USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century. Vol. I > Part 46
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This day was September 8 on the Dutch (the New Style) calendar, August 29 on the English calendar that was now to be used on Manhattan. Before the sun had set, Cornelis
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THE FALL OF NEW AMSTERDAM
1664]
Van Ruyven, now no longer the secretary of the province, wrote to the town of Boswyck and doubtless in similar words to the other Dutch towns of the neighborhood :
It has happened that the New Netherland is given up to the English and that Peter Stuyvesant, Governor for the West India Company, has marched out of the fort with his men by Beaver Lane to the Holland shipping which lay there at the time; and that Governor Richard Nicolls, in the name of the king of England, ordered a corporal's guard to take possession of the fort. Afterwards the governor, with two companies of men, marched into the fort accompanied by the burgo- masters of the city who inducted him as governor and gave him a wel- come reception. Governor Nicolls has altered the name of the city of New Amsterdam and named the same New York, and the fort, Fort James.
Nicolls was installed by the burgomasters and proclaimed to his new subjects as deputy-governor for the Duke of York ; but the duke had delegated to him and a council which he was at once to form all his own autocratic powers. It was in honor of the duke that the city and the fort received their new names; yet naturally the Latin name for New York, Novum Eboracum, reproduced the Roman name of the city of York in England.
By special agreement only the English regulars were al- lowed to cross the ferry, for the burghers, in Stuyvesant's words, were especially afraid of being plundered by their ' most bitter enemies' the New England and Long Island volun- teers. These soon dispersed to their homes, Nicolls promising in a letter to John Young, as commander of the Long Island militia, that 'in convenient time and place' deputies should be summoned 'to propose and give their advice in all matters tending to the peace and benefit of Long Island.' Part of the Dutch troops, now grumbling loudly because they had not been permitted to fight, embarked on the slave-ship Gideon and a few days later, with a safe-conduct from Nicolls, sailed for Holland. General Stuyvesant remained on Manhattan. The city magistrates, secured in their offices by the Articles of Surrender, continued to perform their functions as before, dealing with petty thefts and disputed bargains on the very
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1663,
day when they prepared their letter of farewell to the West India Company.
This letter, signed 'Your sorrowful and abandoned sub- jects' and indorsed 'Done in Jorck heretofore named Am- sterdam in New Netherland, Anno 1664, the 16th September,' was sent by the Gideon as were likewise the one from Domine Drisius that has also been quoted and the official reports of the surrender. These appear to have been papers of which only extracts are preserved. One, called a Register of the Principal Events which Occurred in the Attack upon and Re- duction of New Netherland, ended with the words
And thereupon . . . the place of New Amsterdam in New Nether- land, situate on the Manhatans, surrendered to the English, the garri- son retiring with all their arms, flying colors and beating drums; and thereby the English, without any contest or claim being put forth by any person to it, took possession of a fort built and continually garri- soned about forty years at the expense of the West India Company.
To be exact, it was fifty-five years since Hudson's dis- covery of Manhattan, forty-one years since the birth of the province and the beginning of the West India Company's niggardly, selfish, myopic system of administration. It was thirty-eight years since the birth of the town, eleven since its incorporation as a city.
The other report was a General Letter, addressed to the Company, of which the surviving fragment reads :
And what is above stated was done to us by pretended friends in time of peace, not by way of reprisal or pretence that they had suf- fered wrong but only, as they unanimously declare, intimate, and express by their summons and published commission . .. that this country, belonging to the crown and domain of England's Majesty, had thus long been unjustly usurped and possessed etc.
Dated Amsterdam in New Netherland, 17th September, 1664, we having been ordered on the 7th not to call this place otherwise than New York, on the Island of Manhattan, in America.
In truth, the conquest of New Netherland, as it is often called, was really a lawless capture or seizure. It was a proof,
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1664]
wrote Samuel Pepys at the time, that the English were doing 'mischief' to the Dutch 'in several parts of the world without public knowledge or reason.' Undoubtedly Charles had been led to believe not only that, as the heir of the Cabots' employer, he had an indisputable right to the territory but also that the Dutch were recent and aggressive 'intruders' there. Moreover, a time had come when England could not do without the central portion of the American seaboard and when the temptation to seize it was peculiarly strong. None the less Charles seized it in defiance of the law of nations as this law was even in his day understood. Secretly and behind a screen of lies he took possession of a province that he had never asked might be ceded to him, that he had never openly claimed, and that was held by a power with which he had re- cently agreed not to right by force just such wrongs as those that he alleged in excuse of force. Whatever may now be thought of the validity of his title to New Netherland, unquestionably he asserted it by means not of a naval or even of a privateer- ing but of a buccaneering enterprise, planned and carried out under conditions that made it a flagrant example of bad faith.
