known to the world, at that time, was created only as a local organization, for only special purposes, and with only a very limited and a very clearly defined authority.3 But it very soon became evident that some, at least, of those who had promoted the organ- ization of that Committee, only for limited and well- defined purposes, and who had subsequently assumed the entire control of its action, were well-inclined, for the advancement of their individual and family and factional influence and interests, to use every opportunity for the increase of the authority of the Committee, which was or which might be, in any way, afforded ; and that they were not ill-disposed, in the prosecution of their peculiar purposes, to assume and to exercise authority which had not been vested in that or in any other organization, and limited only by their own ill-sustained views of expedieney and pro- priety, cannot be successfully disputed.4 Notably among those instances of authority unduly assumed by the Committee, was its early attempt to place itself at the head of all those, in every other County in the Colony, who were inclined to be or who were likely to become disaffected and revolutionary ; which may be regarded as the second successful movement of the rapidly advancing revolutionary elements in the Colony of New York, among those who assumed to regard a revolution, conducted by themselves, as commendable and praiseworthy, while such a revolu- tion, controlled by others, would be regarded and re- sisted, by them, as worthy only of condemnation and to be extirpated, the latter regardless of every other consequence.

For the purpose of extending its authority and of increasing its power, in whatever might arise, in its evident intent to control not only the great body of the unfranchised masses of every elass, in the City of New York," but the Colonial and the Home Govern-

cal writers, who has inclined to tell the exact truth, ou this subject ; and what he said of it occupied less than two lines of an octavo page.

3 The Caucus, at Sam. Francis's, at which the appointment of the Committee was determined on and its Members nominated, defined, in its first Resolution, the purposes for which that Committee was to be appointed and the anthority which should be vested in it-" to corre- " spond with the neighboring Colonies on the present important Crisis." excluding all other subjects, (Proceedings of the Meeting, among the Broadsides, in tho Library of the New-York Historical Society.)

4 That James Duane and John Jay, to whom reference is here made, were not apt to recognize any fundamental obstruction to or requirement from whatever they should incline to do or not to do, is well known to every onc who has closely studied the histories of the duings of those gentlemen, subsequently, in the various branches of official life to which they were respectively called.

6 In all the political operations of that period, the several Connties of the Colonies were regarded as entirely independent bodies, each controlling itself to tho extent, even, of sending independent Delegates to the Con- tinental Congress-the centralization of authority, indeed, was the fun- damental grievance against which all the Colonies were, then, raising their remonstrances and their opposition to the measures of the Home Government-and it must not be supposed that, in the instance referred to. in the text, the Committee sought the direct control of the masses, in any other County than in that of New York-it songht no more than tosecure the control of those, within the several Counties, who did control those masses, within their several neighborhoods ; and, therefore, it sought to

196

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

ments, at the second meeting of the Committee, on the evening of Monday, the thirtieth of May, Peter Van Schaack, Francis Lewis, John Jay, Alexander Mc- Dougal, and Theophilact Bache, three rigid conserva- tives and two of the revolutionary faction, were ap- pointed "a Committee to write a Circular Letter to " the Supervisors in the different Counties, acquaint- " ing them of the appointment of this Committee, and " submitting to the consideration of the Inhabitants " of the Counties whether it could not be expedient for " them to appoint persons to correspond with this " Committee upon matters relative to the purposes for " which they were appointed ; " 1 and, at a Meeting es- pecially called for the purpose, on the following evening, [ Tuesday, May 31,] at which thirty-five mem- bers were present, that Sub-Committee reported a Draft of a Circular Letter, for the purpose named, which was duly approved by the Committec. Mr. Lewis was ordered to cause three hundred copies of that Circular Letter to be printed ; and it was also ordered that those printed copies of the letter should be transmitted, with all convenient speed, to the Treasurers of the several Counties, with a " line " to each Treasurer, signed by the Chairman of the Com- mittee, requesting his care in the proper transmission of the several letters to the persons to whom they should be respectively addressed ; and that intimation should be given, through the various Newspapers, that such Circular Letters had been duly sent.2

