History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 94

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

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I Joseph Reed, Adjutant-general (by the General's order) to the Provin- cial Congress, " HEAD-QUARTERS, NEW-YORK, July 5th, 1776."

2 Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Tuesday, 9th July, 1776."

3 In view of the fact that the body of which that Committee was a part and by whom it had been appointed and to whom it was to report, was, specifically, "a Provincial Congress for the Province of New " York ; " and because, at that time, there had been no change in the status of the Deputations composing the Congress, who represented nothing else than certain specified Counties, each Deputation represent- ing only a single County ; and because, at that time, the Colony of New York, could not be possibly regarded as a "State," the caption of that Report displayed nothing of historical or legal precision, nothing of accuracy of statement, and nothing of good taste.

The hand which wrote it could not be concealed ; and if the form of the writing answered the present purpose of the writer of it. in certify. ing his new-born zeal for Independence to his astonished constituents, it would probably answer an equally good purpose in invalidating the in- strument of which it was the head, in case that " Reconciliation " for which the writer of the Report did not cease to hope and to pray and to labor, should be effected.

4 Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Tuesday, P.M., WHITE PLAINS, " July 9th, 1776."

The Journal of the Continental Congress, of Monday, the fifteenth of July, stated that a copy of the first, second, and fourth of these very im- portant Resolutions had been enclosed, with a number of other papers, in a letter dated on the eleventh of that month, and sent to that Congress ; that the letter and the papers which were enclosed in it were received by the Continental Congress, on Monday, the fifteenth of July ; that the three Resolutions named were entered at length, on the Journal of that Congress; and that "the letter, with the papers enclosed," was referred to the Board of War.

373

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

he controlled really honest and sincere, when, on the eleventh of June, preceding, they made the confession of their legal ineapacity to make such a declaration of Independence, unless with the previously-obtained "consent " of that "good people " whose servants and deputies they then acknowledged themselves to have been ? If so, what possible ground is there for consistently regarding them as either honest or sincere, when, on the ninth of July, the occasion which is now under notice, while they were yet without that " consent" of their principals and constituents which had been previously regarded as essential to ensure validity to any such action, they actually, on their own motion, made such a declaration ; severed the political connection which had previously existed between the Colony and Great Britain; abrogated all the Laws under which the Colony had been pre- viously governed ; deposed the previously existing Colonial Government ; and usurped, to themselves, without the slightest limitation, the absolute and despotic control of every thing relating to the Civil, the Ecclesiastical, and the Military concerns of all who were within the Colony, not sparing even the con- sciences, the opinions, the properties, the liberties, or the lives of those who presumed to say to them, "What doest thou?"

We shall see, hereafter, how much of honesty and integrity there were, in either of these, when the series of Resolutions, on the subject of the Colony's in- dependence, which is now under consideration, was written and adopted ; how little the writer of them honestly and sincerely regarded those Resolutions as being, really, what they appeared to have been ; and how little foundation in truth there is for the greater portion of what has been written eoneerning that writer and what he did, on the ninth of July, 1776.

Having disposed of the subject of Independence in the eurt and crispy Resolution which headed the series which was reported by the Committee, the Provin- cial Congress turned to other subjects of vastly less importance ; and, two days afterwards, on Thurs- day, the eleventh of July, very probably, no record of the faet having been found, the publication of the Declaration was made, officially, at the White Plains, in conformity with the second Resolution of the series, on that subject, which had been adopted by the Congress.1

The great importance of that Resolution which gave the sanction of the Colony of New York to the Resolution for Independence which the Congress of the Continent had adopted on the second of July,