As to the validity of his title, it is one of those questions which, for other reasons than a lack of evidence, the historian cannot hope to call questions closed. For and against it the same sufficiency of undisputed facts has been plausibly used in arguments which are best described as the geometrician describes parallel lines. The unargumentative, unlearned opinion that has prevailed on Manhattan itself was recorded by the poet of the Revolution, Philip Freneau a New Yorker of Huguenot descent, when, telling how Charles II 'sent over a squadron' to assert his claims, he wrote:
Had his sword and his title been equally slender In vain had they summoned Mynheer to surrender The soil they demanded, or threaten'd their worst, Declaring that Cabot had looked on it first.
The absorption of New Netherland by the English had begun, however, in the year 1634 when the bark from Ply- VOL. I. - 2 M
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK [1663, 1664
mouth sailed up the Connecticut River carrying the ready- made frame of a block-house. Thirty years of constant aggressions, thirty years of unavailing protests on the spot and futile demands for aid from Holland, had taught the New Netherlanders to foresee the inevitable and to recognize it when it came. They loved their Patria but detested their actual overlord the West India Company. They hated the Englishman, but their dread of him had grown so slowly that the actual touch of his yoke could not excite such reckless bursts of courage as may follow sudden bursts of rage. The moderation and the good-will of Colonel Nicolls were evident ; the Articles of Surrender were clear, comprehensive, and more favorable, probably, than have ever been granted to any other captured place; and the half-century of indepen- dence enjoyed by New England seemed to guarantee to New Netherland at least the measure of self-government it had already secured. In the event almost every shred of political liberty was taken away from it. But such an outcome of so peaceful, so amply guarded a surrender could not be antici- pated. Therefore the people of New Amsterdam accepted their fate quietly and hopefully, seeing no reason why they should break their personal or commercial ties with their fatherland or should cease to feel themselves its children.
REFERENCE NOTES
PRINCIPAL PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS : Col. Docs., II, III, XIII, XIV (398) ; General Entries, V, 1 (396) ; Appendix to Commemoration of the Conquest of New Netherland (380) ; Records of New Amster- dam, IV, V (360) ; Cal. Hist. MSS., Dutch (390) ; Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668 (485) [especially useful for this period, containing a number of papers not included in the Col. Docs.]
GENERAL AUTHORITIES : O'Callaghan, Hist. of New Netherland, II (382) ; Brodhead, Hist. of New York, I, II (405) ; Thompson, (291), Flint (287), and other histories of Long Island; Stevens, The English in New York (419) ; Japikse, Verwikkelingen tusschen de Republiek en Engeland (523); Blok, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk, V (348); Kaye, English Colonial Adminis- tration under Lord Clarendon (103) ; Lefèvre-Pontalis, John De Witt (525); Lister, Life of Lord Clarendon (100).
ADAM SMITH (quoted) : his Wealth of Nations (535). STUYVESANT ABOUT NEW AMSTEL: in Col. Docs., XII.
WEST INDIA COMPANY : see Reference Notes, Chap. I.
SOUTH AFRICA : Theale, Hist. of South Africa under the Dutch (478). DUTCH BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS: Asher, Dutch Books . . . Relating to New Netherland (7) ; Critical Essay accompanying Fernow, New Netherland (383).
COMMITTEE FOR TRADE AND PLANTATIONS : Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668 ; Andrews, British Committees, Commissions, etc. (77) ; Introduction to Col. Docs., III.
NAVIGATION ACTS IN WEST INDIES : Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668.
ENDICOTT TO KING CHARLES: in Hazard, Historical Collections (102) ; Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668.
PLOWDEN AND ARGALL : see Reference Notes, Chap. I.
SAMUEL MAVERICK : J. Josselyn, Voyage to New England (529) ; Sav- age, Genea. Dict. (200); histories of New England. - His Brief Description of New England, Boston, 1885, and in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 2d Series, I.
ANONYMOUS PAPER OF 1663: in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 1st Series, X, and in Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668.
THOMAS MUN (quoted) : his England's Treasure by Forraign Trade (179).
531
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
PEPYS (quoted) : his Diary (157).
HUME (quoted) : his Hist. of England (176).
BLOK (cited) : as above.
GEORGE DOWNING: Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4th Series, VI; J. L. Sibley, Biographical Sketches of the Grad- uates of Harvard University, Cambridge, 1873; W. Tudor, Life of James Otis, Boston, 1823; Japikse, Blok, Lister, as above. MAVERICK TO CLARENDON : in Clarendon Papers (101).
GEORGE BAXTER'S PETITION : in Cal. S. P. Col., 1574-1660.
