USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 25
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The Chamber of Commerce, which had previously met at Fraunces' Tav- ern ("The Queen's Head"), moved into large new quarters over the Royal Exchange, on the opposite corner of Broad and Dock (now Pearl) Streets, holding their first monthly meeting at that place on May 2, 1769, when John Cruger, president of that body and also speaker of the Assembly, presented to them a vote of thanks by the Assembly, to the merchants of the city and colony "for their repeated disinterested, public-spirited and patriotic conduct
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DEATH OF SIR HENRY MOORE
in declining the importation or receiving of goods from Great Britain until such acts of Parliament as the 'General Assembly' had declared to be unconsti- tutional and subversive of the rights and liberties of the colony be repealed."
New York adhered to its nonimportation agreement with great fidelity, but there were breaches reported from Philadelphia, and one New York mer- chant was caught receiving imported goods via the latter city. Conflicting reports were received from London as to the possibility of the repeal of the obnoxious duties so much desired by the merchants of New York, and even more by the commercial community in London.
Sir Henry Moore, during all the troubles of the four years since his arrival as governor of the colony, had acted in a perfectly friendly manner toward those of every shade of political opinion. Bound by the duties of his position as a royal governor, to the most emphatic assertion of the royal pre- rogative, and compelled to recommend to the house such policies as were con- tained in his instructions from London, he nevertheless performed these duties in such a manner that the Assembly, when unable to comply, treated him officially and personally with the utmost respect. His suspension of the oper- ation of the Stamp Act as long as he could, had given him a place in popular favor which had become more secure with each year of his service. He was a dignified, urbane and righteous governor, and his death, in Fort George, Sep- tember II, 1769, after a brief illness, brought great distress to the people of the city and colony.
During Governor Moore's administration there were numerous improve- ments in the city, and three churches were erected: St. Paul's Church, in 1765, the Brick Presbyterian Church, opposite the Common, and the North Dutch Church, on Fulton Street.
MARTLING S
TAMMANY HALL, 1789 Nassau Street, Corner Spruce Street First Permanent Wigwam
CHAPTER TWENTY - FOUR
SONS OF LIBERTY AND BRITISH SOLDIERS THE BATTLE OF GOLDEN HILL NONIMPORTATION AND LATER TROUBLES
Sir Henry Moore was dead, and his remains were interred under the chancel of Trinity Church. Cadwallader Colden was again in authority over New York province as lieutenant governor, coming in from Flushing as soon as he heard of the governor's death; and on September 13, 1769, he took the prescribed oaths as lieutenant governor and commander in chief. He issued a call for the Assembly to meet on November 21st. Before that, the Sons of Liberty, celebrating, on November Ist, the anniversary of the nonimportation agreement, passed resolutions recommending that the Assembly, when it met, should follow the example of the assemblies of South Carolina and Massachusetts, refusing all supplies for the king's troops until the obnoxious laws should be repealed. But when Colden addressed the Assembly and asked for the annual grant required by the Billeting Act, his request met with prompt compliance.
This course was very displeasing to the people of the city, and particu- larly to the Sons of Liberty. A printed "Address to the Betrayed Inhabi- tants of the City and Colony of New York," signed "A Son of Liberty," appeared, and a copy which fell into the hands of the mayor, Whitehead Hicks, was delivered by that official to John Cruger, the speaker of the Assembly. It was a bitter arraignment of the Assembly for its action in voting, at Colden's request, for the supplies for the king's troops ; arraigned it as a betrayer of the cause of liberty, and cited in contrast, the patriotic action of the assemblies of Massachusetts and South Carolina. There was also another paper of similar import put in circulation, with the sig- nature "Legion." Both invited the Assembly to meet the people at a meeting to be held in the fields, December 18th. These anonymous papers were presented to the house as being infamous and scandalous libels, and by vote of the Assembly the lieutenant governor issued a procla- mation offering a reward of froo for the discovery of the author of the first, and of £50 for the author of the second of these circulars.
