History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 57

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 57

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if not in words, as that, on the same subject, which the Congress of the Continent had recently adopted-and he glorified his grandfather, because of that gentleman's labors in opposing it, and in endeavoring to qualify the Assembly's recognition of that Right, through an Amend- ment, which the Committee had rejected ; withont, however, alluding to that other fact that, in all that his grundfather did, on that occa- sion, he did in open antagonism to the action of the Continental Con- gress, on the same subject-he does not say, ulso, that all that which has been described was done in the original Committee; that when the Report of the Committee was submitted to the Committee of the Whole llonse, that larger body reversed the action of the original Committee, and united with Colonol Schuyler und his associates in the minority, in their qualification of that portion of the proceedings of the Continental Congress; nor that the House itself, when it accepted the completed State, endorsed and upproved that emphatic repudiation of James Duane, and of John Adams, and of their unqualified recognition of the Right of the Mother Country to regulate the Trade of the Colonies and to receive the benefits of that Commerce.

Philip Selmyler needed no such tictitions praise, even from his grandson ; and, although he was willing to promote the interests of his fuction, he does not appear to have been thus employed, in whut he did as a member of that Committee for preparing a State of the Grierances of this Colony, nor in any proceedings thereon, either In Committee of the Whole llonse or in the Assembly.

3" } was inforni'd that the Boston and Quebee Bills were at first rc- " jected in the Committee as not being l'art of the Grievances of this " ('olony ; it seems however they were at last brought into the Report, " and I am affraid may not now be got rid of in the llonse."-(Lieuten-

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

action of the Continental Congress, moved by James Duane and supported by John Adams, and nearly in its words,1 recognizing the Right of the Parliament "to regulate the Trade of the Colonies, and to lay " Duties on articles that are imported, directly, into " this Colony, from any foreign Country or Planta- " tation, which may interfere with the Products or " Manufactures of Great Britain or any other parts of " His Majesty's Dominions," qualified however, by " excluding every idea of Taxation, internal or exter- " nal, for the purpose of raising a Revenue on the "Subjects in America, without their Consent." It will be seen, therefore, that the State of the Grievances of this Colony, adopted and published by the General Assembly, was more extended than the Bill of Rights and Grievances which the Congress of the Colonics had adopted and published ; and it will be seen, also, by any one who will compare the two papers, that the former, both in its tone and in its terms, was quite as firm and quite as plain spoken, on the several sub- jects to which it was devoted, as was the latter ; and that, in the adoption and promulgation of that State, the majority of the Assembly openly maintained its character and standing, as intelligent and fearless op- ponents of the Colonial policy of the Home Govern- ment, without impairing its consistency as Members of the Legislature of a Colony-even the factional confederates of the minority, out in the populace, because of that Act, was compelled to acknowledge the fidelity of the majority, and to admit, in their correspondence with each other, that the State of the Grievances in this Colony which it had prepared and promulgated, was an accurate exposition of the feel- ings and opinions of the great body of the Colonists, in New York, wherever any feelings or opinions, on those subjects, really existed, concerning tlicir griev- ances, and altogether favorable to the common cause.2

On the seventh of March, James De Lancey, and Benjamin Kissam, of New York City, and George Clinton, of Ulster-county, were appointed a Com- mittee to prepare the series of Resolutions re- quired as a basis for the Petition to the King, which had been ordered by the House, on the thirty-first of January preceding ;3 and, on the following day, Benja- min Kissam reported, from that Committee, a series of Resolutions, agreeably to that Order. The Assembly promptly went into a Committee of the Whole House, with Colonel Benjamin Scaman, of Richmond-county,

ant-governor C'olden to the Earl of Dartmouth, " NEW YORK, Ist March, " 1775,")

1 Bancroft's History of the United States, original edition, vii., 139, 140; the same, centenary edition, iv., 401, 402.

2 In a letter written by Alexander McDongal, the well-known popular leader, addressed to Josiah Quincy, Junior, then in London, and dated "NEW-YORK. April 6, 1775," the student of the history of the Revolution, in New York, may find much, relating to the opinions of the revolution- ary elements in that Colony, concerning this State, as well as conce ning other kindred subjects.