was seen in the immediate abrogation of all the forms of Law and Government which had previously been seen throughout the Colony, from the carlier period of the settlement by Europeans within its territory ; and the substitution, in their stead, of nothing else than the government of unrestrained foree, the Law of the stronger. A general Jail-delivery, in the City of New York, signalized the "new departure"-where there was no longer any Law, there could not be any breaches of the Law, either in the matter of pecuniary obligations or in that of any other obligation-and as every eivil Commission was eaneelled by that Resolu- tion of Independence from the Crown of Great Britain, on the authority of which royal authority every such Commission was based, every Court of Justice was closed, every function of Government was paralyzed, and because no new form of local Government and no new system of Statutes had been provided to take the places of the others, which had been thus vio- lently set aside, there was nothing but confusion and uncertainty; and had not the general conservatism of the Colonists prevailed and preserved the general peace, the advent of Independence, throughout the Colony of New York, would have been signalized by many a local scene of terrorism and of bloodshed. It was not so in the other Colonies; and had not the master-spirits of the revolutionary faction, in New York, in the interest of Reconciliation, obstructed the work of creating a new form of Government, quite as effectively as, at the same time, they were creating a necessity for such a new system-at least for a Pro- visional Government, if not for a permanent one- New York might, also, have been fully prepared for the great changes, in all her governmental arrange- ments, which were thus crowded on her. A very competent writer, a witness of the great changes of which he wrote and of which we write, thus aceu- rately and graphically described them: " The Decla- "ration of Independence, published by Congress on " the fourth of July, 1776, was the first act that put "an end to the Courts of Law, to the Laws of the "land, and to the administration of Justice, under "the British Crown, within the thirteen Colonies. "The revolt was now complete. Upon this event, "the Law, the Courts, and Justice itself ceased: all "was anarchy : all was confusion. A usurped kind "of Government took place: a medley of Military " Law, Convention Ordinances, Congress Recommen- " dations, and Committee Resolutions." 2

It is proper that we shall say, however, that, not- withstanding the Declaration of Independence was thus nominally accepted and approved, and notwith- standing New York was thus formally obligated to stand or fall with her sister States in the support and defense of the cause in which they were engaged, Independence had not been, as we have already seen, what the revolutionary faction of the great party of

1 Bolton stated, in his History of Westchester county, (original edition, ii., 359, 360; the same, second edition, ii., 564,) that, on the occasion referred to, "the Declaration was read by John Thomas, Esq., and " seconded by Michael Varian and Samnel Crawford, two prominent " Whigs of Scarsdale," But he has given no authority for the statement ; aud unless by " John Thomas, Esq.," the reader of the Declaration on the occasion referred to, he meant the younger of the two who bore that naine, we ninst be excused for doubting the accuracy of the state- ment.

2 Jones's History of New York during the Revolutionary l'ar, ii., 115.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

the Opposition, in New York, had desired and aimed for; nor, since it had been crowded through the Con- tinental Congress without the approval of the master- spirits of that revolutionary faction of the party and in the face of the determined opposition of those who represented or who, in other Colonies, were affiliated with that faction, although the Declaration and Inde- pendence itself had been acquiesced in by the Pro- vincial Congress, did the same faction regard either with the slightest favor; nor, as the subsequent con- duct of its leading members, those of its number from whom the character and disposition of the whole may be fairly estimated, in postponing the establishment of a new form of Government for the yonng State aud leaving it during more than nine months without the slightest semblance of a Govern- ment of any kind, clearly indicated, did that remark- able faction, then, intend to respect either the Reso- lution for Independence or the Declaration of it any longer than would be necessary to enable it to effect a reconciliation with Great Britain, and, thereby, to secure to that family of whom all the faction were cither members or hungry followers, all those official places, within the Colony, which were then occupied by their hereditary rivals, and all that influence, for like purposes of aggrandizement, within other C .lo- nics and within the Congress of the confederacy, to which that horde of miscellaneous office-seekers des- perately aspired, and to which, it was fondly con- sidered, it would become reasonably entitled.

On the afternoon of the ninth of July, immediately after the Provincial Congress had adopted the Report of the Committee to whom the Declaration of Indepen- dence had been referred, and, thereby, as far as it could do so, had abrogated every Law and every Commission which had rested on the sovereignty of the King of Great Britain, with singular coolness but entirely consistent with the absolutism which had thus been inaugurated and with the disposition and desires of those who then controlled the Congress, the Sheriff's of the several Counties were " anthorized " and directed " [not by Law, but only by the oligarchic will and the consequent ipse dixit of the Congress,] "to "retain and keep in their custody all prisoners, of " whatever kiud, which are or may be in their cus- "tody, nntil the further order of this Convention, "or until such of them as may be confined for " debt, on civil process, shall be released by the " Plaintiffs so brought against them ; "1 and thns pro- vision was made for the safekeeping not only of the victims of earlier lawlessness but of subsequent abso- lutism, the latter, by the terms of the Resolution, concentrated within the Provincial Congress itself.2

