USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 22
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In connection with the beginnings of this college there was established a spirit of hostility between the Livingstons, long one of the most powerful of the families of New York, and the equally powerful family of the DeLan- ceys. The Livingstons, then represented by four brothers, were Presbyterians, and all four were graduates of Yale College. They, with people of the other non-Episcopal denominations, objected strenuously to the proposed charter, be- cause it gave preponderating control of the college to the Church of England. DeLancey was personally of the same view and had so expressed himself, though not so emphatically as the Livingstons, before it came to him to act upon the matter officially. When the charter came to him as governor, he had. however, interposed no official objection, and for this failure incurred the hos- tility of the Livingstons.
Edward Holland was mayor of New York from 1747 to 1756. Although a resident of New York City, he had been elected a member of the Assembly
215
SIR CHARLES HARDY BECOMES GOVERNOR
from Schenectady. There was plenty of precedent for the validity of such an election, but he was an adherent of Governor Clinton and, therefore, the Assembly made his nonresidence a pretext for declaring him disqualified to represent Schenectady and rejecting him from membership. This placed him in line for preferment at the hands of Governor Clinton, who, in 1747, ap- pointed him mayor of the city and a member of the Royal Council. A census made during his administration, in 1749, showed the population to number 13,294, white and black. Mayor Holland seems to have been tactful, for he continued in office as mayor and councilor until his death, serving under De- Lancey and Hardy after Clinton's term closed.
DeLancey, being a native and permanent resident, did not fill the require- ments for a governor of New York, such posts being regarded in London as opportunities for the enrichment of some royal or ministerial favorite who needed the money. So, although DeLancey was governing the province with much ability and little friction, the King's Council, with His Majesty present, executed an order, January 29, 1755, appointing Charles Hardy, a captain in the Royal Navy, to be captain general and governor in chief of His Majesty's province of New York. Before he left England, in July, 1755, he had been knighted by the king, and it was as Sir Charles Hardy that he arrived in front of New York in H.M.S. Sphynx, September 2, 1755. He remained on board until next day, but being visited on the ship, on the evening of his arrival, by Lieutenant Governor DeLancey, he expressed his delight that one so efficient and experienced would be associated with his government, because he, with remarkable modesty, thought there would be many duties connected with the governorship for which he was not fitted and many questions might arise, about the merits of which he could know nothing. The landing of the new gover- nor and his formal reception took place the next day.
During his occupancy of the active duties of the governorship DeLancey had not relinquished the chief justiceship. Immediately after the inaugura- tion of Sir Charles Hardy several of those opposed to DeLancey brought to Sir Charles a protest against the holding by the lieutenant governor of the office of chief justice, claiming that he should be restricted to either one or the other of these offices. The question was submitted to the Lords of Trade, in London, and by them to the attorney-general, who upheld the title of DeLancey to both offices, which indeed he had continued to exercise, pending the decision, by the express desire of Sir Charles. That gentleman, although he had been governor of Newfoundland in 1844, was free to acknowledge his deficiencies and limitations, especially in connection with matters of law, of which, he said, he knew nothing, so that in addition to the functions of chief justice he turned over to DeLancey those of chancellor, greatly delighted that he had one so com- petent to take them off his hands. In fact, so great and undeviating was the
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
reliance of Sir Charles upon DeLancey, that the latter dominated the provin- cial situation about as fully after, as before the governor general's arrival.
Sir Charles, however, was by no means superfluous, for the French and Indian war, which was then in full progress, gave him scope for his thor- oughly trained military abilities. That war, which had at first been centered principally at and near Fort Duquesne, established by the French at the con- fluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, including the disas- ter of Braddock, with his regular and Virginia troops, had extended along the entire frontier, including that of the province of New York. William John- son had been commissioned as a major general of colonial forces and placed in command of Indian affairs in the province, but the most important part of the war, so far as New York was concerned, was still in the future. With the great opportunities in view in the line of his profession, Sir Charles tired of his civil place, and asked the home government to release him from the governor- ship and give him active duty in the navy. His request was granted and on June 3, 1757, he placed the government once more in the hands of Lieutenant Governor DeLancey. Sir Charles was promoted to rear admiral of the White, took part in the final capture of Louisburg and was later promoted to vice admiral. When he retired from active service, in 1771, he was given the sinecure post of governor of Greenwich Hospital, which he retained until his death, in 1780.