3 Jourund of the House, "Die Martis, 10 ho., A.M., the 7th March, " 1775."

in the Chair ; and proceeded to consider the Report which had thus been presented; and, after having made some amendments iu the proposed Resolutions,4 the Chairman reported the result of the Committee's deliberations to the House; and, after some discus- sion, the House agreed with the Committee, in its Report and Resolutions.5

The first of these Resolutions, following the general sentiment of the Colonists, acknowledged the Faith and Allegiance to the King which were due to him from " the people of this Colony." The second ae- knowledged that the Colonists " owe obedience to all " Acts of Parliaments calculated for the general weal " of the whole Empire and the due regulation of the " Trade and Commerce thereof, and not inconsistent "with the essential Rights and Libertics of Englishi- "mnen, to which they are equally entitled with their " fellow-subjects in Great Britain." The third de- clared " that it is essential to Freedom and the un- " doubted Right of Englishmen, that no Taxes be " imposed on thein but with their consent, given per- " sonally or by their Representatives in General As- "scınbly." The fourth maintained "that the Acts of " Parliament, raising a Revenue in America especially "to provide for the support of the Civil Government " and administration of Justice in the Colonies, ex- " tending the Jurisdiction of the Courts of Admiralty "beyond their ancient limits, authorizing the. Judge's " Certificate to indemnify the Prosecutor from Dam- " ages he would otherwise be liable to, giving them a " concurrent Jurisdiction of Causes heretofore cog- " nizable only in the Courts of Common Law, and by " that means depriving the American Subject of his " Trial by a Jury, arc destructive to Freedom, and " subversive of the Rights and Liberties of the Colo- "nies." The fifth and last of these Resolutions de- clared " that a Trial by a Jury of the Vicinage, in all "Capital Cases, is the grand Security of Freedom and " the Birthright of Englishmen; and, therefore, that " the seizing any Person or Persons, residing in this "Colony, suspected of Treasons, Misprisions of "Treason, or any other Offences, and sending such "Person or Persons out of the same, to betried, is dan- "gerous to the Lives and Liberties of His Majesty's " American Subjects."6

The politicians of New York, those of later as well

4 As the action of the Committee which resulted in those Amend- ments was not generally noticed on the Journal or in the Report, it is very evident that they were, generally, only verbal corrections, unim- portant in character, and involving no distinguishing principles. But there were two amendments, proposed by Colonel Nathaniel Woodhull and George Clinton respectively, which were rejected, although the the motions for amendment were supported, in cach instance, by several members of the majority, as well as by the full force of the minority ; but because the principle involved in each of the proposed Amend- ments was distinctly declared in another of the Resolutions, the rejection of the proposition to repeat it, possessed no political significance what- ever.

5 Journal of the House, "Die Mercurij, 10 ho., A.M., the 8th March, " 1775."

6 Ibid.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

as those of earlier periods, have always been unlike those of any other Colony, or State, or Country ; and in the matter of these declaratory Resolutions, the spirit and terms of which were quite as radical in their character as could have been desired by the most advanced republican who was not an anarchist, the well-established reputation of those politicians was amply sustained-every member of the majority of the Assembly, including James DeLancey, John Cruger, Benjamin Kissam, Crean Brush, Isaac Wilkins, and Frederic Philipse, except John Coe, of Orange- county, and Dirck Brinckerhoff, of Duchess-county, voted in favor of the adoption of them and, of course, in favor of the embodiment of their terms in an Address to the King ; while every member of the minority of the House, with Coe and Brinckerhoff of the majority, voted in opposition to the adoption of them. Factional and partisan bitterness, very often, produces such remarkable instances of the inconsistency, if not of the incomprehensibility, of mere politicians ; but history affords few, if any, such examples, among those who were really patriotic, as were afforded by John Thomas and Pierre Van Cort- landt, by Peter R. Livingston and Nathaniel Wood- hull, by George Clinton and Philip Schuyler, in the instance under consideration, when they voted against the Resolutions which have been fully de- scribed and, consequently, against the great political principles which were asserted and maintained there- in, for no other reason which is now discoverable than the peculiar fact that those Resolutions had proceeded from and were, then, supported by the majority of the Assembly, by that faction of the great party ofthe Opposition of which all were equally mem- bers, to which they-those who have been named and those who were with them-did not belong.1