Of those Circular Letters, inviting a correspondence with the Committee, in New York, it is recorded that thirty copies were sent to the Treasurer of West- chester-county, with a note from the Chairman of the Committec, requesting him "to direct and forward " them to the Supervisors of the several Districts," 3 the first attempt, which was made, by any one, to draw the farmers of that County into the unrest of discontent and disaffection; but we have failed to find, in any portion of the Minutes of the Committee, the slightest evidence that any one, within that County, paid the slightest attention to the Com- mittee's insidious invitation, or that, at that time, any one to the northward of Kingsbridge, either within or without the limits of that County, seemed to possess the slightest interest in the Committec, or in the gen- eral purposes for which it had been appointed, or in those ill-concealed purposes for which it had covertly solicited the co-operation of the leaders, where there were any, throughout the Colony-certainly a very

emphatic testimony to the accuracy of what has been stated, concerning the conservatism of the farmers in Westchester-county, as lately as in the Spring and early Summer of 1774.4

While the Committee of Correspondence, in New York, was thus engaged in an effort to extend its in- fluence and its authority beyond the limits of its original jurisdiction, the Committee of Correspond- ence and the leaders of the revolutionary populace, in Boston, received and considered its letter responding to the Vote of that Town and to the letters which had accompanied it, to New York; and, as might have been reasonably expected, where the difference, on such a subject, was as radical in its character and as wide in its extent as it was in that instance, there ap- pearcd to be very little prospect of an agreement, or even of a compromise. Indeed, the Massachusetts- men did not appear to pay the slightest attention to the proposition which those of New York had made, to call a Congress of Deputies from all the Colonies, for the consideration of all the grievances, real or imaginary, of which all the Colonies were, then, re- spectively complaining, preferring, instead, and firmly insisting on, their own proposition to remove the particular case of Boston's recognized contumacy and

its consequences from all other matters of disagree- ment with the Home Government, and to enforce a relief of that Town from the penalty inflicted on it, because of its recognized lawlessness, by establishing a Non-Importation and Non-Exportation Association, throughout the entire Continent, for that especial purpose, and for no other purpose whatever. That renewed preference of the Committee of Boston was conveyed to the Committee of New York, in a letter, dated on the thirtieth of May, which, in its terms, was not creditable to the professions of those who wrote it, for either candor, or honor, or genuine patri-

+ It appears that a similar temper prevailed in all the Counties of the Colony, except New York and Suffolk.

In a despatch from Lieutenant-governor Colden to the Earl of Dart- mouth, dated "NEW YORK, 6th July 1774," it is stated, "The present " political zeal and Frenzy is almost entirely confined to the City of New " York. The People in the Counties are noways disposed to become ac- " tive or bear any part iu what is proposed by the citizens. I am told " all the Connties but one have declined an Invitation sent them from " New York to appoint Committees of Correspondence. This Province " is everywhere, except in the City of New York, perfectly quiet and in " good order ; and in New York a much greater freedom of Speech pre- " vails than has done heretofore."

In a letter written to Governor Tryon, dated " SPRING HILL, 6th July. " 1774," the same careful observer said, further, "Except in the city of " New York, the People in the Province are quite Tranquile, and have "declin'd takeing any Part with the Citizens. An Opinion is spread very " generally in the Country that if a non-importation agreement is " form'd, Government will restrain our Exportation ; a Measure which "the Farmers clearly see will be rninous to them."

In a Despatch written to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated "NEW YORK, " 2nd August, 1774," the venerable Lieutenant-governor stated, “ Great " Pains has been taken in the several Counties of this Province to induce " the People to enter into Resolves, and to send Committees to join the "Committee in the city; but they have only prevailed in Suffolk Connty, " in the East End of Long Island which was settled from Connecticut, "and the Inhabitants still retain a great similarity of Manners and " Sentiments."

circumvent and secure the control of the entire Colony, under a mask of "patriotism," as it had already circuunvented and secured the control, in political affairs, of the County of New York.

1 Minutes of the Committee, "NEW-YORK, May 30, 1774 ; " Lieutenant. governor Colden to Governor Tryon, "NEW YORK, June 2, 1774."

2 Minutes of the Committee, Special Meeting, "NEW-YORK, May 31, " 1774;" Lieutenant-governor Colden to Governor Tryon, "NEW-YORK, " June 2, 1774."

