USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 17
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FRENCH PROTESTANT CHURCH Erected in the year 1704 in the present Pine Street near Nassau Street
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ADMINISTRATIONS OF LORD LOVELACE AND GENERAL HUNTER SETTLEMENT OF THE PALATINES IN NEW YORK
John, Lord Lovelace, Baron of Hurley, who was appointed as successor to Lord Cornbury in the office of governor of New York and New Jersey, was appointed March 28, 1708, but did not embark at once, because he was engaged in the war then going on under the Duke of Marlborough, in Flan- ders. Finally, in October, 1708, he embarked in Her Majesty's ship Kings- ale, with his wife, Lady Charlotte, daughter of Sir John Clayton, and three little sons, John, Wentworth and Nevil Lovelace. The fleet of which the Kingsale formed a part was dispersed by a heavy December gale, from which the Kingsale herself took refuge in Buzzard's Bay, whence, after the storm sub- sided, she steered through Long Island Sound, the navigation of which, in the ice of a winter of exceptional severity, was found so difficult that the captain made a landing at Flushing, Long Island.
From there, after a rough land journey to the ferry at Breukelen, Gov- ernor Lovelace and his family made a miserable passage by open boat, on De- cember 18, 1708, to New York, where he was received by Lord Cornbury and the Council. Lord Lovelace and two of his children caught colds on their trip from Flushing to New York, from which they never recovered; but in spite of ill health the new governor went gracefully through the inaugural ceremonies and a dinner which Lord Cornbury and the Council had provided for him.
The members of the new council appointed by Lord Lovelace were Colo- nel Peter Schuyler, president, Dr. Gerardus Beeckman, Rip van Dam, Thomas Wenham, Chief Justice Mompesson, Adolph Philipse (son of Frederick Phil- ipse), John Barberie, William Peartree. With the incoming of the new gov- ernor the Provincial Assembly was dissolved and writs were issued for the election of a new one, which met April 6, 1709, and elected William Nicoll speaker of the Assembly, an office which he held during six preceding and ten later sessions, after which he declined reelection because of failing health.
The royal instructions given by the Lords of Trade to Lord Lovelace did not differ much from those which had been given to his predecessor. Lord Cornbury had used them oppressively to raise appropriations which he had applied, in large degree, to his own use. Lord Lovelace asked the Assembly to provide funds for the expenses of the government and to extinguish the debt which had been piled up by his predecessor. He also asked for a special ap- propriation for the fitting out of a sloop to attend Her Majesty's men-of-war in their cruisings on the New York coast, declaring his willingness to have his
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own salary taxed for the last-named purpose. He called their attention to the act which passed the Provincial Assembly in 1702, which had provided for the raising of a specific annual revenue for the term of seven years, and which would expire in the then current year, and asked them to renew the grant for another like term. But the Assembly remembered Cornbury's exac- tions, and while they liked Lovelace, they decided that the only safe method was to vote revenue for the government year by year and in specific appropria- tions for designated purposes. This principle was afterward maintained and the stand taken by the Assembly then, was the beginning of a contest between the representatives of the crown and the representatives of the people. Lord Lovelace, however, did not contend, his health being very bad all winter because of the cold he had caught on the journey from Flushing to New York. His son, Wentworth, had died in April, and his oldest son, John, was seriously ill when Lord Lovelace died of pneumonia, May 6, 1709, the boy following two weeks later.
In his short service as governor, Lord Lovelace had made a most favor- able impression upon the citizens of New York, and his death was the occa- sion of general sorrow among the people. Rev. William Vesey preached his funeral sermon on May 12th. The bereaved Lady Lovelace returned to Eng- land with her third son, Lord Nevil Lovelace, in whom the baronage of Hur- ley became extinct upon his death without issue or male relatives, in 1836. Ada, daughter of Lord Byron, was, through her mother, a descendant from an elder branch of the Lovelace family in a female line, and the name was re- vived by conferring upon her husband, Lord Ockham, in 1838, the title of Earl of Lovelace, which is now (1910) held by his son by a second wife.