Whatever may have influenced those who had as- sumed to be the peculiarly disinterested and sincere supporters of the common cause, in their united vote to reject the Resolutions which are, now, under con- sideration, those who arc of the Westchester-county of the present day will continue to be interested in the fact that, on that very critical occasion, when the eyes of all sober-minded men, in Europe as well as in America, were turned toward that small Assembly- chamber, Isaac Wilkins, of the Borough of West- chester, and Frederic Philipse, representing the body of the County, manfully declared the Rights of the Colonists and those of the Colonies, and bravely re- sisted what were regarded as the usurpations of the Home Government; while Pierre Van Cortlandt, of the Manor of Cortlandt, and Jolin Thomas, repre- senting the body of the County, quite as manfully opposed them, and, indirectly, quite as bravely denied the existence of those individual and Colonial Rights,

and quite as boldly sustained the Home Government, in what it had done, as any open and avowed " friend of the Government " could have done, had one been present,-a lesson of the highest importance to those who shall incline to ascertain the exact truth, concerning the origin of the American Revolu- tion and the purposes of those who promoted it, with- in the Colony of New York, may be seen in the sim- ple record of this single action of the Representatives of Colonial New York, in her General Assembly, in 1775.

On the day after these Resolutions had been adopted by the Assembly, [March 9th,] that body ordered the appointment of "a Committee to prepare and lay "before the House, with all convenient speed, the " Draft of an humble, firm, dutiful, and loyal Petition, "to be presented to our most Gracious Sovereign," pursuant to Colonel Peter R. Livingston's Motion on the thirty-first of the preceding January; and William Nicoll, of Suffolk-county, Leonard Van- Kleeek, of Duchess-county, and Isaac Wilkins, of the Borough of Westchester, were appointed the Committee for that purpose. During the same day, Crean Brush, from Cumberland-county, Colonel Ben- jamin Seaman, of Richmond-county, and Samuel Gale, of Orange-county, were appointed a Committee " to prepare the Draft of a Memorial to the Lords ;" and Daniel Kissam, of Queens-county, and James De Lancey and Jacob Walton, of the City of New York, were appointed a Committee "to prepare the " Draft of a Representation and Remonstrance to the " Commons of Great Britain," both of them pursuant to the Resolution offered by James De Lancey, to which reference has been already made.2 The Honse directed, also, that the Drafts of those several papers should be laid before it, "with all convenient "speed.""3

It will be seen that on neither of these Committees was there a single member of the minority of the House, notwithstanding the Resolution on which the first-named of those Committees was appointed origi- nated with a leading member of that faction, and notwithstanding, also, both the Resolutions pursuant to which all the Committees were appointed, had been adopted in the Assembly by an unanimous vote, every member of each of the two factions, in tempor- ary harmony and good-will, having united in approv- ing and supporting them-an evident result of the bitter factional feeling which had been aroused, first by the evidently dishonorable conduct of the minority, in springing upon the Assembly the Resolution which was offered by Colonel Ten Broeck, on the twenty- sixth of January, for taking into consideration the Proceedings of the Congress of the Colonies, while a "Call of the House," asked for by itself and for its

1 The official record of the votes of the several Members of the Assem- bly, of both factions of the party of the Opposition, as it may be seen in the Journal of the House, is one of the most curious and most unaccount- able, within our knowledge.

2 Vide pages 50, 51, ante.

3 ,Journal of the House, " Die Jovis, 10 ho., A. M., the 9th of March, "1775."

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

peculiar advantage, was pending ; 1 and, subsequently, by the peculiarly faetional proceedings of the minor- ity, in the presentation of Resolution after Resolu- tion, only for the promotion of Revolution ; and in its dishonorable opposition, while the Assembly was considering the State of the Grievances and the series of declaratory Resolutions, to all of which proceed- ings reference has been herein made.2

On the sixteenth of March, Isaac Wilkins, from the Committee appointed to prepare it, reported "the " Draft of a Petition to the King ; " and, immediately afterwards, Crean Brush, from the Committee ap- pointed to prepare it, reported "a Draft of a Memor- "ial to the Lords." During the same day, James De Lancey, from the Committee appointed to prepare it, reported " the Draft of a Representation and Remon- "strance to the Commons of Great Britain ; " and the Assembly promptly referred all those papers, for con- sideration, to a Committee of the Whole House.3

