USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 9
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In February, 1664, Scott, acting as president of the English towns and in the name of King Charles and of the Duke of York "as far as His Highness is therein concerned" signed an agreement that those towns should remain under the king of England, without let or hindrance from the Dutch authorities, while the Dutch towns and bouweries should remain under the States-General for twelve months and longer until His Majesty and the
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States-General should fully determine the whole difficulty about Long Island and places adjacent. In January the West India Company had warned the States-General of the fact that its province was likely to be lost to the English unless prompt action were taken; that the colonists were uneasy because their titles came from the company, which had only its general trading charter to go upon; and that the boundaries had never been legally defined. The States-General thereupon confirmed the right of the West India Company to the province of New Netherland by an act under its great seal, and at the same time ratified the Hartford Treaty of 1650, asking King Charles to do the same and thereby settle all pending disputes.
When King Charles received the demand of the States-General con- cerning the ratification of the Hartford Treaty, he also had a report from a committee of three members of the Council for Plantations which had been appointed to receive complaints about New Netherland and report upon the best method for capturing it. They said that three ships with about three hundred soldiers would be enough for the purpose, as plenty of Englishmen from the other colonies would help, and one-third of the people of Long Island were English. If necessary, Indians could probably be engaged as auxiliaries.
The Duke of York was patroon of the Royal African Company, and therefore was in direct conflict, on the West Coast of Africa, with the Dutch West India Company. In February, 1664, the duke borrowed from his brother, the king, two men-of-war, and sent out Robert Holmes with a small squadron to attack the posts of the company on the West African coast.
On March 12, 1644, the king gave to the Duke of York a charter covering part of Maine, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Long Island and all the land from the Connecticut River to Delaware Bay. This infringed to some extent upon other royal charters, notably that of Connecticut, but entirely ignored the existence of New Netherland.
Preparations for an expedition to the domain granted by this document were put in motion, the king giving his brother £4000 toward the cost; and the duke appointed to take charge of these possessions Colonel Richard Nicolls, to whom he gave a commission as deputy governor, and secured for him authority from the king to raise forces for the adventure, of which he was given full command. To give the expedition an appearance compatible with peaceful intentions, the king appointed Colonel Nicolls, Colonel Sir Robert Carr, Colonel Sir Robert Cartwright and Samuel Maverick as a commission to inquire into the state of New England, to receive the com- plaints of the people, and to settle the peace and security of the country; and this was given out publicly as the sole purpose of the expedition, which sailed in May, 1664, including three men-of-war and a transport. The squadron mounted ninety-two guns and carried four hundred and fifty men.
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THE KING'S FLEET APPROACHES NEW AMSTERDAM
While these preparations were going on in England, Stuyvesant had endeavored in every possible way to strengthen the defences of New Amsterdam and to persuade or conciliate the disaffected Long Islanders, who through Captain Scott's representations fully expected an English force. That individual had carried things with such a high and independent hand that he had come into conflict with the Connecticut authorities. Not only had he repudiated the authority of Connecticut by deserting its cause while he was supposed to be acting as its sworn agent, but he had taken upon him- self the authority of an independent ruler, without having any commission to show. So he was arrested on the authority of Governor Winthrop, taken to Hartford, and there tried and convicted on ten counts for the crimes of forgery, perjury, calumny, sedition, treachery, usurpation and defamation of the king, and was fined and imprisoned for these offences. Governor Winthrop with two hundred men went to Long Island in June, deposing Scott's magistrates and appointing his own. Stuyvesant, who with Van Ruyven, Van Cortlandt and others from New Amsterdam, went out to meet Governor Winthrop, found him entirely unwilling to make any terms, claiming that the Indians who sold Long Island to the Dutch had no title to it, and that the title of Connecticut to that island was clear. Early in July, Thomas Willett received news from Boston that an English fleet was on its way to capture New Netherland, and so informed Governor Stuyvesant; but later advices received by the governor from the company, said that the English fleet was to sail but that its mission was to establish bishops in New England. This letter so pacified the governor that when he heard at the end of July, that there was danger to Fort Orange, because of a war which had broken out between the Mohawks and the Mohegans, he went up the river to try to secure the white settlement from suffering by the conflict.