Lieutenant Governor Ingoldesby became acting governor until an order came for his removal, when he resigned the government into the hands of Dr. Gerardus Beeckman, who was then acting as president of the Council in the absence of Colonel Peter Schuyler who was then with the troops engaged against the French and Indians on the frontier. Dr. Beeckman filled the office until the arrival on June 14, 1710, of the new governor, General Rob- ert Hunter, who was a scion of the old Scotch family of the Hunters of Hunterston. Entering the army and serving with the Duke of Marlborough, he rose to the rank of major general. He was well known as a courtier, scholar and wit, and was a friend of Dean Swift and also of Addison, who, being secretary of state, appointed him governor of Virginia, in 1707.
On his way outward to Virginia the ship which carried him was captured by a French privateer, and he was carried to France and imprisoned until 1709, when he was exchanged for the bishop of Quebec. When he arrived in London he was offered by Queen Anne a commission as governor of Jamaica, but as news came of the death of Lord Lovelace he was offered a choice be-
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COLONIZING THE PALATINES
tween Jamaica and New York, and chose the latter. His council, the mem- bers of which were named in his "Instructions," were Peter Schuyler, Dr. Samuel Staats, Robert Walters, Dr. Gerardus Beeckman, Rip van Dam, Caleb Heathcote, Killian van Rensselaer, Roger Mompesson, John Barberie, Adol- phus Philipse, Abraham de Peyster and David Provost.
Governor Hunter brought with him the most notable accession to the population of New York made during that period, comprising three thousand people from the Lower Palatinate of the Rhine. That principality had strongly espoused the Lutheran faith and had for that reason become victim to the fanatic rage of Louis XIV, who ravaged their land on the pretext that they had harbored heretics; burning cities, towns, granaries, homes, vineyards and grow- ing crops, treating the inhabitants with inhuman cruelty, and carrying off everything valuable they did not destroy by the torch.
A few of these Palatines, headed by their pastor, Joshua Kocherthal, made their way to London and petitioned Queen Anne to include some of their peo- ple in a company which was soon to be sent out to America; and as the peti- tioners produced evidences alike of their own worth and of their distressful condition, their appeal was favorably received and the queen granted the re- quest, giving them lands free of tax or quitrent, free transportation, seed, agricultural tools and furniture, and provided for their support until their first harvest should be gathered. They were settled on a grant of 2190 acres, above the Highlands of the Hudson, on the west bank of the river, where the city of Newburg now stands. There they created a thriving community, clearing the lands, bridging the streams, making roads, creating a town and building a church, for which Queen Anne provided a bell.
As soon as the colony was in good running order Pastor Kocherthal re- turned to London, and after reporting to the queen, who approved of his pro- posal to add to the number of his compatriot co-religionists, he went to Ger- many, where he brought together three thousand more victims of the persecu- tion of Louis Quatorze, whom he conveyed, by way of Rotterdam, to London. The number was rather staggering: Anne had expected scarce one-tenth as many, and the undertaking to provide for this larger body on the same scale of liberality, as for the smaller band which had preceded them was a much more burdensome proposition. Some of her advisers suggested sending them to Jamaica, but that did not appear advisable, for climatic and other conditions.
It so happened that General Hunter, who was in London, preparing to go to his government of New York, to which he had been appointed, had been consulting with the Admiralty upon a project to secure from the American colonies the supply of naval stores, ship timbers and masts, for which Norway had been the source of supply. He was deliberating upon this problem when the other one, about the Palatines, was presented, and after some thought he
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presented a program for the solution of both. It was simply to take the Pala- tines to America, under a contract to combine the production of naval stores and timber material with their homemaking, to settle on the lands allotted to them and not leave them without the approval of the governor, and to manu- facture tar and other naval stores until, at the agreed rate of five pounds per ton, they had repaid the amount advanced them; and as soon as that was done, each settler was to receive forty acres of land to be free of tax or quitrent for five years. The voyage was tempestuous. A boat passing from one ship to another was capsized and its occupants drowned, and a sickness carried away others, so that the fleet arrived in New York with 470 less of the emigrants than had started from London. The locating of the Palatines was finally ac- complished with much difficulty, and after Governor Hunter had advanced large sums in the project he found great trouble in securing a refund from the home government, which had changed in partisan complexion since he had left England.