On the twenty-fourth of March, the Assembly re- solved itself into a Committee of the Whole House, upon the Draught of a Petition to the King, Colonel Benjamin Seaman, of Richmond-eounty, being in the Chair ; and, again, the minority displayed its faction- al animosity by presenting Amendment after Amend- ment, by far the greater number of them being merely verbal, without disturbing either the sense or the spirit of the original. In one instance, however, very unaccountably and not very consistently, Colo- nel Philip Schuyler appeared to have entertained a more than usually tender regard for His Majesty's " prerogative," in the matter of the Paper Curreney of the Colony, " in the preservation of which prerog- " ative," he said, " we are deeply interested ; " and an Amendment, on that subjeet, which he submitted, was adopted by the House, without a division. An- other Amendment, coneerning the Judiciary of the Colony, and entirely cancelling the paragraph, on that subject, which the Committee had reported, was submitted by George Clinton, of Ulster-county, and agreed to, by an unanimous vote of the House; and another Amendment, submitted by Colonel Frederic Philipse, by striking the words " seem to," from one of the paragraphs, and, by doing so, making the Acts relating to Boston and the Colony of Massachusetts- Bay really "establish a dangerous precedent, by inflict- "ing Punishment without the formality of a Trial," instead of only seeming to do so, as the original para- graph deseribed them, really strengthened the Peti- tion, in its assertion of the Grievances to which the Colonies had been subjected.+ As the records of the closing portion of the proceedings of the Committee of the Whole House and those of all that the House,

1 Vide pages 49, 50, ante.

2 Vide pages 51-53, ante.

3 Journal of the House, "Die Jovis, 10 ho., A.M., the 16th March, "1775."

4 Journal of the House, " Die Veneris, 10 ho., A. M., the 24th March, "1775."

itself, did, on this subject, "are missing," in our copy of the Journal, the details of those proceedings cannot be given ; 5 but history bears testimony to the general fact that, in its amended form, the Petition to the King was duly agreed to, by the Assembly.6

On the same day, [March 24th], the Memorial to the House of Lords and the Representation and Remon- strance to the House of Commons, after several Amend- ments, none of them possessing any importance whatever and only three of them having ealled for a division of the House, had been negatived in the Committee of the Whole House, were sueeessively rc- ported to the House ; and, in the respective forms in which they were thus reported, the House adopted them, in each instance, without a division of the House.7

On the following morning, [March 25th] the en- grossed copies of the Petition to the King,8 the Memor- ial to the Lords,9 and the Representation and Remon- strance to the Commons of Great Britain10 were respect- ively presented to the House, read, and again agreed to, in each case without a division of the House. In each instance, also, the Speaker was ordered to sign the document, in behalf of the House; and, after having ordered the Speaker to transmit these three several petitions to the King, the Lords, and the Commons, " with all convenient speed, to Edinund " Burke, Esquire, Agent of this Colony at the Court " of Great Britain ; and that a Letter be prepared, to "be approved by this House, to the said Agent, with "directions that he present the same, in behalf of "this Colony, as they are respectively direeted, as "soon after the receipt thereof as possible; " and with the additional Order "that Mr. Speaker trans- " mit, at the same time, to the Agent, the State of the " Grievances of this Colony and the Resolutions of "this House thereupon," the House adjourned."

On the thirty-first of March, the Assembly ordered the Speaker to send to the Speakers of the several Houses of Assembly on this Continent, as soon after

5 The original Journals of the Assembly which included the proceedings of the entire Session which is now under consideration, were lost during the troublesome times of that period ; and the only known copy of the original printed edition of those Journals wanted four pages, in this portion of it. Those missing pages contained the closing portion of the proceedings of the House, on the Petition to the King, as stated in the text. and the opening of its proceedings on the Memorial to the House of Lords.

6 The completed Petition to the King, signed by the Speaker of the As- sembly, may be seen in the Journal of the Assembly, " Die Sabbati, 10 "ho., A.M., the 25th March 1775."

7 ." Journal of the House, "Die Veneris, 10 ho., AM., the 24th March " 1775."

The defect in the Journal, as it is now known to us, to which reference has been made, leaves ns without any information concerning the proceedings of the House on the first twenty paragraphs of the Me- morial to the House of Lords.

