USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century. Vol. I > Part 44
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How particularly the government was now concerning itself with the colonies is shown by the Act for the Encourage- ment of Trade of 1663 which was framed for the regulation of colonial traffic. The farmers of the customs were com- plaining that the kingdom was losing £10,000 a year by the non-execution of the laws, blaming above all Virginia and Maryland which still gave almost the whole of their tobacco carrying trade to the Dutch. Here was a great reason for proceeding against the Dutch-American province. Another may well have been the knowledge that it was disputing the rights recently conferred by the king upon Connecticut. And there seems also to have been a fear that if the Hollanders were left in possession the disaffected party in Massachusetts might some day make common cause with them. But the king's Council for Plantations has left us its own record of its reasons for taking the first definite step toward the seizure of New Netherland. In a paper dated July 6, 1663, it says that it was moved by the complaint, recently brought by Captain John Scott, that the Dutch had 'of late years' pos- sessed themselves of part of New England and in especial of 'the Manhadoes' and Long Island, by a petition of Lord Stirling to his Majesty to the same effect, by the corroborative testimony of a number of other persons, and by the belief of some of its own members that existing conditions frustrated the intent of the Acts of Trade and Navigation - by these influences, it said, it was moved to order the said Captain Scott, Mr. Maverick, and Mr. Baxter to draw up within a week a 'brief narrative' to serve as the basis of a report to the king. They were to make plain his Majesty's title to the premises in question, the facts about the 'Dutch intrusion,' the subsequent conduct and the method of government of the intruders, their strength, and 'the means to make them acknowledge and submit to' his Majesty's government 'or by force compel them to or expulse them.' It is probable that, when the three thus selected as expert advisers wrote their 'narrative,' they suggested, for the sake of getting the backing of the Duke of York and of Clarendon whose daughter
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he had married, that upon him the coveted province might well be bestowed.
As Governor Winthrop did not go home when he secured the charter for Connecticut but remained in England until April, 1663, and as he then left many friendly correspondents there, undoubtedly he knew how the Dutch province was threatened when, at the conference with Governor Stuyvesant at Boston in September, he and his colleague, saying that they needed time to prepare the case of Connecticut, persuaded the other federal commissioners to postpone for a year the con- sideration of the claims of New Netherland.
Many were the tribulations of New Netherland in this autumn of 1663. Not only was Long Island seething with disaffection, Connecticut claiming almost the whole of the province: a great freshet had destroyed the crops along the valley of River Mauritius; a great earthquake had every- where affrighted the people; the Indian war at Esopus was not yet at an end, and the savages, it was said, were planning a descent on Manhattan. So hard pushed for money was the provincial government that it borrowed 12,000 guilders in wampum from Cornelis Steenwyck, pledging the four brass cannon in Fort Amsterdam as security for a bill drawn on the West India Company. And so anxious were the city magistrates that they begged that they might have the aid of the rest of the province and especially of Beverwyck and Rensselaerswyck in their deliberations. This was the first time that a convention had been thought of since the establish- ment of the city government ten years before. It was a reasonable request, said the governor and council, but, as delegates from the up-river places could hardly come and return before winter would set in, it would be best to summon only neighboring places and then communicate their ‘advice and suggestions' to the more remote. The English towns paid no attention to the notifications they received, but on November 1 representatives of New Amsterdam, New Harlem, Bergen, and the Five Dutch Towns of Long Island
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met in the Stadt Huis and, calling themselves delegates to a Gemeene Landts Vergaderingh (a General Convention or Diet), on November 3 signed a Remonstrance to the Amster- dam Chamber of the West India Company. The Chamber, they said, had tempted settlers into its province with pledges of protection, but it had not even secured a proper patent from the States General and so, as the English now declared, had placed its people 'on slippery ice,' giving them lands to which it had itself no valid title. The 'well-intentioned' Englishmen of the province were in a 'labyrinth and maze' while soon, beyond a doubt, the province itself would be totally lost or else so 'cramped and clipped' that its Dutch inhabitants would be forced to abandon it and to become 'outcasts with their families.' The Company should take speedy steps to give assistance to its subjects in this 'alarm- ing and painful extremity.' Jan Baptist Van Rensselaer and Johannes Van Brugh, an 'old schepen' of the city, were chosen to carry the appeal to Holland at the expense of the convention, Secretary Van Ruyven pledging 400 guilders toward this end. It was needful, the convention explained to them, that they should appear in support of the written prayer, for the governor's 'notable exertions' in person at Boston and by embassy at Hartford had failed of effect, the English were basing their hostile pretensions upon the charter newly obtained by Governor Winthrop 'contrary to the intention' of the king of England, and the West India Company had neglected to get a similar patent from the States General. At the same time Stuyvesant wrote home that the boundary question positively must be settled and the charter of the Company confirmed under the great seal of the States General, a thing of a sort 'which an Englishman commonly dotes upon like an idol.'