DeLancey continued in the exercise of the duties of the governorship until his death, August 4, 1760. He had been for years a sufferer from asthma, and on the day before he died had been to Staten Island in conference with the governor of New Jersey. He returned at night in an open boat and on reaching New York rode out to his country house, a mansion on the Bowery Road at a location between the present Grand and Rivington Streets. The exposure brought on a severe asthmatic attack and the next morning he was found dead in his library. He was only fifty-seven years of age, but he had been one of the leaders of thought and action in the province for three decades.
To him succeeded Dr. Cadwallader Colden, who was the president and oldest member of the Provincial Council, and then seventy-two years of age. He had succeeded DeLancey as adviser in chief of Governor Clinton, and that governor had tried to secure for him the commission of lieutenant governor instead of DeLancey, but the latter, through the powerful influence of Sir Peter Warren, had secured the prize. Toward the latter part of Clinton's administration Dr. Colden had not been in entire sympathy with the governor, because of the violence of his futile efforts to force the Assembly into obedi- ence to his behests.
Colden ruled New York as president of the Council for a year and then received his commission as lieutenant governor of New York, but three months
217
GENERAL ROBERT MONCKTON IS GOVERNOR
later he surrendered the control of affairs to General Robert Monckton, who was the new governor general, appointed by the king, March 20, 1761, and arrived in New York on H.M.S. Alcide, October 20th, following.
Meanwhile the French and Indian War had proceeded to the advantage of the French until 1758, in which year they achieved their last important vic- tory of that war in their great defeat of the British at Ticonderoga. The earl of Loudoun, who, in 1756, had come out as commander in chief of the army throughout British North America, had made himself obnoxious to New Yorkers by his arrogant demeanor, and after an unsuccessful two years in that position, Pitt, returning to power, supplanted him, in 1758, with Lord Amherst, who proved a much abler commander, who prosecuted the campaign against the enemy with great vigor. Louisburg was captured in July, Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, in August, and Fort Duquesne in November, 1758, and in the summer of 1759, Ticonderoga, Crown Point and Fort Niagara fell before the British onslaught, and the campaign practically ended by the defeat of Montcalm at Quebec, September 13, 1759, by the forces of General Wolfe and Montcalm's surrender, followed by the control of Canada by the English in the succeeding year.
Major General William Johnson, who had charge of the interests of New York on the frontier, took an active and important part in the struggle. He conducted the expedition against Crown Point, defeating and capturing Baron Dieskau at Lake George, and it was his personal prestige and influence with the Six Nations that kept them from aiding France in this struggle. For this service he was made a baronet, received the thanks of Parliament and was given a grant of £5000. He was present at the battles of Ticonderoga and Fort Niagara, assuming command at the latter, after the death of General Prideaux, cutting the French army to pieces and compelling the surrender of the fort. He afterward led the Indians in an expedition to Canada, and was present at the surrender of Montreal.
The war was of considerable benefit to the business interests of New York, thanks to the foresight and enterprise of Lieutenant Governor DeLan- cey. Just after Braddock's defeat, in 1755, DeLancey wrote to the authorities in London, setting forth the great advantages of New York as the ideal loca- tion for the establishing of a general magazine of arms and military stores for the supply of the armies operating in various sections of the country. His effective portrayal of the advantages of the city was approved by the Lords of Trade and as a consequence a greatly augmented trade was built up in arms and in farm products and, for much of the time, in supplies for the troops who had winter quarters in the city.
It was a gala day on Wednesday, November 26, 1760, when Major Gen- eral Amherst was presented with the freedom of the city, in a gold box, and a
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
very eulogistic address from the corporation, in honor of his services in the reduction of Canada.