The meeting in the fields was attended by about fourteen hundred men, and the action of the Assembly was vigorously discussed. On motion of John Lamb a committee of eight was appointed to wait upon the city's delegation to the Assembly and present the sentiments of the meeting. The committee, as named, was composed of Jacobus van Zandt, John Lamb, Isaac Sears, Samuel Broome, James van Vaurk, Erasmus
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SOLDIERS AND CITIZENS IN CONFLICT
Williams, Caspar Wistar, Thomas Franklin, Jr., John Thurman and Alexander McDougall, all of whom served in the presentation of the reso- lutions, except Thurman, who declined membership on the committee. On the 25th the Assembly ordered John Lamb to appear before the bar of the house to answer for libel, the impression being that as he was the mover of the resolution he had some connection with the printed libels that had moved the Assembly to wrath. But the other members of the committee published a card stating that they were as responsible as was Mr. Lamb, and when that gentleman appeared in answer to the summons and disclaimed any connection between the printed libels and his action at the meeting, he was discharged.
The mutual dislike of soldiers and citizens which had been engendered at the time of the Stamp Act troubles had in no wise diminished. The upper barracks, located in the Common, was near the Liberty Pole, and the soldiers stationed at that barracks, had in it a constant reminder that in spite of their former conflicts, the Sons of Liberty had succeeded in main- taining the obnoxious emblem. The Sixteenth Regiment men, who occu- pied the barracks, were known to entertain hostile designs against the pole. On the night of January 13th, a party of them, foiled in an attempt to cut it down or blow it up, concluded to attack De La Montagne's Tavern, just opposite, and they broke seventy-six panes of glass in his windows and attacked the tavern-keeper in one of the passages in the tavern. They made nightly attempts against the pole after that, and on January 16th succeeded in cutting it down, then sawed it into pieces and piled them up before the tavern door. A meeting which had been called to the Liberty Pole to consider the outbreaks of the soldiers, met on the Common, on January 17th, about 2000 citizens attending, and resolved that any soldier found at night armed, or if unarmed, acting in an insulting manner, should be treated as an enemy to the public peace.
The next day a placard, scurrilously abusive of the Sons of Liberty and defiant of citizens generally, signed, "The Sixteenth Regiment of Foot," and three soldiers were caught by Isaac Sears and Walter Quacken- bos in the act of posting them. Each grabbed one of them, then the third soldier rushed upon Sears in the endeavor to free his comrade, but Sears, with a handy missile and accurate throw, hit him in the face and made him run away. The two citizens, when on the way to the mayor's office with their captives, were rushed upon by twenty more soldiers with swords and bayonets, but many citizens had come up and helped the citi- zens to defend themselves. As it was the neighborhood of the Fly Market, the citizens were, many of them, able to secure sticks or staves and to ward off the soldiers' attacks. Mayor Hicks appeared, ordering the
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
soldiers to their barracks, and they moved on as far as Golden Hill, the spot being on what is now John Street, between William and Cliff Streets, where they made a stand and turned on the citizens who had followed them. The soldiers used their bayonets and wounded several of the citizens, but as the crowd increased and surrounded the soldiers, the citizens wounded some and disarmed many of them. A fresh party of soldiers came up from the barracks and were preparing to make a concerted attack when some officers appeared and ordered all the soldiers to their barracks, whereupon hostilities ceased for that day. One of those on the citizens' side, a sailor, who was wounded, died of his wounds. As this antedated the Boston Massacre by nearly two months, the "Battle of Golden Hill" has been designated by many writers as the first battle fought, and the unnamed sailor's as the first life lost, in the American Revolution.
The hostilities were resumed the day following, January 19th, one of a party of soldiers thrusting his bayonet through the cloak and dress of a woman who was returning from market. The news of this outrage brought the people together and many of them gathered in knots on the street corners to discuss the situation. The sailors, who always sided with the citizens in their conflicts with the soldiers, were especially per- turbed because of a desire to revenge the death of their brother, who had been killed by the soldiers. A group of these got into an altercation with a party of soldiers from the barracks and soon got to blows, and in the émeute an old sailor was run through the body by a bayonet. The sailors were wrought to fury and the fight became hotter. The mayor came to the scene and ordered the soldiers to disperse, but they defied him, and when he started a messenger to the barracks to summon an officer, the soldiers barred the way with drawn swords, so that the messenger could not proceed. A party of Liberty Boys coming up at this time to aid the sailors, dispersed the soldiers. For a few hours all was quiet, but in the afternoon a group of citizens in front of the new jail, on the Common, was accosted by a party of soldiers, who endeavored to disarm them of their canes. The citizens turned on them, and being soon reinforced by a party of the Sons of Liberty, were enabled to drive the soldiers back to their barracks, disarming several. One of the soldiers was badly wounded in the shoulder, and another, who was recognized as one of the ring- leaders in the conflict of the previous day, was arrested and imprisoned to await trial.