JOHN SCOTT (also ATHERTON COMPANY) : Col. Docs., II, III, XIV; Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668; Records of Connecticut Colony (125) ; Records of the Colony or Jurisdiction of New Haven [with fur- ther references] (373); Hutchinson, Original Papers (311) ; Clarendon Papers; Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collec- tions, 4th Series, VII, and 5th Series, I; Trumbull Papers, ibid., 5th Series, IX; Aspinwall, The Narragansett Patents in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 1st Series, VI; Thompson, Flint, and other histories of Long Island; Palfrey, Hist. of New England (363) ; Arnold, Hist. of Rhode Island (459); Richman, Rhode Island (460).
COMPLAINT OF THE FARMERS OF THE CUSTOMS: in Col. Docs., III. ORDER TO SCOTT, MAVERICK, AND BAXTER: in Col. Docs., III, and Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668.
STUYVESANT AT BOSTON : see Reference Notes, Chap. XII.
CONVENTIONS : Records of New Amsterdam, IV; Cal. Hist. MSS., Dutch; Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts (513); and see Ref- erence Notes, Chap. XI. - REMONSTRANCE OF 1663: in Col. Docs., II.
NAVESINK EXPEDITION : Col. Docs., XIII; Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668. SCOTT TO WILLIAMSON : in Col. Docs., III, and Cal. S. P. Col., 1661- 1668.
LONG ISLAND: Col. Docs., II, XIV; histories of Long Island. - REMONSTRANCE OF THE DUTCH TOWNS: in Col. Docs., II.
CITY LOAN : Records of New Amsterdam, V.
UNDERHILL TO WINTHROP : in Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4th Series, VII.
SCOTT ON LONG ISLAND: Col. Docs., II, XIV.
REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF THREE ABOUT NEW NETHERLAND: Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668.
DUKE OF YORK'S PATENT: Original in Public Record Office, London ; duplicate in N. Y. State Library ; printed in Colonial Laws of New York, I (272), in Brodhead, Hist. of New York, I, Appendix, and in Thompson, Hist. of Long Island, II, Appendix. - Cal. S. P.
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REFERENCE NOTES
Col., 1661-1668; Marshall, The New York Charter (92) ; Regents' Reports . .. on the Boundaries of New York (71).
RICHARD NICOLLS : Notes to O'Callaghan's ed. of Wolley, Two Years' Journal in New York (256); E. H. Nicol, Biography of Colonel Richard Nicolls, in N. Y. Genea. and Bio. Record, XV (199). - His COMMISSION from the Duke of York: in Hazard, Historical Collections, in Brodhead, Hist. of New York, II, Appendix, in Commemoration of the Conquest of New Netherland, Appendix, and in Pirsson, Dutch Grants (207).
COMMISSION AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ROYAL COMMISSIONERS : in Col. Docs., III, in Hazard, Historical Collections, and in Trumbull, Hist. of Connecticut, I, Appendix.
RICHARD MILLS (quoted) : in Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 5th Series, IX.
SELYNS (quoted) : in Ecc. Records, I (167), and in Col. Docs., XIII. WILLETT TO STUYVESANT: Cal. Hist. MSS., Dutch.
WILLETT AND WINTHROP LETTERS ABOUT INDIANS: in Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 5th Series, I, VIII.
MAVERICK (quoted) : in Col. Docs., III.
NEW ENGLAND AND NICOLLS'S EXPEDITION: Col. Docs., II, III; Records of the several New England colonies; General Entries, V, 1; Hutchinson, Hist. of Massachusetts-Bay, I (313) ; histories of New England.
MAGISTRATES OF NEW AMSTERDAM TO THE WEST INDIA COMPANY: in Records of New Amsterdam, V, in Valentine's Manual, 1860, and in Commemoration of the Conquest of New Netherland.
DRISIUS (cited) : in Ecc. Records, I, in Col. Docs., XIII, and in Com- memoration of the Conquest of New Netherland.
CORRESPONDENCE PRECEDING THE SURRENDER: in General Entries, V, 1, in Commemoration of the Conquest of New Netherland, in Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4th Series, VI, and 5th Series, VIII, in Cal. Hist. MSS., Dutch, and in Cal. S. P. Col., 1661-1668. - STUYVESANT'S REPORTS: in Col. Docs., II. REMONSTRANCE OF 1664: in Col. Docs., II, and in Ecc. Records, I. VAN RUYVEN TO BOSWYCK: in Stiles, Hist. of Brooklyn, I (293), and in Commemoration of the Conquest of New Netherland.
NICOLLS TO JOHN YOUNG: in Col. Docs., XIV.
REGISTER OF PRINCIPAL EVENTS ON THE REDUCTION OF NEW NETHER- LAND and GENERAL LETTER: in Col. Docs., II.
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