Governor Hunter made a friend and adviser of Colonel Lewis Morris, a leading landowner of New Jersey and New York, who was the son of Richard Morris, an officer in Cromwell's Army, who emigrated about 1670 and bought a manor twelve miles square, north and east of the Harlem River, to which he gave the name of Morrisania. He was a wise and judicious counselor to the governor, for whom he had a great friendship. He named after the governor one of his sons, Robert Hunter Morris, who later became chief justice of Pennsylvania.
Though Governor Hunter was a devoted member of the Church of England, he became mixed up with religious dissensions due to the intem- perate zeal of Rev. William Vesey, who charged the governor with too much friendliness for dissenters, making bitter complaint to the bishop of London and Earl of Clarendon; and getting other clergymen and laymen to make similar complaints, all of which were fully answered in letters which the governor and Colonel Lewis Morris sent in refutation, and no harm came to the governor from these attacks.
The governor was busy in 1711, raising troops and getting appropria- tions from the Assemblies of New York and New Jersey, for the partici- pation in the united but, as it proved futile, attack upon Canada. The New York Assembly raised £10,000 and the New Jersey Assembly £5000 for the purpose. The army, which, headed by Lieutenant General Nichol- son, mustered at Albany, included Colonel Ingoldesby's regiment of regu- lars completed from the New Jersey troops and three hundred Palatines, who were drafted for the purpose; Colonel Schuyler's New York regiment, filled out with Palatines and Indians; Colonel Whiting's regiment, raised in Connecticut; and a detachment from the Five Nations and their allies,
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making an army of 2310 men. A fleet was organized in the colonies, under command of Admiral Walker, to cooperate with Her Majesty's fleet for the capture of Quebec, and a message was received from Walker by Gov- ernor Hunter, dated from the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, on Au- gust 14th, stating that they were on their way to Quebec and asking for more supplies because of the possibility that the fleet might be icelocked for the winter and The Feversham and transports were sent forward with large supplies of provisions. In September a despatch from General Hill on Her Majesty's ship Windsor told how in a heavy fog on August 22, 17II, through the ignorance of the pilots shipped at Boston, the fleet had gone on the north shore, losing eight transports and a thousand men, be- sides a full-laden provision ship. Following this disaster the admirals and captains decided that in view of the incompetence of the Boston pilots the ascent of the river must be abandoned as impracticable. General Hill asked Hunter to inform General Nicholson of the news, leaving it to his option whether or not to go on or return with his troops. Nicholson felt that, under the circumstances, he had better postpone the campaign, and the troops came back. The fleet returned to England, arriving after the loss of another ship, the Edgar, seventy guns, with four hundred men, by an explosion. The war between England and France had a listless course from that time until ended in 1713 by the Peace of Utrecht.
The importation to New York of African slaves, which had been in- augurated by the West India Company was continued under the English régime. The census of New York City, dated June 5, 1712, showed a pop- ulation of 4848 white and 970 black people. A slave mart had been established on Wall Street and the more aristocratic families had each from three to fifteen slaves. Some statistics have been preserved and are quoted in Wilson's Memorial History of New York, which says that "in 1704 Widow Van Cortlandt owned nine slaves; Colonel De Peyster, the same; Rip van Dam, six; the widow of Frederick Philipse, whose household com- prised only herself and child, seven; Balthazar Bayard, six; Mrs. Stuy- vesant, five; Captain Morris, seven; while William Smith, of the Manor of St. George, had twelve." In 1712 the town was aroused by a conspiracy of negro slaves, of whom twenty-three met in an orchard, armed with swords, guns, knives and hatchets, planning to capture the town. Cuffee, the negro slave of one Vantilburgh, was assigned by the conspirators to start the attack by setting fire to his master's outhouse which he did, then joining the others as they hastened to the fire. When the building began to blaze and citizens hurried to the scene, the negroes fired upon them, killing several. The report of the muskets revealed the conspiracy and a general alarm was given. Governor Hunter promptly ordered a detach-
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ment of soldiers to the scene, and at the first roll of the drums the con- spirators scattered into the adjacent woods. The militia was called out to beat the woods and all the conspirators were taken except six, who com- mitted suicide rather than be captured. At the trials, as reported by Gov- ernor Hunter, "twenty-seven were condemned and twenty-one executed; some were burnt, others hanged, one broke on the wheel, and one hung alive in chains in the town, so that there has been the most exemplary punishment inflicted that could be thought of." It seems at least to have been effective, for there was no further slave uprising for three decades.