Immediately after the provision of depositaries for the victims of its absolutism, as stated in the Resolu- tion above referred to, the Provincial Congress revived the notorious Committee to detect Conspiracies, which had ceased to exist by reason of the dissolution of the Congress who had created it; 3 united it to the Committee on Prisoners of War, which had been ap- pointed during the morning session; withdrew the authority to interfere with those who were suspected of disaffection, which had been vested in General Washington, by the preceding Provincial Congress, puring the panic occasioned by the arrival of the Royal Army ;‘ vested the consolidated Committee, thus created, with anthority to "carry into execution " all such Resolves of the Continental Congress and "comply with all such necessary requisitions of the "General " [ Washington,] " as require so much de- " spatch as to render an application to this Congress " impracticable or atteuded with dangerous delay ; " appointed John Sloss Hobart, of Suffolk, Gouverneur Morris and Colonel Lewis Graham, of Westchester- connty, Leonard Gansevoort, of Albany-connty, and Thomas Randall and Colonel Henry Remsen, of the City of New York, or any thrce of them, for such Committee ; " permitted " the Committee " to proceed "in the business under" [unto ?] "them committed, " in such a manner as to them shall appear to be most "agreeable to the dictates of justice and humanity " and most advancive of the public good : " 5 and so set in motion, again, that concealed instrumentality of despotism, which, under the same plea of " necessity," had stamped the records and the history of the third Provincial Congress with everlasting shame; and, in this later instance, with such an increase of authority as made it, practically, an absolute power which was greater in its ability to oppress the State than even the Provincial Congress itself. 6

were, subsequently, sent to him, (Petition of Joshua Purdy and fourteen others, " WHITE PLAINS GOAL, August the 18th, 1776 ; " Petition of Jona- than Purdy, Junior, " WHITE PLAINS GOAL, August 30th, 1776 ;" Petition of Henry Chase, " WIGHT PLAINS GOAL, August 30, 1776 ; " etc.) as well as those Prisoners of War who, also, were sent to him, for safe-keeping, (Examinations of John Simpson, James Auchminuty, and seven others, Prisoners of War, " WHITE PLAINS IN WESTCHESTER COUNTY, July 6th, 1776, com- parcd with the Petition of William McDermot, one of the number ; with the Paroles of James Auchmuty and John Simpson and William McDermot, dated October 20, 1776 ; and with the Petition of John Simpson, William MeDermot, William Elder, and Joseph Wollcomb, "Octr., 1776 ; ") the lat- ter of which Petitions is also interesting hecause of the information which it brings of the treatment of Prisoners of War, at the White Plains, by those who were in authority, under the "Convention of the Representa- " tives of the State of New York ; " etc.

3 Vide page 347, ante.

4 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Sunday Afternoon, June 30th, 1776." 5 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Tuesday, P.M., White Plains, "July 9th, 1776."

" Although the Provincial Congress was seated at a distance from the City of New York, this Committee preferred to hold its meetings in that City ; and, with the unlimited authority with which it was vested, with nothing to control its own estimate of a "necessity," and with the strong arm of the military power to support that estimate, that Committee was, in fact, an oligarchy of absolute power, possessing greater means for oppression and outrage than was held by the Provin- cial Congress which had created it and by whose warrant it acted.

1 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Tuesday, P.M., WHITE PLAINS, "July 9th, 1776."

2 It is very evident that James De Lanccy, the Sheriff of Westchester- county, or the Deputy who represented him, obeyed the Resolution of the Provincial Congress by holding in confinement, in the County Jail, those " Prisoners of State" who, for political reasons, had been or who

375

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

On Wednesday, the tenth of July, the Provincial Congress "resolved and ordered that the style or " title of this House be changed from 'THE PROVIN- "' CIAL CONGRESS OF THE COLONY OF NEW-YORK', "which it had previously borne, to that of 'THE "' CONVENTION OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF TIIE " 'STATE OF NEW-YORK ; ' "1 and, thenceforth, there was no open pretensiou that the King of Great Britain was the Sovereign of that portion of America or that those who were within the bounds of her territory owed the slightest allegiance to him or obedience to his commands.