In early August the English fleet reached Boston Harbor and the work of recruiting began. Volunteers were enlisted from Massachusetts and Con- necticut, and Governor Winthrop went to the western end of Long Island, with other representatives of Connecticut to await the arrival of the fleet, and found there Thomas Willett, not as the ally of the Dutch as heretofore, but as the agent of Plymouth Colony.
News of the approach of the invaders having reached Manhattan, mes- sengers were hurried to Fort Orange who brought the governor back on August 25, where he set all the people to work on the defences of the city. The following day, The Guinea, Nicoll's flagship, anchored in Gravesend Bay (then called Nayack), where it waited for its companions and the transports bringing the New England troops. On August 29 he captured a blockhouse which had been established on Staten Island to defend the Narrows; blockaded that inlet and issued a proclamation offering safety and good treatment to all
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who would quietly submit. The English Long Islanders gathered, ready to offer any required assistance, or to share in the plunder if there should be resistance and capture. There were less than one hundred and fifty soldiers at the fort and about two hundred and fifty civilians capable of bearing arms in the city. The Dutch on the bouweries outside of the city could not desert their own homes and families to help in the defence of the city, and the English of New Amsterdam were all hostile to the continuance of the Dutch government, except John Lawrence, who asked permission to remain neutral, and Thomas Hall, who was in entire accord with the Dutch cause.
Domine Megapolensis, his son, and two of the city magistrates went as a delegation from Stuyvesant to Colonel Nicolls, and to ask him why he had brought a hostile fleet in front of the city. The English commander received them civilly, and sent a letter explaining his commission and pledging pro- tection to all who would yield obedience to him as governor. This and several other messages of similar import, one coming with a delegation under a white flag, among whom was Governor Winthrop of Connecticut, Thomas Willett of Plymouth, and others, came to Stuyvesant, who tried to keep their import from the people, but was compelled by clamorous demands of the burghers to disclose. There was a general feeling that resistance to the invaders would be futile, but Stuyvesant gave no sign of surrender; sending, however, a letter which set forth, in a clear manner, the right of the Dutch to this region, proposing that any hostilities should be postponed until the boundaries of their respective realms, which were now involved in diplomatic correspondence and he doubted not had by this time been settled by the king and the States-General, should be communicated from Europe. Nicolls refused to argue, but gave the governor forty-eight hours to accept his terms.
At Gravesend on September 4, 1664, the Long Island Englishmen assembled to meet the English commissioners, and Nicolls made public the Duke of York's patent and his own commission as deputy governor, and Governor Winthrop publicly proclaimed that Connecticut resigned all claim to Long Island and recognized that of the Duke of York. The English regulars landed at Gravesend and thence marched to the Ferry, where the New Englanders had encamped with a large number of English from the eastern end of Long Island, under command of Captain John Young. Two of the frigates came up the bay under full sail, and passing close to the walls of Fort Amsterdam came to an anchor between Manhattan and Nutten (Governor's) Island, with their guns all on one side ready to pour a broadside into the city if any resistance should be offered.
Stuyvesant, in the city, was for resistance. He wrote again to Nicolls saying that he was ready to stand the storm or arrange an accommodation. Nicolls replied that if he would raise the white flag on the fort he might
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debate the terms. The burghers hearing of this reply, thronged about the governor, urging him to yield, but he declared he would rather die.
A formal written remonstrance and petition was prepared, setting forth the horrors which would come if the city should be invested and sacked by the enemy; meaning the destruction of fifteen hundred people of whom only two hundred and fifty were capable of bearing arms. It was signed by all the most prominent officials and burghers, who urged him not to reject the offers of a foe who was generous in his pledges, but to arrange for an honorable and reasonable capitulation.
Stuyvesant yielded at last, and Nicolls consented to treat with him, and pledged himself to redeliver the city and fort if the Powers should agree upon that procedure; and on Saturday, September 6, six Dutch and six English delegates met outside the city, at Stuyvesant's own bouwerie house and drew up in English the "Articles of Capitulation of the Surrender of New Nether- land." The next day the articles were read to the burghers in the church after the second service, the official copy, signed by Colonel Nicolls was delivered to Governor Stuyvesant and ratified by him ; by De Sille, the schout- fiscal of New Netherland; Martin Cregier, the chief militia officer of the province: Peter Tonneman, the city schout; Burgomaster Van der Grist; Jacobus Backer, president of the Board of Schepens, and by the schepens Timotheus Gabry, Isaac Greveraet and Nicholas de Meyer.