3 Memorandum, appended to the Minutes of the Committee, "NEW- " YORK, May 31, 1774."

197

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

otism; 1 and, in a letter dated on the seventh of June, the latter replied, disclaiming the slightest approval of the proposed " suspension of Trade," to which, very singularly and without the slightest reason, the Boston Committee had attempted to commit it; and saying, concerning that proposition. "We apprehend you have "made a mistake, for on revising our letter to you, so " far from finding a word mentioned of a 'Suspension ""' of Trade,' the idea is not even conceived. That, and " every other Resolution, we have thought it most pru- " dent to leave for the discussion of the proposed gene- " ral Congress." ? It continued, in these very emphatie words : " Adhering, therefore, to that measure, as " most conducive to promote the grand system of " politics we all have in view, we have the pleasure " to acquaint you, that we shall be ready, on our part, " to meet, at any time and place that you shall think " fit to appoint, either of Deputies from the General " Assemblies or such other Deputies as shall be " chosen, not only to speak the Sentiments, but also to " pledge themselves for the Conduct of the People of " the respective Colonies they represent. We ean " undertake to assure you, in behalf of the People of " this Colony, that they will readily agree to any " measure that shall be adopted by the general Con- " gress. It will be necessary that you give a sufficient " time for the Deputies of the Colonies, as far south- " ward as the Carolinas, to assemble, and acquaint " them, as soon as possible, with the proposed " measure of a Congress. Your letters to the south- " ward of ns, we will forward, with great pleasure." 3

Those of the revolutionary leaders, in Boston, who had assumed the role of a Committee of Correspond- cncc, in that Town, eould not long conceal from the world the reckless falsity of what they had written to the Committee in New York, when they stated to the latter that, " certainly all that ean be depended upon " to yield any effectual relief" to the Town of Boston, "is, on all hands, acknowledged to be the Suspension " of Trade." The letters which were received by the Committee of that Town, in answer to the Circular Letters, which had been sent to the seaport Towns of

1 The contents of that letter and the spirit of those who wrote it can be ascertained from the extracts from it which were copied into the letter, and evidently referred to in the action of those who wrote it, when, on the seventh of June, the Committee of New York replied to that second letter from Boston.

2 The Resolution of the Committee in New York, on which that reply was based, is in these words : "ORDERED, That the Committee of Boston " be requested to give this Committee the Names of the Persons who " constitute the Committee of Correspondence at Boston ; that they have " made a mistake in answering this Committee's letter, which mentioned " not a word of a Suspension of Trade, which they say we have so " wisely defined, as we leave that measure entirely to the Congress, and " we shall readily agree to any measure they shall adopt."

It is very evident that the suspicions of the Committeo of New York were aroused by the evident trickery of the Committee of Boston, pre- sented in its reply to the letter of the former, dated the twenty-third of May ; and that, for that reason, it desired to learn the names of those with whom it was corresponding-their characters and standing could, then, be ascertained through other means.

& Copy of the letter, appended to the Minutes of the Committee of Cor- respondence of New York, " NEW-YORK, June 6, 1774."

Massachusetts 4 and to the Committees of Correspond- ence in thic several Colonies, 3 since the reception of the Boston Port-Bill, were not, as is now well known, really as unanimous, in favor of a "Suspension of " Trade," as the Committee had unblushingly pre- tended-indeed, with a few unimportant exceptions, the proposal to make Boston the only subject of con- sideration, throughout the Continent, and to suspend all the internal industries and, with the exception of Smuggling, all the Commerce of all the Colonics, only for the special benefit of that one Town, regardless of the more dircet and substantial grievances which were sustained by other Towns and other Colonies, and re- gardless, also, of the very serious consequences, throughout the entire Continent and elsewhere, of such a general and indiscriminate "Suspension of " Trade " as had been proposed, and that, too, at the expense of a Congress of the Continent, which the Committee in New York had proposed and insisted on, in which all the grievances of all the Towns and Colonies could be considered, and remedies therefor be duly provided, had met with no favor whatever ; and the audacious leaders of the revolutionary popu- lace, in Boston, as well as the Town itself, were not slow in receding, with more agility than candor, from that high and untenable position which they had oc- cupicd, in the proceedings of the Caueus held at Fan- euil-Hall, on the twelfth of May, in the proceedings of the Town of Boston, at the same place, on the fol-

