History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 79

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 79

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In view of the fact, if it is a fact, which Mr. Williams has copied from Boucher's Sermons, that a pension was granted to some other person for having done what, in this paper, was said to have been done by Seabury, it is very evident the British Government preferred to believe that Sam - nel Seabry was NOT the author of the "A. W. FARMER " tracts nor of the other publications named in that draft of a Memorial, referred to in Mr. William's paper ; and that it acted, accordingly.

We are not insensible of the fact that a great-grandson of Samuel Sea- bury, in a paper which was published in The American Quarterly Church Review, for April, 1881, withiont any supporting testimony which any Bench in the country would have received as evidence, in any case, un- dertook the ungracious task of showing, by argument, that Samuel Sea- bury was not sincere, when he wrote the disclaimer which is now under notice ; that his words, on the matter of his alleged authorship of the political pamphlets and newspaper articles referred to, were artfully in- tended to mislead the General Assembly, beneficially to himself; and that, in fact, not withstanding what he and others had said and written to the contrary, Sammuel Seabury was really the author of the "A. W. "FARMER " tracts ! We must be excused, however, for dissenting from

1 Vide pages 308, 309, ante.

2 In our early manhood, after a careful examination of all the evidence | the conclusions of this younger member of the Seabury family, and for 24

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

"ment. Must he be judged by the laws of Conneeti- "eut, to which as an inhabitant of New York lie "owed no obedienee ? or by the laws of that colony " in which he has been near twenty years a resident ? "or, if the regulations of Congress be attended to, "must he be dragged from the committee of his own " county, and from the Congress of his own provinee, " cut off from the intereourse of his friends, deprived " of the benefit of those evidences whiel may be " necessary for the vindication of his innocenee, and "judged by strangers to him, to his eharaeter, and " to the circumstances of his general eonduet in life ? "One great grievanee justly complained of by the " people of America, and which they are now strug- " gling against, is the Act of Parliament directing " persons to be earried from Ameriea to England for " a trial. And your Memorialist is confident that the " supreme legislative authority in this colony will not " permit lıim to be treated in a manner so destruetive " to that liberty for whiel they are now contending. " If your Memorialist is to be dealt with according to " law, he eonecives that the laws of Connecticut, as "well as of New York, forbid the imprisonment of " his person any otherwise than according to law. If " he is to be judged according to the regulations of the "Congress, they have ordained the Provincial Con- " gress of New York or the Committee of the county " of West Chester, to be his judges. Neither the "laws of either colony nor the regulations of the " Congress give any eountenanee to the mode of " treatment which he has met with. But considered " in either light, lie eoneeives it must appcar unjust, " cruel, arbitrary, and tyrannical.1

retaining our own well-considered opinion that Samuel Seabury was nothing else than a learned, sincere, truthful, honorable, and fearless man, incapable of such dishonorable trickery as has heen attributed to him. Others are at liberty, of course, to think differently.

1 The reader of the two preceding paragraphs, in which the captive re- sponded to the first and fourth of the charges which his captors had pre- sented against him, cannot fail to find evidence, of the highest character, that, in his political opinions, Samuel Seabnry was, at that time, as he had previously been, in exact accord with Isaac Wilkins and Frederic Philipse, also of Westchester-county ; and that he was and had been in accord with the great body of Americans, believing and maintaining that the Home Government had invaded the personal and political rights of the Colonists ; that the latter had just reason for complaints and opposi- tion to the Colonial and Home Governments, because of those grievances ; that the Colonists were justified in their opposition to those obnoxious measures aud to those who enacted and promoted the execution of them, as far as that opposition involved no violation of the Rights of Persons or Properties nor of the Laws of the Land ; and that the Continental Congress of 1774, until it passed beyond the prescribed limits of its authority, as that authority had been specifically defined by its constitu- ent Colonies, and until it assumed the unwarranted authority of legisla- tion, thereby closing the open door of reconciliation with the Mother Country, for the promotion of which it had been expressly aud solely con- stituted, was worthy of the respect and support which were given to it, by nearly every one, in the Colony. In common with the great body of the Colonists, throughout the entire seahoard, he was siucere in his con- victious that the Colonies were suffering from the wrongs which had been inflicted on them by the Mother Country ; and he was willing to resort to all lawful means for their relief. But when the entire ma- chinery of the party of the Opposition was seized by those who only cared for the offices which they could secure and for the promotion of only a factional struggle for the control of the political power of the Colony, he preferred to remain among the conservatives, and to act, if