On September 8 (new style) or August 29 (old style) the town and fort were delivered, Colonel Nicolls was installed by the burgomasters and proclaimed as deputy governor for the Duke of York. New Amsterdam became New York and Fort Amsterdam was changed to Fort James.
Petrus Stuyvesant was, in 1665, called by the States-General to Holland to report upon his administration. He arrived there in October and was detained until 1668, when, after due consideration of the papers submitted by him and the directors of the West India Company, he was permitted to return to America. He retired to his farm or bouwerie, which occupied the area now bounded by the East River, Sixth Street, Third Avenue and Sixteenth Street, and there he died in the early part of 1672. His body lies in the vaults of St. Mark's Church.
He was a strong, self-willed character ; personally, honorable and honest, a ripe scholar and able soldier; but officially, autocratic and often austere. He served his company with zeal and faithfulness, which was ill requited, for the company was grasping and niggardly, and ill sustained his efforts to give good government to New Netherland. Partly because of the limitation of his resources by the company, and partly from his inherent antipathy to anything savoring of democracy, he was very unpopular in the early part of his administration, but after the establishment of burgher-right, and par-
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ticularly after the removal from office of the malevolent Tienhoven, he gained the respect of the people; and in his retirement he was an affable, influential gentleman, a good citizen and churchman, and looked up to with honor and affection. He has been idealized into a character far different from that he really bore. He was often wrong and many times unjust, letting his temper distort his judgment. Some of his errors were those of his time and others were temperamental; but he was a man of good intentions as well as undoubted power.
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EARLY STREET SCENE
Northeast and Southeast corners of Broad Street and Exchange Place, about 1690
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NEW NETHERLAND BECOMES NEW YORK GOVERNOR RICHARD NICOLLS AND THE DUKE'S LAWS
Richard Nicolls, the first English governor, was a man of his word, and gave good treatment and protection to the colony which had surrendered to him. He was born at Ampthill in Bedfordshire, in 1624. His father, who was a lawyer, married a daughter of Sir George Bruce; and their son, after attending Oxford University, became a soldier, and commanded a troop of horse in the Royalist Army during the Civil War. When the Stuarts fled to the Continent he went with them, and was thereafter of the personal entour- age of James, Duke of York, with whom he fought in French armies. If a man is known by the company he keeps, the association of Governor Nicolls, through life, with James Stuart, forms a strong presumption against his personal character; and the pretext and methods of organization of the expe- dition against New Netherland would in our day, be deemed absolutely piratical. But the standards of ethics in the Seventeenth Century were greatly different from those which prevail in the Twentieth. Of the morale of his personal life nothing is recorded, but Nicolls was true to his promises to the people of New Amsterdam, and at once found his way to their good will.
Prior to the surrender of the city many of the worst element of the English of Long Island had gathered as volunteers at the Ferry, on the Breuckelen side, making threats and prophecies of plunder when New Amsterdam should be captured. But there was no looting or disturbance; and the Long Island and New England troops were dismissed by Governor Nicolls with promises of rewards for all who had taken up arms for their king and country.
The Dutch officials wrote to the West India Company, giving an account of the surrender and placing the blame on the company for its failure to furnish the colony with protection. Governor Stuyvesant also wrote a separate account, showing how impossible it would have been for him to offer anything like an adequate resistance to the English forces. These reports went with the directors on the ship Gideon, which, with a pass from Governor Nicolls, also carried back the Dutch soldiers who had formed the garrison at Fort Amsterdam.
Governor Nicolls appointed English officials, and gave the office of secre- tary of the province to Captain Matthias Nicolls, of Islip, Northamptonshire; who, though of identical family name, was not a relative of the governor. He was a lawyer by profession, and came from England with Governor 7
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Nicolls. Delavall, another Englishman, became collector of the port, and Englishmen were also appointed as provincial councilors. In the local government, however, the Dutch city officials were left to continue their functions and administer justice as before the surrender, until the governor should make other and permanent arrangements.