4 The Committees who had been sent to Salem and Marblehead, "to communicate the Sentiments of this Metropolis to the Gentlemen, "there ; to consult with them ; and to report at the adjournment," (Minutes of the Town-Meeting, of Boston, Muy 13, 1774, ) did, indeed, go to those Towns, and report the results of their visits, to the Town, at its Adjourned Meeting, five days subsequently ; but those results were so discouraging to the violently disposed leaders of Boston-including Sam- nel Adams, Joseph Warren, and their associates-that they contented themselves with ostentatiously "recommending to their fellow-citizens, 'Patience, Fortitude, and a firm Trust in God," without making record of the formal Reports of the Committees, if any such formal Reports were really made, (Minutes of the Adjourned Meeting of the Town, May 18, 1774, ) and with adjourning, a second time, until the thirty-first, "by which " time it is expected we shall have encouraging News from some of the "sister Colonies, " to recompense them for the disappointment they had experienced from the results of their conferences with the Merchants ol Newburyport and Salem.

The substance of the Reports from the Committees sent to the seaport Towns of the Province, all mention of which was thus suppressed by the Town-Clerk, was saved to the world, however, in a Despatch from Gor- er mor Gage tothe Eurt of Dartmouth, dated " BOSTON : May 19, 1774," and laid before the Parliament, on the nineteenth of January, 1775, iu which it was said the Town-Meeting "appointed l'ersous to go to Marblehead "and Salem, to communicate their Sentiments to the People there, and "bring them into like Measures; which Persons were to make their " Report at the Adjournment, on the Isth, when the Meeting was aguin "held, and, I am toll, received little encouragement from Salem and " Marblehead, and transacted nothing of consequence."-(Parliamentary Register, i., 36.)

6 The first responses from other Colonies which the Committee received were those, carried by Paul Revere, from Philadelphia and New York, which were anything else than "encouraging " to such as composed that Committee ; and there can be very little doubt, in the light of what was done, very soon afterwards, in Connecticut and Rhode Island, that Revere carried back, from Ilartford and Providence, tokens of what might be expected from those Colonies, also, in opposition to the remarkable propositions of the ('aucus of Town-Committees, in Fanenil-Hall, and of the Town of Boston, ou the following day.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

lowing day, and in the letters from the Committee of Correspondence, covering the proceedings of the Town, which were sent to the Committee in New York, on the following Saturday, as has been, herein, already stated.

The world of historical literature has been favored, in this connection, by one of the most painstaking and accurate of Massachusetts' historians, with a reve- lation of the trickery and double-dealing of at least one of those who, in the matter now under considera- tion, have been justly regarded as the leaders of the political elements, within that Colony, which were antagonistic to the Colonial and the Home Govern- ments.

Samuel Adams was the Chairman and master-spirit of the Committee of Correspondence in Boston : he was the Chairman of the Caucus of the nine Town- Committees, assembled in Faneuil-Hall, which had confirmed the line of action, concerning the Boston Port-Bill, which he and the men of Boston, had al- ready contrived : he was the Moderator of the Town- Meeting, at Faneuil-Hall, continued through three days, in which that line of action was adopted and pursued and insisted on : and he inspired, if he did not personally write, those letters, describing and in- sisting on that line of action, which were sent from Boston, to the Committee in New York, in the saddle- bag of Paul Revere, of which mention has been made herein-all of them, Committees, Caucuses, Town- Meetings, and Letters, being radically in favor of the Boston plan of a "Suspension of Trade," especially for Boston's benefit, and quite as radically resisting the proposal to call " a general Congress," for general purposes. He was the Chairman and master-spirit of that local Committee of the Town which, on the thirtieth of May, addressed that letter to the Com- mittee of Correspondence in New York, adhering to the plan of a Non-Importation Association which Boston had previously proposed, instead of the con- vention of a federal Congress which New York had previously proposed ; and attempting, by indirect means, to commit the Committee in New York to the support of the Boston plan of Non-Importation, at the expense of its own plan of calling a federal Con- gress, of which letter and insidious attempt to commit the New York Committee to the Boston scheme, men- tion has been made. Besides all these, he was the Chairman and the master spirit of that Committee, in Boston, which, as lately as the eighth of June, sent Circular Letters from that Town to every Town in the Commonwealth, in which it was stated that "there is " but one way that we can conceive of, to prevent " what is to be deprecated by all good men, and ought, " by all possible means, to be prevented, viz : The " horrours that must follow an open rupture between " Great Britain and her Colonics, or, on our part, a " subjugation to absolute Slavery ; and that is by af- " fecting the Trade and Interest of Great Britain so " deeply as shall induce her to withdraw her oppres-

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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 48

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