The fourth Provincial Congress, notwithstanding the momentous eveuts which were evidently rapidly approaching, was immediately zealous in continuing the remarkable policy which had distinguished the preceding three of the series and which had served to keep alive and to intensify the feuds of former days, separating the Colonists into factions, bitterly antag- onistic in feelings and in actions, instead of seeking to conciliate those who differed ; to pacify those who were discontented ; to bring into harmony, the thoughts and opinions and desires which were discordant and jarring ; and to secure concert of action, for the pro- motion and support of "the common cause," among those who had previously differed only on the means which should be employed for the accomplishment of the common purpose. But the revival, with largely increased authority and without any diminution of malignancy, of the notorious political Inquisition-the Committee to detect Conspiracies-afforded abundant evidence of the purpose of the master-spirits of the new-formed Convention to keep apart those who might have been united, had a redress of grievances been the only purpose of the movements; and to drive over into the ranks of the Royal Army or into the service of that Army, those who, under a more judicious policy, would not have become encmies, eager for retaliation, even if they had not become very active friends. The outlawry of Richmond and Qucens-counties and the terrible outrages which had been inflicted on their peaceful inhabitants, under the authority or with the permission of the earlier Proviucial Congresses, had already produced their legitimate results, in the eagerness with which the persecuted and outraged inhabitants of each of these Counties had accepted the protection of the Royal Army and taken up arms for retaliatory action ;2 and

1 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Wednesday morning, WHITE "PLAINS, July 10th, 1776."

Doctor Sparks erroneously stated, (Writings of George Washington, iii., 470, note,) that that change in the title of the Provincial Congress was made on the ninth of July, and cited the Manuscript Journal of the Con- gress, of the ninth of July, as his authority : we have preferred to depend on the official copy of that Journal, as it was printed by order of the Legislature, in 1842, which clearly indicates that the change was made on the following day.

2 John Adams was either a very poor judge of human nature or a very besotted and haughty aristocrat, regarding the masses as unworthy of his sympathy or respect, or both, when he wrote of theso people, then

nothing else than a continued and a more than ever before besotted haughtiness, utterly unmindful of the Rights of those who were assumed to be subject to their authority, and a continued and more than ever before mulish stubbornness, in their continucd determination to reduce every one who opposed them, no matter how slightly, to au unconditional and abso- lute submission of thought, word, and deed, to their oligarchic authority, regardless of any and every conse- quence to others or to the country at large-only such a haughtiness and such a stubbornness, indeed, as had characterized the Colonial policy and the administra- tion of Lord Bute and Lord North and Lord George Germaine and their Tory associates, iu England; the sameas those which had controlled the three Congresses which had preceded it, after the members of the first of them had been induced to wander into the green pastures of the revolutionary faction-could have induced the master-spirits of this new Provincial Con- gress, under the peculiar circumstances which had recently arisen, to disregard the significant teachings of their earlier policy, and to create disaffection and to raise up enemies when harmony and a concert of action, in the cause of their common country, had become so vitally necessary. In the prosecution of that ill-advised and injudicious, as well as barbarous, policy, it continued to make arrests of individuals whom somebody had denounced as " suspected ; 3 and even individual members of the Convention, on their individual motions, without the slightest charge against their victims, ordered individuals into imprisonment.4

bleeding from every pore, from outrages inflicted on them by anthority or with the permission of the Provincial Congress, and rejoicing that protection had been extended to theur and to their property, by stran- gers, in such words as these : "The nnprincipled and unfeeling and un- " natural inhabitants of Staten-Island are cordially receiving the enemy ; "and, deserters say, have engaged to take arms. They are an ignorant, "cowardly pack of scoundrels. Their numbers are small, and their "spirit less." (Letter to Mrs. Adams, " PHILADELPHIA, July 11, 1776.")

Mr. Adams should have told just what he would have done, had he and his family passed through such an ordeal of " patriotism " as these islanders had sustained, and had he, as they were, been without hope of relief from his own countrymen. The record of his judgment would, then, have been complete.