The Sons of Liberty had, through a committee, asked the City Council for permission to rear another Liberty Pole on the spot where the other four had successively stood, but the request was denied by a majority vote. Lamb and some friends, in anticipation of the refusal, bought a strip of ground eleven by
247
THE CASE OF JAMES MCDOUGALL
one hundred feet, on private property, near the former site, and on this erected, February 6, 1770, the fifth Liberty Pole, a mast of greater length than any of the others, forty-six feet high, with a topmast twenty-two feet high, surmounted by a gilt vane on which was the word "Liberty." The pole was cased for two-thirds of its height with iron hoops and bars and sunk twelve feet into the ground.
The news from London was full of excitement about the case of John Wilkes, a member of Parliament for Middlesex, who was convicted in 1763 of having issued, in No. 45 of his paper, the North Briton, what was declared to be a "false, scandalous and seditious libel." He had been con- victed by the Court of King's Bench and sent to prison under a sentence for twenty-two months, and at the instance of the ministry, he was expelled from the house, and his constituents so resented this treatment that, though in prison, they immediately reelected him. Another vote of expulsion resulted in another reelection and another vote of expulsion. For a fourth time he was returned, by a vote of 1143 to 296; but the house seated his opponent, on the ground that as Wilkes was an outlaw the votes against him were void. This raised the question of rights of parliamentary constituencies, and made Wilkes a popular hero, and he was elected an alderman of London, and later sheriff of Middlesex, and in 1774, lord mayor of London. In 1770 he was the popular hero of London, the embodiment in the view of the people of their aspirations for larger rights, and the champion of the freedom of the press and of the people. The number of the North Briton in which the alleged libel occurred-"Number Forty-five"-became, temporarily, a battle cry of freedom for the English-speaking world, and the Sons of Liberty in New York took up the cry.
It came into play in connection with the case of James McDougall, who was arrested on the charge of being the author of the printed papers signed "A Son of Liberty" and "Legion," and which had been declared "infamous and scandalous libels." McDougall had been arrested on the admission of James Parker, the printer, who had been interrogated by the lieutenant gover- nor and Council, that he was the author. Taken before the chief justice, he refused to give bail, and was incarcerated in the new jail on the Common. The Sons of Liberty took him up as their hero-"the American Wilkes." Great crowds gathered at the jail, and when some of them were asked for their names, they shouted "Forty-five."
The Sons of Liberty formed the radical wing of the patriotic party. Another section, composed for the greater part of the wealthier and more ex- clusive people, called themselves "Friends of Liberty and Trade." When the Sons of Liberty, who had made De La Montagne's tavern their headquarters, went to the proprietor to secure it for their annual celebration of the repeal of
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
OLD JAIL
Situated at the Northeast extremity of the Park. Erected before the American Revolution
249
THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE CHARTERED
the Stamp Act, they were told that it had already been let for that day to the other organization. The Sons of Liberty then bought property described as "the corner house on the Broadway, near Liberty Pole, lately kept by Ed- ward Smith." They changed the name to "Hampden Hall," which became the headquarters of the Sons of Liberty. On March 19th, the anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act was celebrated at Hampden Hall with great enthusiasm. Wilkes and McDougall were toasted, forty-five toasts were drunk and the entire company went in procession to the jail and gave forty- five cheers for McDougall. As some soldiers were frustrated in an attempt on the night of March 24th to unship the topmast and vane from the new Lib- erty Pole, a guard was set upon the pole until after the departure of the Six- teenth Regiment for Pensacola, on May 3d.