8 Journal of the House, " Die Sabbati, 10 ho., A. M., the 25th March "' 1773.""

9 Ibid.

10 Journal of the House, " Die Sabbati, 4 ho., l'.M., the 25th March,

" 1775." 11 Thid.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

the rise of this House as conveniently may be, copies of the State of the Grievances, of the Resolutions of the House, of the Petition to the King, of the Memor- ial to the Lords, and of the Representation and Remon- strance to the Commons, requesting those several Speakers to lay the same before their respective Houses of Assembly, at their first meeting after the receipt thereof.1

On the following day, [April 1st.] the Assembly ap- pointed " a Standing Committee of Correspondence," composed of the Speaker, [John Cruger,] James De Lancey, James Jaunecy, Benjamin Kissam, and Jacob Walton, all of them from the City of New York, Benjamin Scaman, of Richmond-county, Isaac Wil- kins, of the Borough of Westchester, Frederic Phil- ipse, of Westchester-county, Zebulon Scaman, of Queens-county, John Rapalje and Simon Boerum, of Kings-county, Samuel Gale, of Orange-connty, and George Clinton, of Ulster-county, or any seven of them, " whose duty it shall be to obtain the most " carly and authentic intelligence of all such Acts " and Resolutions of the British Parliament or Pro- " ceedings of Administration as do or may relate to " or affect the Liberties and Privileges of His Ma- "jesty's Subjects, in the British Colonies in America " and to keep up and maintain a Correspondence and " Communication with our Sister Colonics, respecting "these important considerations ; and the result of " their Proceedings to lay before the House." 2

On the following Mouday, the third of April, the Assembly adjourned until the third of May; 3 and that eventful Session of the last General Assembly of the Colony of New York, which was assembed for the discharge of legislative duties, was ended.

That General Assembly and all that it did, from the opening of the Session until the final declaration of its Speaker brought that Session to a close, have been made the themes of unceasing misrepresentation and abuse or of absolute and contemptuous silence, from far the greater number of those who have as- sumed to write or to speak concerning the history of that notable period. They have been the themes, sometimes, of ignorant and unscrupulous bigots and, sometimes, of intelligent and unscrupulous tricksters ; sometimes a personal and sometimes a local cnd lias been served by either a falsification or a concealment of the truth, concerning them; and, sometimes, frag- ments of useless and glittering rhetoric, strung to- gether, as farmers string fragments of useless and glittering tin and display them in order to deceive and to seatter unsuspecting birds from their corn- fields, in like manner, have been employed by literary prestidigitators, in order to deceive those who are less intelligent than themselves, concerning that As-

1 Journal of the House, "Die Veneris, 10 ho., A. M., the 31st March,

2 Journal of the House, "Die Sabbati, 10 ho., A. M., the Ist April, ".1775."

S Journal of the House, " Die Lane, 10 ho., A. M., the 3d April, 1775."

sembly, and its members, and their doings; and, through that deception, to promote their own or their party's or their sectional purposes. Individual mem- bers of that Assembly, men of honor and unimpcachi- able integrity, have been stigmatized as "wretches," and as "the veriest reptiles on earth" and charged with "corruption " and cvery kindred vice-some of them were driven from their families and their homes ; others of them were lawlessly scized and carried from their families and their homes, exiled, and held in lawless bondage; and others of them were stripped of thicir patrimonial estates or of the cstates of their own creation-only because they had preferred, as Members of that Assembly, to assert the Grievances under which the Colony was said to have been labor- ing and to demand a Redress of those alleged Griev- ances, not with any less distinctness of words nor with any less firmness of manner, but after a manner and through instrumentalities of their own selection and which possessed their greater confidence, rather than after a manner and through instrumentalities which others would have thrust on them, which their own sense of fitness and adaptability had not ap- proved, which were controlled by men in whose noisy pretensious to personal and political integrity they could not repose confidence. Measures which were sincerely intended for the promotion of the common cause of the Colouies, in their struggle with the Home Government,-measures which presented noth- ing else than political principles or recitals of facts which no one, of any seet or faction, pretended to dispute- were opposed, vehemently and without measure, within as well as without the Assembly, only because they had not originated and were not supported before the House, by the opposite faction of the Opposition ; and, with that hereditary, or sec . tional, or sectarian, or partisan bitterness which the lapse of years has served only to intensify, that work of depreciation and misrepresentation of those meas- ures and of all who favored them, continues to dis- grace much, at the present day, which is audaciously called " history."

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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 57

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