"With regard to the second charge, viz .: That "your Memorialist signed a Protest against the pro- " ceedings of the Congress, lie begs leave to state the " fact as it really is. The General Assembly of the " province of New York, in their sessions last winter, "determined to send a petition to the king, a " memorial to the House of Lords, and a remonstranee "to the House of Commons, upon the subject of " American grievanees;2 and the members of the "house, at least many of them, as your Memorialist " was informed, recommended it to their constituents " to be quiet till the issue of those applications should " be known. Some time in the beginning of April, as "your Memorialist thinks, the people were invited to " meet at the White Plains to choose delegates for a "Provineial Congress. Many people there assembled "were averse from the measure. They, however, gave " no other opposition to the choice of delegates than " signing a Protest. This Protest your Memorialist " signed in company with two members of the assem- " bly, and above three hundred other people.3 Your " Memorialist had not a thought of acting against the " liberties of America. He did not coneeive it to be " a erime to support the incasures of the representa- "tives of the people, measures which he then hoped "and expected would have good effeet by inducing a " change of conduct in regard to America. More "than eiglit monthis have now passed since your " Memorialist signed the Protest. If his erime was "of so atrocious a kind, why was lie suffered to " remain so long unpunished? or why should lie be " now singled out from more than thircc hundred, to "endure the unexampled punishment of captivity " and unlimited confinement ?

" The other erime alleged against your Memorialist is " that he neglceted to open his church on the day of the " Continental Fast. To this he begs leave to answer : " That he had no notice of the day appointed but "from common report : That he received no order " relative to said day either from any Congress or " committee : That he cannot think himself guilty of " neglecting or disobeying an order of Congress, "which order was never signified to him in any way :

he acted in any political movement, with the conservative rather thau with the revolutionary faction of the party of the Opposition.

Whatever he may have subsequently become, and the persecutions to which he was subjected by those of the opposite faction of the Opposi- tion would have soured the most amiable of dispositions and have trans- formed those who were more opposed to the Government than he into active " friends of the Government," when this Memorial was written, and previously thereto, Samuel Seabury, like Isaac Wilkins and Frederic Philipse and the De Lanceys aud the great body of the farmers of West- chester-county and those who were not seekers for offices and official power and official emoluments, everywhere, as far as they were po'iti- cally inclined, in any direction, were unchanged, conservative members of the earlier party of the Opposition to the existing, governing Ministry, without either pretending to be or being, in the slightest degree, what were then known, distinctively, as " friends of the Government," or what have subsequently become known by the techuical term, as offensive as it was distinctive, of "Tories."

2 Vide pages 231, 232, ante. 3 Vide pages 247, 250, ante.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

"That a complaint was exhibited against your " Memorialist to the Provincial Congress of New " York, by Captain Sears, soon after the neglect with " which he is charged, and that after the matter was " fully debated, the complaint was dismissed : 1 That " he conceives it to be cruel, arbitrary, and in the " highest degree unjust, after his supposed offense has " been examined before the proper tribunal, to be " dragged like a felon seventy miles from home, and "again impeached of the same crime. At this rate " of proceeding, should he be acquitted at New " Haven, he may [be] forced seventy miles fartlier, " and so on without end.

" Further your Memorialist begs leave to repre- " sent: That he has a wife and six children, to " whom he owes, both from dnty and affection, pro- " tection, support, and instruction. That his family " in a great measure depend, under the providence of " God, upon his daily care for their daily bread. " That there are several families at West Chester " who depend on his advice as a physician, to which " profession he was bred. That as a clergyman he " has the eare of the towns of East and West Chester. " That there is not now a clergymau of any denom- "ination uearer than nine miles from the place of " his residence, and but one withiu that distance " without crossing the Sound ; so that in his absence " there is none to officiate to the people iu any " religious service, to visit the sick, or bury the dead. " Your Memorialist also begs leave to observe: " That in order to discharge some debts which the " necessity of his affairs formerly obliged him to con- " tract, he, about a year ago, opened a grammar " school,2 and succeeded so far as to make it worth "one hundred pounds, York money, for the year " past. That he was in a fair way of satisfying his " creditors and freeing himself from a heavy inenm- " brance. That he had five young gentlemen from " the Island of Jamaica, one from Montreal, four " children of gentlemen now in England, committed " to his care, among others from New York and the " country. That he apprehends his school to be " broken up and his scholars dispersed, probably " some of them placed at other schools, and that it " may be difficult, if not impracticable, again to " recover them. That if there should be no other " impedimneut, yet if the people of West Chester are to