News came from London that under the initiative of Lord North the obnoxious taxes had been removed from every article except tea, and the non- importation agreement was, at the suggestion of Philadelphia merchants, modified as to all other articles. There was a considerable interchange of argument in regard to this policy, and Boston held out for a continuance of the nonimportation policy to its fullest extent, but the statistics showed that during the existence of the agreement, while the imports of New York had decreased five-sixths, those of Philadelphia and Boston had only decreased one- half, while Canada, Carolina and Georgia, and even Maryland and Virginia, had increased their importations. Mr. Bancroft has well said that as New York alone had been perfectly true to its engagements, "it was impatient of a system of renunciation which was so unequally kept; and the belief was com- mon that if the others had adhered to it as strictly, all the grievances would have been redressed."
On March 13, 1770, Lieutenant Governor Colden granted a charter to the New York Chamber of Commerce. The statues ordered by the Assembly from London of George III and Lord Chatham, arrived in the summer of 1770. The equestrian statue of George III was set up on its pedestal on the Bowling Green, opposite Fort George, on August 16th, the anniversary of the birthday of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and was the occasion of much cere- mony. It was made of lead, heavily gilded. On September 7th, at the intersec- tion of Wall and Cross (now William) Street, where a pedestal had been set up for its reception, the statue of Pitt was set up. Both statues had been made by Joseph Wilton, a famous London sculptor, and were regarded as ex- cellent examples of the art of sculpture.
After the news of the death of Sir Henry Moore had reached England the Earl of Dunmore had been appointed governor in his place, but he had so delayed his departure that Lieutenant Governor Colden had administered the government for thirteen months before his arrival. He reached New York in
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
H.M.S. Tweed, October 18, 1770, and he was given a rousing reception. Dinners and other functions were given in his honor, the city was illuminated, the Sons of Liberty made a great bonfire on the Common and drew the largest outdoor assemblage which had to that time met in New York City.
Dunmore's commission, as those of the other governor generals had done, contained a provision authorizing him to take "a moiety of the perquisites and emoluments of the government of New York from the date of his com- mission to the time of his arrival." There had been a similar clause in the commission of Sir Henry Moore, but he had made no demand under it, and of General Monckton, but he had finally waived it, and, in fact, the division had not been insisted on since the days of the Van Dam-Cosby litigation. Colden was not likely to give up anything like fifty per cent. of his year's income without a fight, and the consequence was litigation in which he was finally sus- tained, the decision being, that as a salary is compensation for labor per- formed the king had no right to act with it as if it was a bounty at his dis- posal, because "the king can do nothing contrary to law." The dispute was carried no further, the earl did not carry the matter to London, and Colden had no occasion to do so.
The Assembly met December 1I, 1770, and in his address to that body the Earl of Dunmore spoke with satisfaction of the ending of the nonimpor- tation agreement and the renewing of "that mutual intercourse between the mother country and her colonies which it is so much the interest of both to preserve uninterrupted." He called attention of the Assembly to the proba- bility of war between Great Britain and Spain, and urged the consideration of the defenses of New York against foreign attack. Instruction came from the Earl of Hillsborough to the governors in America, to the effect that Parlia- ment had ordered an increase of the army by an additional light company to every battalion and of twenty men to every company; and he was emphatic in urging immediate attention to the recruiting of these additional soldiers. The call for recruits appealed to the religious as well as political zeal of many of the people, for Spain was especially detested by the Protestants, and the first to volunteer their services as soldiers was a body of German Protestants, who offered themselves in January, 1771.
The Assembly passed a grant of £2000 for the troops quartered for the year, but declined to appropriate any money for arrearages, though they granted £1000 for general repairs pending further advices as to the probability of war with Spain. They voted an appropriation to pay the governor's yearly salary of £2000, but the Earl of Dunmore sent in a message that the king having provided the salary out of his treasury, he was not permitted to receive any from the Assembly. This idea of paying the governors from the king's treasury was a part of the plan to justify the collection of duties in America.