After the death of Mayor Holland, in 1756, John Cruger ( son of the John Cruger who had held the office from 1739 to 1744) was appointed to the office by Governor Hardy, continuing in that office until 1765. The office made him, ex officio, a member of the Provincial Council. He was a man of much administrative ability and he was always a champion of the popular cause against the oppression of royal prerogative and parliamentary preten- sion, and was full of zeal for his native city. When in the winter of 1756- 1757 the Earl of Loudoun brought a thousand regular troops to be quartered in New York, the barracks in the fort were fitted up for the men but there was no room for the officers. The law made it the duty of the citizens to provide quarters for them, but contemplated that they should be reimbursed, but Loudoun, with abusive and profane language, insisted upon free quarters. Mayor Cruger tried to reason with him, but he was unreasonable and seemed to think that provincials were inferior beings, so the mayor started a sub- scription, which he himself headed, to pay for the lodgings of such officers as were lodged in houses whose owners could not afford to quarter them gratis.
FRONT VIEW OF BURNS' COFFEE HOUSE Broadway, opposite the Bowling Green, 1760
CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO
COLDEN AND THE STAMP TROUBLES GENERAL MONCKTON AND SIR HENRY MOORE THE SONS OF LIBERTY
During the period from the departure of Sir Charles Hardy, June 3, 1757, the colony had been governed by Lieutenant Governors DeLancey and President Colden, but the higher title of Sir Charles did not lapse until he resigned it, in 1761, and General Robert Monckton was appointed governor and captain general at the same time that a commission was made out for Dr. Cadwallader Colden as lieutenant governor. General Monckton, who was a son of Viscount Galway, had a gallant record as a soldier, beginning his military career with the armies in Flanders and being transferred to the American Station in 1753. He commanded the posts at Halifax and Annap- olis Royal, and became lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, in 1756. He com- manded the Royal Americans in Loudoun's Army, was engaged in the siege of Louisburg, and afterward was second in command in Wolfe's glorious cam- paign ending in the capture of Quebec, in which he was severely wounded; and he was promoted colonel for gallantry there, and afterward promoted to major general. He was a favorite with the colonial troops and had many strong friends and admirers among the people; and several of the leading families in New York enjoyed his intimate acquaintance.
Arriving in New York in October, 1761, he was sworn in as governor on the 26th, amid scenes of great enthusiasm; and he received a welcoming address from the corporation, and the freedom of the city, in a gold box. With his commission General Monckton had brought with him leave of absence from the province in order that he might take command of an expedition being fitted out for the capture of Martinique from the French. He also brought with him the appointment of Benjamin Pratt to the office of chief justice and also to the vacant seat in the Provincial Council. Archibald Kennedy, who was collector of customs as well as a member of the Council, was permitted to resign from the latter connection because of his age.
Monckton presented his leave of absence November 15th, and Colden filled the duties until he returned victorious from the capture of Martinique, June 12, 1762. For a year he administered the affairs of the province with much acceptability. Chief Justice Pratt dying, he promoted Daniel Horsman- den to the office, and completed the Bench by the appointment of Thomas Jones for second, William Smith, the elder, for third, and Robert R. Living- ston for the fourth judge. General Monckton's health became impaired and on June 28th, he departed for England, leaving the seals of office with Dr.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
Colden and his private affairs in the hands of John Watts, who was an old and intimate friend of the general.
By this time not only the hostilities in America, but the Seven Years War in Europe had been concluded by the Treaty of Paris, of 1763, by which France ceded Canada, and Spain the Floridas to Great Britain, and Spain received Louisiana from France, thus bringing to an end the rule of France in all parts of North America except for a nominal sovereignty when Spain relinquished Louisiana to France in 1800, the latter country scarcely having taken possession when it was purchased from it by the United States, in 1803.