1 The ruffianly leader of the banditti who seized Samuel Seabury and destroyed or carried away the property of James Rivington, had had a public controversy with the latter, and had been most ignominiously defeated, (deLancey's Notes on Jones's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, i., 561-566.) The text of the Memorial of Samuel Seabury, in this place, indicated that the same disreputable habitué of Jasper Drake's Beekman's Slip unlicensed alehouse had also had a political tilt with the Rector of St. Peter's Church, in Westchester, with a similar result. The reader may gather from those facts, without re- sorting to that general fact of the disappointment of Sears, in his scram- ble for " a high office in the American Navy," of which Bancroft has made mention, just what was the reason that that ruffian was so zealous, in his pursuit of the two who had so signally defeated him. 2 Vide pages 304, 306, ante.

" be liable to snch treatment as your Memorialist liath " lately endured, no person will be willing to trust " his children there. That in this case, your Memor- "ialist must lie entirely at the mercy of his creditors " to secure him from a jail, or must part with every- " thing he has to satisfy their just demands.

" Your Memorialist, thinking it his duty to use all "lawful and honorable means to free himself from " his present confinement, mentioned his case to the "judges of the superior court lately sitting in this "town. Those honorable gentlemen thought it a " case not proper for them to interfere in; he has, " therefore, no remedy, but in the interposition of the " Honorable House of Assembly.

" To them he looks for relief from the heavy hand " of oppression and tyranny. He hopes and expects " that they will dismiss him from his confinement, "and grant him their protection, while he passes " peaceably through the colony. He is indeed "accused of breaking the rules of the Continental "Congress. He thinks he cau give a good account " of his conduct, such as would satisfy reasonable " and candid men. He is certain that nothing can " be laid to his charge so repugnant to the regnla- "tions of the Congress, as the conduct of those " people who in an arbitrary and hostile manner " forced him from his house, and have kept him now " four weeks a prisoner without any means or pros- " pect of relief. He has a higher opinion of the "candor, justice, and equity of the Honorable House " of Assembly, and shall they incline to inquire more "minutely into the affair, he would be glad to ap- " pear at the bar of their house, and answer for him- " self; or to be permitted to have counsel to answer' " for him; or, in such way as they in their wisdom "shall think best, to grant him relief. And your " Memorialist, as in dnty bound, shall ever pray. " SAMUEL SEABURY. " Dated in NEW HAVEN the 20th day of Deccm- " ber, 1775."

Three days after this spirited Memorial was written -there is no record that it was ever laid before a General Assembly 3-as the brave Memorialist subse-

3 We are not insensible of the fact that Hinman, in his Historical Col- lections of the part sustained by Connecticut during the War of the Revolution, (page 548,) stated that Samuel Seabury "brought his petition on the "20th day of December, 1776,* to the General Assembly of Connecticut, "then sitting at New Haven ; " and, further, (page 551,) that " the peti- "tion, in the Assembly, was referred to a Joint Committee of the two " Houses, with William Samuel Johnson, Esq., as Chairman, who re- "ported that a letter had been received from the President of the New " York Congress, on the subject ; and that to answer said letter, a pub- " lic hearing should be had before both Houses of said Assembly." We are not insensible, also, that Mr. Seabnry addressed his Memorial " To "the Honorable the General Assembly * * * now sitting in New " Haven, in said Colony, by special Order of his Honor, the Governor," (ride page 312, ante.) But the Journal of that Special Session, called by the Governor, and sitting at New Haven, shows " the General Assembly " was adjourned by Proclamation, on the 14th day of December, 1775 ;" and that there was no other Session of the Assembly, from the latter

* Thus stated in that work.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

quently stated, "the gang who took " [him] "pris- " oner thought proper to withdraw their guard and "let " [him] " return" to his desolated home.1