251
CAPTAIN MCDOUGALL GOES TO JAIL
On December 13, 1770, Captain James McDougall, who had recently been let out of jail on bail by the Supreme Court, in connection with the libel charges against him, was summoned to the bar of the Assembly and he was there in- terrogated as to whether he was the author of the paper entitled, "Address to the Betrayed Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York." He declined to answer, for the reason, first, that the Assembly had already de- clared the paper to be libelous and he could not be compelled to incriminate himself; and, second, he was at that time under prosecution in the Supreme Court of the colony. He was declared in contempt of the house, and declin- ing to ask pardon, was committed to the common jail, where he remained after the adjournment of the house until April 17, 1771, when, on motion of John Morin Scott, his attorney, he was ordered to be released upon his own recognizance. A vindication of the stand he took before the Assembly, which McDougall sent from the jail, was published on December 22d, in Holt's Gazette, and the people generally were in sympathy with his stand. The Sons of Liberty, at their celebration of the anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act, on March 18, 1771, included among their toasts one to "the Lib- erty of the Press" in honor of McDougall, and another entitled, "No answer to interrogatories when tending to accuse the person interrogated," was also in sympathy with the man then still in jail. McDougall, after his release, con- tinued to be active in the patriot cause. He became colonel of the First New York Regiment, in 1775, brigadier general in 1776, and major general in 1777, in the Continental Army; fought at the battles of Long Island, White Plains, Germantown and others; was elected to the Continental Congress in 1781 and 1784, and was a member of the New York Senate at the time of his death, in 1786.
As early as December, 1770, the Earl of Dunmore had received from Eng- land a notice that the king had promoted him to the government of Virginia, in succession to Lord Botetourt, who had died, a mark of royal favor which greatly pleased the earl, as the Virginian post was considered the most impor- tant and desirable in the colonies. To the office of governor of New York the king appointed William Tryon, then governor of North Carolina, whose wife, who had been a Miss Wake, was a near relative of the Earl of Hills- borough, first commissioner of trade and plantations. He was born in Ire- land about 1725, commissioned captain in the army in 1751 and lieutenant colonel in 1758; appointed lieutenant governor of North Carolina in 1764, and upon the death of Governor Arthur Dobbs was commissioned governor of that colony. Through the tact of his ambitious wife he succeeded in securing from the North Carolina Assembly £15,000 to build a governor's house at Newbern, which was recognized as being the handsomest building in Amer- ica. This was chief of the extravagances which caused "The Regulators," an
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
organization formed for tax and other reforms in North Carolina, in 1768, to start an uprising in 1770. In May, 1771, Governor Tryon, at the head of a large Loyalist force, met two thousand Regulators, of whom less than half were armed, at Alamance Creek, defeating them after two hours of fierce fighting. Seventy Loyalists were killed and wounded, nine Regulators were killed and many wounded, one was hanged on the spot and fifteen were taken prisoners, of whom six were tried and executed. The selection of Governor Tryon as governor of New York was a reward for his vigor in suppressing the Regulators. On Monday, July 8th, he arrived in New York with his wife and daughter, after a fast passage of five days from Newbern, North Caro- lina, in the sloop Sukey, and was received with appropriate salutes, honors and ceremonies, the Earl of Dunmore going to the sloop to meet him and accompanying him from the landing at Whitehall stairs to the fort, escorted by the Provincial Council and the local dignitaries.
Lord Dunmore left for Virginia, September 8th, with the accompaniment of salutes from the battery guns and many tokens of public esteem. He seems to have pleased everybody in New York save Lieutenant Governor Colden. In a trying time he had ruled the province without friction and with singular discretion. His course in Virginia was much different and his administration very unpopular, but his short term as governor of New York developed noth- ing to antagonize any party. The New York Assembly, which did not meet until January 7, 1772, in replying to the address of the new governor and expressing satisfaction at his appointment, also alluded to his predecessor as having "justly merited our affection and applause."
In his address to the Assembly, Governor Tryon, in the absence of any special instructions from the king, confined his recommendations to the ordi- nary supply and support bills, a thorough repair of the city's fortifications and defenses and the framing of a proper militia system. The Assembly, appro- priating £2000 for the governor's salary, received from him a special mes- sage, with a copy of the king's instructions, providing that neither the gover- nor, president of the council, nor commander in chief could receive from the Assembly any gift or present whatever. The Society of the New York Hos- pital, organized in 1771, was commended to the consideration of the Assembly by Governor Tryon.
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