An expedition under Colonel Cartwright was sent up the river, now called the Hudson, and received the submission of Esopus, Fort Orange (the name of which he changed to Albany), and Rensselaerswyck, which was accomplished without friction; while another expedition, under Sir Robert Carr, went to the Delaware River, and, after a stubborn resistance, captured Amstel, the name of which was changed to Newcastle.
Nicolls had a commission which covered all the teritory given to James, Duke of York, and included everything to the Connecticut River. This con- flicted with the grant to Connecticut so as to cover half the territory of that province. The conflict of title was brought to the attention of Nicolls, and he represented to the duke the injustice which would be done by insisting on the strict letter of the grant. He received permission to adjust the boundaries and fixed the present line of boundary between New York and the provinces of Connecticut and Massachusetts.
In renaming places in the province, Governor Nicolls constantly had in mind the purpose of honoring his royal master, the Duke of York and Albany. The province and the city were both named "New York," Long Island was called "Yorkshire," and divided, like the English county so named, into East and West Ridings. Fort Orange became "Albany," and the region west of the Hudson River he called "Albania."
Diplomatic correspondence between England and the United Netherlands carried the relations of the two countries to the straining point; and in Feb- ruary, 1665, the Parliament granted King Charles, for war purposes, the sum of £2,500,000, which was the largest grant that had ever been bestowed upon an English sovereign; and the City of London lent him large sums in addition to the national grant. The whole country seemed to be anxious for war.
Meanwhile Nicolls had been carrying on the work of reconstruction in New Netherland. His position was that of a governor of a royal, proprietary province. His letter of instructions from the Duke of York, by which his course was necessarily limited, has never been published and, so far as known, is not now in existence; but its general character is known by the references made to it during Governor Nicolls' work of reconstruction. It was thor- oughly autocratic, in harmony with the spirit of the Stuarts, and under it the governor, representing the royal proprietor of the province, was vested with all legislative and executive functions and was to appoint all judges. The
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THOMAS WILLETT, FIRST MAYOR OF NEW YORK
governor required all the Dutch inhabitants to renew the titles to their lands in the name of the Duke of York. He prepared a code of laws, which he endeavored to make conform to the instructions of the duke, and at the same time tried to make it as little as possible displeasing to the people. In pre- paring this code, which became popularly known as "the Duke's Laws," he consulted the various New England codes, incorporating such good features as could be retained without establishing a democratic system. Perfect liberty of conscience was to be maintained in religious matters; there was to be a Court of Assize in New York City, and trials were to be by jury of the vicinage; each person must pay taxes according to his property; to make titles secure they must be recorded in New York.
Aliens were required to take the oath of allegiance before they could hold property, and all the Dutch inhabitants did so after stipulating for and securing a statement that nothing in the Oath of Obedience should be held to invalidate any of the provisions of the Articles of Surrender, Peter Stuy- vesant being the first, followed by all the leading citizens, and then by prac- tically all the able-bodied men of Manhattan.
On June 12, 1665, Governor Nicolls issued a proclamation which changed, all at once, the form of the local government. It began: "I, Richard Nicolls, do ordain that all the inhabitants of New York, New Harlem and all other parts of the Manhattans Island are one body politic and corporate under the government of a mayor, alderman and sheriff, and I do appoint for one whole year commencing from the date hereof and ending the 12th day of June, 1666, Mr. Thomas Willett to be mayor." This document was the end of Dutch government on the Island of Manhattan, and burgomaster, schout and schepen gave way to the English plan of mayor, alderman and sheriff; and the Dutch idea of trial by arbitration was succeeded by the English institution of trial by jury. The change was further emphasized by the requirement that the English language must henceforth be used in civic affairs.
Thomas Willett, appointed to be the first mayor of New York, had been an influential business man in New Amsterdam, but had retired to his farm at Rehoboth, in Plymouth Colony. The reason for recalling him to New York was that Nicolls, making inquiry with the view of pleasing the Dutch citizens of New York, had decided that he was the best man for the office, not only because of his popularity, but also for the reason that he had a more intimate acquaintance with the character and customs of the Netherlanders than any other Englishman available for the place. Allard Anthony, who had been schout under the Dutch regime, was appointed sheriff; and of the five aldermen appointed by the governor two were English, John Lawrence and Captain Thomas Delavall, and three were Dutch, Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt, Johannes van Brugh and Cornelis van Ruyven.