There was great rejoicing among the people of the colonies over the treaty which made America all English, from the uninhabitable ice of the Arctic Circle to the palms of the Florida Keys, and yet this joy was not unmixed with dread. A new king had come to the throne in 1760, the third of the Hano- verian Georges, a man whose little mind was all stubborness. He had little education, and had small aptitude for learning. The one lesson which had sunk in was the oft-repeated admonition of his mother : "George, be king;" and king he had determined to be. He had moreover figured out that the way to be king was to make all things subservient to his will, and to keep power as far away from the people as possible. To that end he became a partisan in politics, a Tory of the Tories. Pitt, idol of the people in America and England, was driven from power; Bute who, as Green says, "took office simply as the agent of the king's will," became first minister, and, again to quote Green: "The royal revenue was employed to buy seats and to buy votes. Day by day the young sovereign scrutinized the voting list of the two houses, and distributed rewards and punishments as members voted according to his will or no. Promotion in the civil service, preferment in the church, rank in the army, was reserved for 'the king's friends.' Pensions and court places were used to influence debates. Bribery was employed on a scale never before known. Under Bute's ministry an office was opened at the Treasury for the purchase of members and £25,000 are said to have been paid in a sin- gle day."
Under these measures of corruption the tone of Parliament was soon greatly changed, and the influence of Pitt was greatly minimized. Pitt opposed the Treaty of Paris, because great as were the accessions of territory from France in America, many of the conquests made by British arms in the Seven Years War were given up, notably Martinique, which Monckton had captured, to France, and Cuba and the Philippines to Spain. War out of the way, George set his heart on the regulation of America. The Lords of Trade were burdened with the bewailments of royal governors who could not govern, because refractory assemblies were talking about liberty, were making annual appropriations only and dictating how they should be spent, and agitators
221
BRITAIN PROPOSES TO TAX THE COLONIES
were talking about "the consent of the governed" as an excuse for evading the navigation laws, opposing the sugar tax, and otherwise acting in a demo- cratical and incendiary manner. It was almost unanimously the opinion in England, that as the late war, which had increased the public debt to the then enormous total of £140,000,000, was partly incurred in the defense of the American colonies, the colonies should bear a share of the new burden.
This statement of obligation was not seriously combated in America, and had Pitt been in power he would probably have been able to find some means whereby the colonies would have taxed themselves for a reasonable share of the payment of the national debt. But George and Bute were more anxious to emphasize the absolute dependence of the colonies upon the mother country than they were to secure revenue, much as they desired the latter, and to emphasize their view Charles Townshend was appointed president of the Board of Trade. He declared in favor of a rigorous execution of the navi- gation laws, by which a monopoly of American trade was secured to the mother country ; and favored the raising of a revenue within the colonies for the discharge of the debt, and of measures for impressing upon the colonies their dependence upon Britain. New York was especially affected by the policy of Townshend. The prohibitory duties which had hitherto been laid with the view to prevent direct trade between the colonies and the French and Spanish West Indies, had been constantly evaded by systematic smuggling, but now, while the duties were somewhat reduced, the lower taxes were exacted with great rigor and a strong naval force was kept near the American coast, by the admiralty, charged with the suppression of American trade with for- eign countries. Further measures of stringent government and direct parlia- mentary taxation were outlined, and that these would be resisted was evi- dently expected, because although by elimination of French sovereignty from America, by the Treaty of Paris, the colonies had been left with no enemy ex- cept the Indians, a force of ten thousand men was quartered on the people.
Lieutenant Governor Colden called the Assembly together September 5, 1764, opening the session with a speech of the usual general character, felici- tations on peace with the Indians, and recommendations to discharge the pub- lic debt and to renew the expired act granting a bounty on hemp. This brought out a reply, reported by Philip Livingston, which began with strong expressions of loyalty to the crown, and expressing a hope that "His Majesty who is and whose ancestors have long been the guardian of British liberty, will so protect our rights as to prevent our falling into the abject state of being forever after incapable of doing what can merit his distinction or ap- probation. Such must be the state of that wretched people who (being taxed by a power subordinate to none and in a great measure unacquainted with their circumstances) can call nothing their own." The address went on to
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
speak of "alarming information from home," and adding a hope that "Your Honour will join us in an endeavor to secure that great badge of English liberty of being taxed only with our own consent to which we conceive all His Majesty's subjects at home and abroad equally entitled; and also in pointing out to the ministry the many mischiefs arising from the act commonly called the Sugar Act to us and to Great Britain." It also promised compliance with the lieutenant governor's recommendations as to the hemp bounty and the pub- lic debt.