8 See the instances of Christopher Templer, (Journal of the Conventi n, " Die Luna, + ho., P.M., July 22, 1776 ; ") that of Robert Sutton, (the sume, " Die Mercurii, 9 ho., A.M., July 24th, 1776;") that of Nicholas Conwenhoven, (Journal of the Committee of Safety, " Tuesday afternoon " Augt. 27, 1776; ") and many others.

+ See the instance of Henry Chase, "committed to the Jail at White " Plains, by an order from the Major," [Major Webster, Deputy from Charlotte-county.] (Journal of the Convention, " Die Jovis, 5 ho., P.M., "July 25, 1776.")

This case of imprisonment of Henry Chase very perfectly illustrated the despotic disposition and actions of those who were then in au- thority.

On the twenty-fifth of July, the date of the entry of his arrest on the Journal of the Convention, (he may have been arrested much earlier,) he petitioned the Convention that he was "confined in Goal upon suspision, " without money or friends," and begged that body would "bestow its "charity " upon him, (Petition of Henry Chase and three others, " WHITE "PLAINS, July 25, 1776 :" Historical Manuscripts, etc. : Petitions, xxxiii., 152.)

On the thirtieth of August, Chase again petitioned the Convention, as follows :

376

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

Arrests were thus made, very often, without the slightest reason, even from the standpoint of those ex- ercising the authority ; 1 and even women, when they

" WIGHT PLAINS GOAL, August 30, 1776.

"GENTLEMEN : My coufinement is the Reason of my Petitioning to "you the Honorable Provential Congress, hopeing your Honours will be " Pleasd to Take muy Case into Consideration for the Comete of Safety " "try me So I leave my Case to your Honnours and Begg that your "Honnonrs would Concider me for I have bin imprisoned a long time, "and nothing Appeared against me, So I begg tbat your Hounours

"[the Committre of Westchester county] ' Says that they have no Right to

" would consider me as Quick as Possible for I am a Poor man and itt is

"a Great Damage to me to Ly in Prisou, so Gentlemen I Leave my

" Case to your HFonuours not Douting but your wisdoms Gentlemen will

" do me jestice, the Broken Petition from me, "HENRY CHASE.

" POSTSCRIPT. GENTLEMEN I should be very glad if your Honnours

" would be so good as to send for me before your Honnour as Quick as " Possible and in so doing you will greatly me.

" HENRY CHASE. "

(Historical Manuscripts, etc. : Petitions : xxxiii., 100.)

The County Committee had officially informed Chase, nine days pre- viously, tbat it had no jurisdiction of his case, and directed him to the Convention, (Westchester-county Committee to Henry Chase, " IN COM- " MITTEE OF SAFETY FOR THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER, WHITE PLAINS, "Aug. 21, 1776 "-Historical Manuscripts, etc. : Petitions, xxxiii, 102;) but no attention whatever was paid to the poor man's Petition, by either the Committee of Safety of the State or the Convention to whom it was addressed-he was only "a Poor man," ono of the "poor rep- " tiles," of earlier " patriotism."

On the thirteenth of September. the unfortunate prisoner again pre- sented a Petition for relief, in these words :

"WHITE PLAINS GOAL, September 13, 1776.

"GENTLEMEN OF THE HONORABLE PROVENSHIALL CONGRESS.

" This my Humble Petition to Beg of your Ilonnonrs to send for me " that I may have my tryal for the County Commete and the Commete " of Safety says that they have no Right to try me and I have desird " them to send me to the lonnourable Provensball Congress and they ". tell me they Dare Not send me without orders from your Hounours " Gentlemen so I shall be very Glad if your Honnours will be Good

" Enonf to send for me as soon as Possible, for I have bin in Prison "Going on Eight weeks and I cant support myself any Longer,* So "Gentlemen I Shall be very Glad if your Honnours would take my " case into Consideration if your llonnours Pleases so that I may bo "cleard or condemd So Gentlemen I leave my case to your Honours " wise consideration not Douting but your Honnours will havo compas-

" sion on a l'oor Prisoner.

" HENRY CHASE."

(Historical Manuscripts, etc. : Petitions, xxxiii., 90.)

To this second appeal, there does not appear to have been made the slightest answer, although it was received by the Convention, and "'read," (Journal of the Convention, Tuesday morning, Septr. 17, 1776 ;) and His tory is silent concerning the remainder of the victim's career.

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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 94

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