Two Englishmen, he reported, were now going through Long Island inducing the English towns to change their Dutch names, displacing their old magistrates, and installing others who would take the oath of allegiance to King Charles. As only a handful of soldiers could be sent to protect the
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Dutch towns, the rest being still engaged with the Indians at Esopus, Stuyvesant thought best to accept the terms that Connecticut had previously proposed in vain: Westchester should belong to Connecticut, the English towns on Long Island should be for the time autonomous. He found it possible, however, to send Captain Cregier and some of his men to expel certain friends of Captain Scott who were trying to buy lands of the Indians on the mainland back of Navesink. Lurid accounts of this incident were circulated in England.
In November George Baxter returned to New England bringing the charter that Clarke had obtained for Rhode Island. Like the charter of Connecticut it had been given in the hope that rivalry among the New England colonies, were the lesser ones strengthened, might help to bridle the strongest and most insubordinate, Massachusetts. It was even more liberal than the Connecticut charter, establishing religious liberty as well as practical political independence; and it was even longer lived, remaining the constitution of the State of Rhode Island until 1842. From England came also Captain John Scott bearing the royal letter about the Atherton Company and royal instructions in regard to the Navigation Acts which, if obeyed, would have put an end to the traffic of New Eng- land with New Netherland. The many dignitaries in Massa- chusetts and Connecticut who were interested in the Atherton Company bade Scott welcome. Governor Winthrop sent him to Long Island with John Young and another colleague, administering an oath which empowered them to incorporate the towns of the island with Connecticut. And New Haven reimbursed him for his outlays in England and supplied him with a troop of almost two hundred men. Before he left Hartford he wrote to Joseph Williamson, then secretary to Arlington the secretary of state, begging that no heed be given to any petitions from the Dutch regarding Long Island until some person from New England could come to confront them or their 'complices,' and sending his 'services' to Thomas Chiffinch.
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When he reached the island he found that the English towns of New Netherland, - Hempstead, Jamaica, Newtown, Flushing, and Gravesend, - preferring not to come under Puritan rulers, had formed a 'combination'; and, breaking his oath to Connecticut, he accepted their invitation to act as their 'president' until the Duke of York or the king of England should establish a government among them. These words show that Scott and Baxter must have spread in America the news of what the king and his advisers were considering but had not yet openly announced in England. Then Scott, setting out to reduce the neighboring Dutch towns with what Stuyvesant called his 'ragged troop . . intent upon plunder,' seized the block-house at New Utrecht, raised the English flag at the village called the Ferry, and threatened fire and violence there and at Midwout and Amersfoort. His followers attacked the citizens, and he himself 'bastinadoed' Captain Cregier's son about the head and neck with a rattan because he would not take off his hat to him. 'I will stick my rapier in the guts of any man who ... says that this is not the king's land,' he cried to three envoys whom Stuyvesant had commissioned to treat with him as the agent of Connecticut. After a parley he agreed to withdraw but said that he would come back in April and publish his commission, declaring that the Duke of York intended soon to possess himself of all New Netherland and promising the people that 'as soon as this place will be king's land you shall have more freedom.'