The Palatines who had come with Hunter caused a great deal of trou- ble with their mistakes and misfortunes. Land-grabbing speculators pre- vented them from getting desirable lands, and laid claims to the various locations they selected, and the matter was not settled until after the close of the Hunter administration.
Jacobus van Cortlandt was mayor of New York in 1710, Colonel Caleb Heathcote was mayor from 1711 to 1713, and John Johnston was mayor from 1713 to 1720. He was a merchant and vessel owner. Among the noteworthy immigrants of the Hunter period were William Smith, who came in 1716 and whose son, William Smith, was later notable as historian of New York; James Alexander, who came the same year from Scotland, was a good lawyer and was later appointed by Hunter surveyor general of New Jersey and later attorney-general of New York. He married Mrs. Provoost, a New York lady, and by her had a son, William, who fell heir to the Earldom of Stirling and afterward figured prominently in the American Revolution. Chief Justice Mompesson died in 1715, and Colo- nel Lewis Morris was appointed in his stead.
General Robert Hunter was one of the best and ablest of the royal governors of New York. He dealt justly according to his light, and wisely within the bounds of his limitations. One of these limitations was con- tained in the instructions given him by the British Colonial Office, which insisted that the Assembly should make grants for long terms. The Assembly consistently stood for the plan of annual estimates and appro- priations, and upon that issue were constantly out of accord with the gov- ernor, until in 1715, with the aid of his friend and adviser, Lewis Morris, he succeeded in securing the election of an Assembly which was more tracta- ble, and which was largely dominated by Morris, who was a member. This Assembly readily acceded to the governor's request for a revenue grant run- ning for three years.
Soon after his arrival, in 1711, Governor Hunter had made an innova- tion by establishing a Court of Chancery, with himself as chancellor, which had met with strenuous objections from the Assembly, as the chancery
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jurisdiction had, previous to that, been in the hands of the governor and Council, jointly. The legislatures had always contended against the assumption of the right to establish courts as a matter of royal preroga- tive, but the Lords of Trade decided in favor of the governor's right to establish the court.
Governor Hunter made many concessions to popular opinion, which added to his prestige in the province. He permitted the naturalization of the Dutch inhabitants, imposed taxes on British imports for the benefit of the province, and levied tonnage duties on foreign vessels. He appointed Colonel Lewis Morris, who was an able lawyer, to be chief justice of New York and New Jersey, in 1715, and in addition to judicial duties he con- tinued in his seat in the Assembly.
On August 2, 1714, Queen Anne died, and George, Elector of Han- over, was proclaimed king, as George I. The news did not reach New York until October 7, and a day or two afterward King George was pro- claimed with appropriate ceremonies, and the fort's name was changed from Fort Anne to Fort George.
It was at the close of Governor Hunter's term, in 1719, that the Pres- byterians built their first church in New York City, on a plot which they had bought for church and cemetery in the previous year, in Stoutten- berg's Garden which fronted on the north side of Wall Street, between what is now Nassau Street and Broadway. The building was torn down in 1748 to make room for a larger structure, of stone, which continued as the First Presbyterian Church until 1844. The first pastor was Rev. James Anderson.
Governor Hunter notified the General Assembly of his retirement, making a speech in which he felicitated the legislators on the fact that par- tisan rancor, which had been rampant on his accession to the governorship, had entirely disappeared, and wishing the province a great and prosperous future: and Robert Livingston, speaker of the Assembly, replied, speaking of the governor and his administration in the most eulogistic terms.
Governor Hunter had many reasons for wishing to return to England. He was suffering tortures from sciatica, of which, as he declared in a letter to Secretary Popple of New Jersey, "I have no hope of Ease on this Side, having try'd all remedys, Christian and Pagan, Palenical, Chymical and Whimsical, to no purpose. Aix-la-Chappelle is all my present Comfort." His wife had an inheritance in England, which he wished to secure for his children, and he had expended large sums out of his own funds for the benefit of the Palatines, for which he had made great but futile efforts to secure reimbursement from the British Government, but hoped for better success through personal importunity. He had arranged for his return
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carefully and secretly, chiefly in correspondence with his friend, William Burnet, son of Gilbert Burnet, a distinguished divine, who, as bishop of Salisbury from 1689 to 1715, had been a powerful factor in seating Wil- liam and Mary on the British throne, and making certain the Protestant succession.