It was not pretended that either the Executive, or the Legislative, or the Judicial authorities of the Colony of Connecticut, none of whom had been disturbed by the revolutionary element within that Colony and all of whom were enabled to discharge all their legitimate functions, had made the slightest move- inent for the relief or for the release of the captive, who, during the preceding nearly five weeks, had been held in eaptivity, with the entire knowledge and aequieseenee and in the presence of each of those several departments of the Colonial Government, in one of the Capital-Towns of the Colouy. It was not pretended that any one of the seventeen banditti, residents of the Town of New Haven and known to all in authority, had been called to aecount, by any one in authority, for their flagrant violation of the Law of the land. On the contrary, it is evident that his captors had beeome tired, sinee they found that an able and courageous prisoner, such as Samuel Seabury was, was not likely to be useful to either the general cause of the Rebellion or to those who held him ; and, therefore, without any official aetion which has been recorded, either by the official pens or by the traditional stylus of history-just as · similar politieal prisoucrs, within the memory of living men, have been informally and uneeremoniously ejected from places in which they had been lawlessly con- fined by warrant of no other mittimus than the naked ipse dixit of reckless and law-defying politieal dema- gogues possessing a revolutionary power to issue such orders-the guards which had barred the outlet from his improvised prison were removed ; the doors were opened; and lie was permitted to depart, without hindrance, and to return, without molestation, to his home and family.

He rcaehed Westchester, on his return, on the see- ond of January, 1776;2 but his private affairs were very much disturbed; 3 his School, on which he large- ly depended for the payment of his debts and for the more comfortable support of his family, was broken up; ^ his present means were very limited-the ex- pense of his month's eonfinement, in the hands of the banditti, had amounted to the very large sum of ten pounds sterling5-his papers were so mueh seattered

that he was unable to diseharge his official duties with propriety and aeeuracy ; 6 he and his family were subjected to constant annoyanees and insults ; 7 nis house was oceupied, soon after, by a Company of Cavalry, who consumed or destroyed all the produets of his Glebe, on which, to a considerable extent, his family was made dependent ; 8 he was thus made en- tirely dependent for support on his small stipend as a Missionary of the Venerable Society ; and, finally, like his friend and neighbor, Isaac Wilkins, he was compelled to seek shelter and safety in flight 9-when a favorable opportunity was afforded, he gatliered sueh of his effects as could be conveniently carried, and, with his wife and six ehildren, he fled, first aeross the Sound, to Long Island and, subsequently, to the City of New York.10

Need there be any surprise that, after sueh an ex- perience of what, in practice, were " the Liberties of "Ameriea," Samuel Seabury's political opinions under- went a radieal ehange-that he eeased to be of the party of the Opposition to the Ministry then in place ; and that he became, decidedly and firmly, "a friend "of the Government," in other words, an unqualified and distinctive Tory ? 11

On the fourth of Deeember, 1775, also during the period between the dissolution of the first and the organization of the second of the series of the Pro- vineial Congresses, the Governor of the Colony, Wil- liam Tryon, from his shelter, on board the ship Dutchess of Gordon, lying in the harbor of the City of New York, evidently and reasonably encouraged by the baekwardness of the Deputies to the Provin- cial Congress ; by the known inclination to peace, of a large majority, if not of nearly all, the Colonists; and by the countenance and expected support of sundry of the leaders of the Rebellion, addressed a letter to the Mayor of that City, Whitehead Hieks,12

6 Ibid.

7 Rev. Samuel Seabury to the Vencrable Society, " NEW YORK, December " 29, 1776."

8 Beardsley's Life and Correspondence of Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D., 48. 9 Samuel Seabury's name was on the first "List of Westchester-county " Tories," (Historical Manuscripts, etc .: Miscellaneous Papers, xxxiv., 193.) In September, 1776, after reciting the disaffection of Rev. Samuel Seabury, the Committee of Safety, five of the Westchester-county meni- bers being present, directed Colonel Joseplı Drake, forthwith, to remove him from his home to the house of Colonel John Brinckerhoff, at Fish- kill, to remain there till the further order of the Convention or the Com- mittee of Safety ; and that he be not permitted to leave the farm of the said Colonel Brinckerhoff, except in company with the Colonel. At the same time Colonel Van Cortlandt, John Jay, and Robert Harper were directed to ascertain what property Mr. Seabury had which might be seized and sold for the payment for his board and lodging, in his involun- tary exile, (Journal of the Committee of Safety, " Die Mercurii, 9 ho., " A.M., September 11, 1776.")