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Although New Harlem was thus made a part of the "body corporate" of the City of New York, its people, a year later, asked and received, in 1666, amended in 1667, a charter, confirming the titles of the inhabitants to their particular lots and estates, and as a body their common lands and riparian rights. This document while giving them the privileges of a town, declared it to be, at the same time, a part of the city. It thus had a Town Court, subject to appeal to the Mayor's Court, which at stated times sat in New Harlem to take cognizance of appealed cases.
Very much to the chagrin of Governor Nicolls, he found that his province had been cut in two even before he entered upon his duties as governor. The Duke of York, in June, 1664, had given the part of his province, which he had named Albania, to the two court favorites, Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton. Philip Carteret, a kinsman of Sir George was sent out as deputy governor of the province, which the duke had named Nova Cæsarea, or New Jersey; in memory of the service which Sir George Carteret had performed when, as governor of the island of Jersey, he had held that island against the enemies of King Charles until he had received the king's command to surrender it. Both of the grantees had been ardent royalists and were much favored by Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York.
It was from Philip Carteret that the news of this grant came to Governor Nicolls. Carteret, on landing near Chesapeake Bay, sent messengers to Nicolls, telling him of the fact, and at the same time informing him of the beginning of the war between England and the Netherlands. Nicolls wrote to the Duke of York and later to the Secretary of State, Lord Arlington, protesting against the dismemberment of the province. He pointed out to them the importance of keeping both sides of the river and harbor under one local government, and suggested that the Carteret and Berkeley grant be either revoked or so modified that it should include both banks of the Dela- ware instead of the country near Manhattan. This last suggestion had some effect; for in 1668 the Duke of York made an effort to accomplish the pro- posed change, but nothing ever came of it. In July, 1665, Philip Carteret established Elizabethtown, so named in honor of Lady Carteret, wife of Sir George Carteret the proprietor, and granted a new charter to the Dutch town of Bergen.
The war declared in March, 1665, by Charles II against Holland began actively in June of that year; when the English gained a naval victory over the Dutch in the battle of Lowestoft. Louis XIV of France had endeavored to bring about peace, but had failed; and after the death of the King of Spain, in September, 1665, Louis, anxious to acquire the Spanish Netherlands, in order to secure acquiescence in his ambition by the Republic, made a
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IVAR SCARE ENDED BY TREATY OF BREDA
declaration of war against England. Even before the declaration of war, the Marquis de Tracy, viceroy over New France, had furnished a cause of irritation to the province of New York by pursuing the Mohawks into its territory, in which an expedition led by the Sieur de Courcelles, governor of Canada, made several incursions, destroying the towns of the Mohawks.
The Netherlands navy, after the defeat at Lowestoft, was refitted and sent once more against the English coast, and several engagements followed, in some of which the Dutch, and in others the English, were victorious. The visitation of the Great Plague, in 1665, and the Great Fire of London, in 1666, depleted the resources and exhausted the treasury of the English. In the spring of 1666 a secret treaty between Louis XIV of France and Charles II of England, in which the latter agreed not to oppose the designs of Louis on the Spanish Netherlands, if the French king would withdraw his assistance from the Dutch navy, narrowed the contest to the Dutch and English. Negotiations for peace were begun at Breda in the spring of 1667; and while they were pending De Ruyter took a fleet into the Medway, where he destroyed the king's shipyards and many of the best vessels, and also blockaded the mouth of the Thames, destroying many vessels. For some reason the victory was not followed up as it might have easily been, by pushing the fleet up the river and taking London. But even as it was, the disgrace of the English was complete. Pepy's Diary shows how it was regarded by the people; though if Charles had any feeling on the subject it did not at least diminish the wildness of his orgies, which even the Plague and the Fire had not been sufficient to disturb. The treaty of Breda was finally signed July 21, 1667. Under it each country was to keep all territories of which it stood possessed on the 10th of May of that year. This gave the English New York, while the Dutch secured the spice island of Pularoon in East Indies, and in the west the island of Tobago; as well as Surinam, in Guiana. According to values as they were then computed, the Dutch had secured the best end of the bargain.
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