So great was the disorder on Long Island, many individual Englishmen under pretence of new grants from the Indians driving Dutchmen 'by force' from their lands, that in Febru- ary, 1664, the Five Dutch Towns drew up a Remonstrance to the governor and council, demanding prompt assistance from the West India Company :
In default whereof we roundly declare that we cannot any longer dwell and sit down on an uncertainty, but shall be obliged to our hearts' grief to seek by submitting to another government better pro- tection as well against such vagabonds as against barbarians.
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Again the governor, not daring to risk another Indian out- break by bringing down his soldiers from Esopus, asked advice of his council and the city magistrates, laying before them a series of written questions. New Amsterdam, they replied,
. .. is adorned with so many noble buildings at the expense of the good and faithful inhabitants, principally Netherlanders, that it nearly excels any other place in North America. Were it duly forti- fied it would instil fear into any envious neighbors, protect both the East and the North Rivers, the surrounding villages and bouweries, as well as full ten thousand inhabitants, both Dutch and French, who in the course of a few years, if it pleased God, might become a mighty people in this happily situated province.
If left in peace, said the writers, such a province would soon become 'the granary of Patria' and an emporium of 'tobacco, hemp, flax, and other necessaries.' But peace was not in sight; beyond a doubt the English meant to seize New Amsterdam as the key to all New Netherland. It was not for the people at large to dispute whether the country be- longed to Holland or to England. Their part was to resist all attacks on their ' property, liberty, and privileges.' Burgh- ers and townsmen were bound to defend their own places within their walls, the Company's soldiers to protect the villages and the open country. To secure New Amsterdam its magistrates offered to use all its revenues and to raise a large loan if the governor would resign to them the tapsters' excise so that the lenders could gradually be reimbursed with interest. The governor consented, stipulating that the city should support a hundred and fifty soldiers. Bonding its property, a thing that the West India Company had for- bidden it to do, and pledging the tapsters' excise the city then borrowed from almost a hundred persons a total of 27,500 guilders, promising to discharge the debt within five years and to pay meanwhile in wampum ten per cent interest which should commence 'when each shall have paid his last promised penny.' The list of subscribers to the loan, dated February 24, shows that Governor Stuyvesant lent 1000
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guilders, the members of the city corporation an aggre- gate of 6300, the 'deaconry' of the church 2000, Domine Megapolensis 600, his colleague Drisius 500, Paulus Richard 'one cargo' equivalent to 500, and others from 100 to 1500 guilders each.
What to hope for, whither to turn with the best prospect of safety, the English of the western parts of Long Island did not know, some of them dreading the dominion of Connecticut, others who had longed to come under the Commonwealth of England now feeling differently about a Stuart king. Among the latter was John Underhill. In Cromwell's time he had broken his oath of allegiance to the Dutch. Now he expressed great indignation because others were doing the like, writing to Winthrop in March :
Truly, Sir, some have offended God in violating their oaths and interest, obliged to the Dutch before taken of by royal power. Sir, who can expect honor and fidelity from such a wandering people as they have manifested themselves in turning, turning, and turning again ? Great was their cry for Captain Scott; he sought not them but they him, and cried him up, hosanna today and down with him to- morrow.
So also, said Underhill, they had behaved about the claims of Connecticut. Now, he added, Scott declared that he would not hinder Connecticut if it should assert its authority as resting on its new charter,
. . . but some, other ways persuaded, would not consent to this, it not being clear to myself nor many more.
It had become clear enough to the Dutch authorities that as Scott and his 'rebellious troop' could not be expelled he must put into writing the semi-agreement he had made a few weeks before; and toward the end of February, 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,' he formally compacted that these towns should remain under the king of England without let or
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hindrance from the Dutch authorities while the 'Dutch towns or bouweries' should remain under the States General
. for the space of twelve months and longer (viz.) until his . . Majesty of England and the States General do fully determine the whole difficulty about the said Island and the places adjacent.