William Burnet had incurred great losses through the bursting of the historic South Sea Bubble, and was desirous of securing some more lucra- tive post than that of comptroller-general of customs for Great Britain, which he then held at a salary of £1200 per annum. That post, with resi- dence in London, seemed to Governor Hunter, in spite of its smaller com- pensation, an attractive one to step into from the governorship of New York. So the two arranged to exchange offices, and as both of them had much influence at court their arrangement was officially ratified. William Burnet was commissioned captain general and governor in chief of New York and New Jersey, and General Hunter took the comptroller-general appointment.
He lived in London from 1719 to 1727, associating with that brilliant literary coterie of which Steele and Swift were then the shining lights (Addison dying in 1719). He was a contributor to The Spectator, author of the famous letter on "Enthusiasm," which was attributed by some to Swift and by others to Shaftsbury, and was also the reputed author of a farce called "Androboros." In July, 1727, General Hunter was appointed gov- ernor of Jamaica, which office he held until his death on that island, March II, 1734.
NEW YORK IN 1674
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ADMINISTRATIONS OF WILLIAM BURNET AND JOHN MONTGOMERIE
FIRST NEWSPAPER AND MONTGOMERIE CHARTER
When William Burnet came to New York as governor, in 1720, he was thirty-two years of age and a widower, his wife, who was a daughter of Rev. Dr. George Stanhope, dean of Canterbury, having died leaving a son, Gil- bert, who was five years old when he came with his father to New York. The governor arrived September 16, 1720, and published his commission the next day. Making a quick investigation he found that the party which had been politically unfriendly to Governor Hunter had increased in strength since his departure, during which time the government had been administered by Peter Schuyler, senior member of the Council, as acting governor. Governor Burnet therefore determined, instead of the usual course pursued by new governors, of calling for the election of a new Assembly, to summon again the old body which had got along so harmoniously with Governor Hunter.
George Clarke, who had been secretary of the province from 1703, made strong objections to this course, but the governor was determined, and the Assembly, called together at Fort George, immediately made a grant for the support of the Provincial Government for five years, and he secured similar action from the legislature of New Jersey.
The Council organized by Governor Burnet consisted of Peter Schuyler, Abraham de Peyster, Robert Walters, Gerardus Beeckman, Rip van Dam, Caleb Heathcote, John Barberie, Adolph Philipse, John Johnston, Francis Har- rison, Thomas Byerly and George Clarke. Peter Schuyler and Adolph Philipse, with some others were very earnest in their advocacy of the calling of a new Assembly, and the friction was such that on the request of the gov- ernor, transmitted to the authorities in London, they were removed from the Council, and Dr. Cadwallader Colden and James Alexander, both fast friends of Governor Burnet, were appointed members of the Council in their stead. At the request of Robert Livingston, who, because of his advanced years, wished to resign his place as secretary for Indian affairs, his son Philip was, on the recommendation of Governor Burnet, appointed in his stead.
Governor Burnet, in addition to the affairs of state, found pleasant per- sonal occupation, and as the result of it, in about eight months after his arrival in the province, he married, in May, 1721, Anna Maria van Horne. She was born in New York in January, 1702, being the daughter of Abraham and Mary (Provoost) van Horne, and granddaughter of David Provoost. Her father, who was a Dutchman whose knowledge of English was very
12
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limited, was one of the wealthiest merchants of New York, and had a bolting- mill and baking house in Wall Street. When Colonel Abraham de Peyster became incapacitated from further service in the Council, in 1722, the governor secured the appointment of his father-in-law, Abraham van Horne, to the place, and he remained a member of the Council until his death, in 1741.
Burnet found a serious problem in the increasing traffic of French traders from Canada with the Indians in the province of New York. Bound up with the incursions of these traders and of Jesuit missionaries was a national desire to so attach the Indians to the French that at some opportune time they would ally themselves with the French to capture the province from the Eng- lish. As the French traders procured in New York the goods which they after- ward sold to the Indians, Burnet conceived the idea that the most effective way to stop French aggression was to prohibit the sale to the French of merchan- dise, such as the Indians desired, and to open up ways for the Indian needs to be supplied by traders who were subjects of King George, at prices with which the French could not compete.
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