Colden was much stirred by this address, to which he replied with a criti- cism of its propriety; but in writing to the Lords of Trade he declared the address to be "undutiful and inde- cent." He had, he said, tried with- out success to have it modified, but advising with the Council, he had concluded not to dissolve the Assem- bly as it was, it not being probable that one of better temper could be procured by calling an election. The Assembly sent a petition to the king, protesting against the proposal to impose parliamentary taxes on the colonies.
OLD LUTHERAN CHURCH IN FRANKFORT STREET Erected in 1767 The British ministry planned to get revenue from the colonies by means of an internal stamp tax, the plan of which is said to have originated with Bute's secretary, Jenkinson, afterward the first Lord Liverpool. Lord Grenville, who succeeded Bute as head of the ministry, in the autumn of 1763, had given notice, in March, 1764, of an intention to introduce such an act, and it was this to which the address of the Assembly referred as "alarming infor- mations from home." The act as proposed was passed, and signed March 22. 1765. It was entitled, "An Act for Granting and Supplying Certain Stamp Duties and Other Duties, in the British Colonies and Plantations in America, towards Further Defraying the Expences of Defending, Protecting and Secur- ing the same." It prescribed (1) that stamped paper be used for legal and official documents, diplomas and certificates; (2) that stamps be placed on playing cards, dice, books (excepting those used in the schools), newspapers, pamphlets, calendars, almanacs, and various other articles; and (3) that jury trials be denied to offenders at the discretion of the authorized prosecuting officers. It was to become effective November 1, 1765. Soon after its passage Grenville went out of office, and the Marquis of Rock- ingham formed another of the short-lived ministries of that eventful era.
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THE STAMP ACT ROUSES A STORM
News of the actual passage of the Stamp Act reached America early in May, 1765, and roused a fury of intense opposition in the colonies, on the ground, that as the colonists were not represented in Parliament, that body had no right to tax them without their formal consent; and also on the less important but still vital ground, that the duties would be exceedingly burdensome and would cause the withdrawal from circula- tion, of the little specie there was in the various colonies. When the Stamp Act had been proposed, in 1764, there had been formed in the various colonies loose secret organizations for concerted resistence to the passage or execution of the act. In the discussion of the Stamp Act, before its passage, in February, 1765, Colonel Isaac Barré, a member of Parliament, who had been with Wolfe as lieutenant colonel, and was wounded at Quebec, in 1759, strenuously opposed the act, lauded the Americans and inci- dentally applied to them the name of "Sons of Liberty," and for years afterward was one of the staunchest supporters of the American cause. After the passage of the act, the societies which had been formed adopted Barré's phrase as the title of their organizations, and took the lead in opposition to the enforcement of the obnoxious statute. Committees of correspondence were formed, and each colony was kept in touch with the sentiment in the others.
When the news of the Stamp Act came, the New York Assembly was adjourned, but the Virginia House of Burgesses was in session, and on April 29th passed strong resolutions formally denying the right of the British Parliament to meddle with internal taxation and demanding the repeal of the act. Massachusetts adopted the denial and proposed a con- gress of delegates from each of the provincial assemblies to provide for united action. New York could not, at the time, speak through its Assembly, but its voice was equally emphatic. The New York Gazette and Weekly Post Boy was the organ of the advanced patriots, among whom its editor, John Holt, was one of the most ardent. Colden, writing to Monckton, then absent from his government, complaining of it as a "licentious, abusive, weekly printed paper." It contained from week to week dissertations on liberty, signed "Sentinel," and rhymes of patriotic fervor. William Livingston, William Smith (the yourger, New York's first historian) and John Morin Scott, three friends, all lawyers, and graduate's of Yale, who had for several years been associated as members of the Whig Club which met weekly at The King's Arms tavern, were regarded by Colden as dangerous leaders of the protest against the Stamp Act. The most active of these three was John Morin Scott, who, under the signature of "Freeman" published, in June, three articles in which he set forth in the most cogent manner the argument of the unconstitu-
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