This document was signed and sealed by Scott and attested on behalf of the English towns by John Underhill, Daniel Denton, and Adam Mott, on behalf of Governor Stuyvesant by Oloff Stevensen Van Cortlandt, Jacobus Backer, and John Lawrence.
Once more Stuyvesant wrote to Holland that the English- men wanted to provoke him to shed the first blood, and that if no 'immediate' settlement were made in Europe the Com- pany must send him instant and sufficient 'reinforcements of ships and men.' Otherwise he and his people could not be held responsible for what might ensue. They were already filled with 'strange emotions' because they had not yet obtained even the single man-of-war they had long before demanded.
In Holland their rulers were enjoying a mood of purblind optimism. In January, 1664, the West India Company did, indeed, explain to the States General that its province was likely to be 'torn away' by the English. The States General, moved by this appeal, by the pleas of the city of Amsterdam on behalf of its South River colony, and by the Remonstrance sent from Manhattan, confirmed the right of the Company to its province by an act given under the great seal. They also ratified the Hartford Treaty of 1650, urged King Charles to ratify it and to rectify the 'abuses' under which the Com- pany had suffered, and notified all friendly powers that they had so done. But they ignored what was really. the most important request of the Company: it had asked whether it might proceed against its enemies 'in a hostile way' and, if so, whether the States General would give it the needful aid. Nevertheless the Company forgot its fears, pinning its faith on the one hand to the 'great hopes and promises' which,
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it said, were held out to it in England, and on the other to what it considered a 'favorable inclination on the part of Governor Winterop' of Connecticut. Undoubtedly, it wrote to Stuyvesant, King Charles would immediately ratify the Hartford Treaty, and undoubtedly New England would not support the few rebels on Long Island. Thus encouraging the governor, it sent him sixty soldiers, a meagre supply of ammunition, a copy of its charter as newly confirmed, much elaborate advice about fortifications, finances, trade, and taxes, and mandatory letters from the States General to the Long Island towns.
Undoubtedly the demand of the States General about the Hartford Treaty helped to crystallize the desires of the king into a determination to seize New Netherland at once. He made no reply, for to ratify the treaty would have been to resign all claim to the province, to refuse would have been to warn the Dutch to protect it. Just at this time a committee of three members of the Council for Plantations, appointed to receive complaints about New Netherland and to decide upon the feasibility of capturing it, presented their report. One of the three was the secretary of the Duke of York. The others were Sir John Berkeley, a brother of the governor of Virginia, and Sir George Carteret. Both of these were among the patentees to whom a charter for the province of Carolina, to extend from Virginia to the borders of Spanish Florida, had been given in 1663; and both were intimate friends of the duke intent upon profiting personally and largely by the enterprise on his behalf which now they counselled the king to undertake. Three ships, they said, with about three hundred soldiers would suffice to reduce New Netherland, for on Long Island one-third of the 1900 people were English, Englishmen would 'come freely' from the other colonies to help, and the Indians might probably be engaged 'if need require.'
In February, when Scott was announcing on Long Island what were still state secrets in England, active measures against
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the Dutch in other quarters were put in hand. Borrowing two men-of-war from the king, the Duke of York as patron of the Royal African Company secretly despatched a small squadron commanded by Robert Holmes to attack the posts of the West India Company on the western coast of Africa. Lord Clarendon confessed, says Samuel Pepys, that this expedition was sent 'without any shadow of justice,' for war had not yet been declared. Nevertheless, as soon as it was upon its way another enterprise, of a distinctly piratical sort, was organized, and this time the king himself took the lead in the work.