10 Beardsley's Life and Correspondence of Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D., 50.

11 Beardsley's Life and Correspondence of the Rt. Rev. Samuel Sea- bury, D.D., 48-50.

12 Governor Tryon to the Mayor of the City of New York, "SHIP DUTCH- " ESS OF GORDON, NEW YORK HARBOUR, 4th Dec. 1775."

This letter appeared, in print, in Gaine's New-York Gazette : and the Weekly Mercury, No. 1261, NEW-YORK, Monday, December 11, 1775.

date until the second Thursday of the following May, see the same Historical Collections, etc., 200.

1 Rev. Samuel Seubury to the Secretary of the Venerable Society, "NEW " YORK, December 29, 1776."

2 Rev. Samuel Seabury to the Venerable Society, " WESTCHESTER, Janu- "ary 13, 1776 ; " Beardsley's Life and Correspondence of Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D., 43.

3 Rev. Samuel Seabury to the Venerable Society, " WESTCHESTER, Janu- " ary 13, 1776."

4 Beardsley's Life and Correspondence of Rt. Rev. Samuel Scabury, D.D., 48.

5 Rev. Samuel Seabury to the Venerable Society, " WESTCHESTER, January " 13, 1776."

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

enelosed in which was another letter addressed "To " THE INHABITANTS OF THE COLONY OF NEW YORK."1 expressive of his hope that some measure might be adopted as the basis of an accommodation between the Mother Country and the Colony. It was written in a spirit of kindness and regard for the welfare of the country, probably as a feeler, and certainly after cou- sultation with some of the leaders of the Rebellion ; and it was well-calculated to lead the revolutionary portions of the Colonists back to their duty and to peace, in which it appears to have been quite effec- tive-" several of the Delegates " [in the Provincial Congress] "were favorably disposed," we are told; and there can be little doubt that by far the greater number of the Colonists, also, could their well-con- sidered and honest preferences have been safely ex- pressed, would have leartily concurred in the propo- sition.

It was not, then, generally known, but the revela- tions made by the publication of the records of that period have recently shown, that that letter was in- troductory to a movement toward a peaceful solution of the political troubles of the Colonies, which, if the letter should be well-received, the very able family of Smith, who had been among the originators and most earnest promoters of the Rebellion, and whose duplicity and hypocrisy are well known, was prepar- ing to direct and lead. Thomas Smith, one of the brothers, was a member of the Provincial Congress, and, of course, in all the councils of the party of the Rebelliou, enjoying the confidence of those who were

concerned in them. Joshua Hett Smith, another of the brothers, whose unholy associations with General Benedict Arnold and Major John Andre, at a later period, are well known, was not, then, in any Com- mittee or Congress ; but, nevertheless, he was, at that time, one of the leaders of the Rebellion, out-doors, and was admitted to the inner councils of those who were its leaders. William Smith, the elder of the historical family of that period and allied to the Liv- ingstons, by marriage, was the most influential of all those who were, at that time, engaged in the political affairs of the Colony. He had been associated with William Livingston and John Morin Scott, in the historically famous "triumvirate." He had professed to approve the usurpations of legislative authority and other questionable doings of the Continental Con- gress of 1774; and he is known to have been an outside adviser of the factious minority of the General Assem- bly, with whom and with whose inconsistency of action the reader is already acquainted. He was the life-long and confidential friend and the frequent host of Gene- ral Philip Schuyler; and the correspondent, friend, and political adviser of George Clinton. He gave up his house, for the occupation of General Washington, when the latter occupied the City; and, with much ostentation, he appeared to be largely in sympathy with those, in New York and elsewhere, who were in the Rebellion. But, notwithstanding all these, Wil- liam Smith adroitly avoided the placing of his name to the General Association of the Congress of 1774, that act which was made the political shibboleth, after the catch words of " Rights " and "Liberty" had ac- complished their purposes and a new issue, that of an implicit obedience to the powers which were, had been made by those who were leaders iu the Rebel- lion. He was, also, at the same time that he was thus masquerading as a confidantè and an adviser of those who were leading the Rebellion and as a sympathiser with and promoter of the Rebellion itself, a Member of the Colonial Council of the King; an intimate friend and confidential adviser of the Governor of the Col- ony, William Tryon-whose leanings toward the pre- tensions of the Livingston family were as distinctly seen as were those of the venerable Lieutenant-gover- nor, Cadwallader Colden, toward the pretensions of the more influential De Lancey family-and a secret schemer, aiming to promote the interest of his own family by disarming the Rebellion of its strength 2 and, thereby, effecting a reconciliation with the Home Government.

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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 79

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