His first move was to give away, in the manner that Scott had foretold, the region that he intended to seize. On March 12 he bestowed upon his brother the Duke of York a charter covering that part of the district called Maine which extended from the point nearest Nova Scotia westward to Pemaquid and northward to Canada, with Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket,
And also all that island or islands commonly called Matowacks or Long Island situate, lying, and being towards the west of Cape Cod and the Narro Higansetts abutting upon the main land between the two rivers there called or known by the several names of Conectecutte and Hudson's River. Together also with the said river called Hudson's River and all the land from the west side of Connectecutte River to the east side of De La Ware Bay.
A duplicate of this patent, given the duke as evidence of title, now hangs under glass in the State Library at Albany - a single sheet of parchment measuring 32 by 27 inches, beauti- fully engrossed in black and red with a deep floriated border at the top. The original and the warrant given by Charles for its preparation are in the Public Record Office in London. The warrant shows that the first intention was to give the duke only the region between the Hudson River and the Delaware. It is not known whether the fact that the patent as actually drawn ignored the terms of the charter recently bestowed upon Connecticut was due to ignorance, carelessness, or design; but it is known that the Connecticut charter had
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passed the great seal with the understanding that boundary questions were left open for future settlement. The bestowal within so short a time of these two patents and of those ob- tained for Rhode Island and Carolina was merely one feature in that general distribution of rewards and sources of mainte- nance to the needy faithful which followed the Restoration. But the fact that powers and privileges in America were bestowed upon a royal duke and other impoverished English- men of high station, as well as upon colonials believed to be loyal, shows, as does in another way the passage of the Navi- gation Acts, how greatly interest in the colonies increased after the fall of the Commonwealth and the cessation of civil strife in England. Also it marks the seizure of New Nether- land as part of a genuine if as yet somewhat inchoate desire to bring England's colonial domain to a fuller development.
In defining the duke's territories his patent said nothing of their owners or inhabitants, speaking here as it might have spoken of uninhabited lands. And in transferring to the duke all the king's rights, powers, and privileges therein, and all emoluments that might accrue therefrom, it did not even hint that part of his domain would have to be acquired by force or that another part was already under a government recently recognized by a royal charter. It simply gave him the power to govern all such subjects of the king of England and his heirs and successors
. . as shall from time to time adventure themselves into any the parts or places aforesaid or that shall or do at any time thereafter inhabit within the same ... ,
this power to be exercised through such laws, ordinances, and directions as the duke might frame, but 'as near as con- veniently may be' in accordance with the laws of England and with a right of appeal to the king expressly reserved to the inhabitants.
Toward the cost of the intended expedition the king gave his brother £4000. The claims of Lord Stirling, grandson of the patentee of that name, which covered the Maine country, VOL. I .- 2 L
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Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket as well as Long Island, were bought by Clarendon for his son-in-law the duke with a promise of £35,000. And in April the duke gave a com- mission as deputy-governor of all his anticipated possessions to Colonel Richard Nicolls whom the king then authorized to raise recruits for the enterprise in which he was to bear the chief command. Nicolls, always a devoted royalist, had commanded a troop of horse in the civil wars, following the Stuart princes into exile had served with James in France in the wars of the Fronde, and since the Restoration had been one of his gentlemen of the bedchamber. He understood, it appears, both Dutch and French.
Thus the demand of Captain Scott for the governorship of Long Island was forgotten or ignored, to his great dissatis- faction and, as will appear, to the great future detriment of the province soon to be called New York.
All the preparations regarding New Netherland were kept secret lest Holland take alarm and send aid to its colonists. Nor was it difficult to mask them, for the king appointed a commission, composed of Colonel Nicolls, Colonel Sir Robert Carr, Colonel Sir Robert Cartwright, and the New Englander Samuel Maverick, which he empowered to inquire into 'the state of New England,' to receive the complaints of its people, and to settle 'the peace and security of the said country.' This was the ostensible purpose of the expedition. But the king's instructions to the four commissioners said that first of all they were to reduce to an 'entire obedience' the Dutch on or near Long Island and everywhere else within his do- minions. These aliens, he explained, supplied 'a constant receptacle and sanctuary' for all mutinous and discontented English colonials, and
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