USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century Vol. II > Part 10
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Writing in 1759 Cadwallader Colden said, with justice, that the facts of the surrender of 1673 had been incorrectly given in William Smith's history of the province. He himself had been told by some of the Dutch inhabitants 'who remem- bered the thing well' that when the Dutch ships 'came under Staten Island' they had no thought of seizing New York but meant only to take in wood and water, but that the Dutch people there, informing him of the weakness of the place, invited him to take possession of it. Of course these people knew nothing of the incident that Gould recorded, nor had it come to Smith's or Colden's notice.
Although this second capture of Manhattan was as easily effected as the first it was more creditable to the captors,
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being a genuine conquest honorably undertaken in a time of war. And it was less creditable to the vanquished for, while Stuyvesant had done all that any man could, Lovelace was inexcusably careless and Manning scarcely attempted to make terms.
The first despatches sent home by the Dutch commanders were lost at sea like those in which Colonel Nicolls had an- nounced his success nine years before; the extant minutes of Lovelace's council end with July 4; and the city records are missing from October 12, 1672, to August 17, 1673. Only from English sources can any ample account of what happened be gathered. The best account that he had seen, John Winthrop wrote to his son Fitz-John toward the end of September, was a 'narrative' in the hands of John Sharpe and, he supposed, 'his own collection.' Sharpe was an attorney-at-law who, as Governor Nicolls once wrote home, had come over with him 'in his Majesty's service.' He had been with Manning in the fort at the time of the surrender; and his narrative, written in the third person, resembles, although it is more detailed, the official report upon the surrender, called Exact Account of all the Proceedings of the Military Officers of Fort James from 28 July, 1673, to the Surrender of the Fort, which is now in the Public Record Office in London bearing the signatures of Manning and of Thomas and Dudley Lovelace and indorsed 'Captain Manning's Papers about New York.'
Presumably Sharpe himself carried the letter which men- tions him from Governor Winthrop to his son, for Fitz- John Winthrop made a copy of his narrative. It says - to summarize its many details - that on Monday, July 28, Thomas Lovelace came in a canoe from Staten Island, 'against tide, though a swelling sea,' to bring word that six large ships were in sight from Sandy Hook. 'The whole town was in an uproar.' The officers of the fort were Captain Manning, Captain Dudley Lovelace, and Captain John Carr who had been in charge of the Delaware country. To recall the gov- ernor they despatched a mounted messenger who, as Love-
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lace's letter to Winthrop shows, met him at New Haven; and they sent out a boat to scout, ordered the Long Island militia to repair at once to Fort James, fired beacons to warn the people of danger, and set strong guards at night. The city, it was feared, could not muster a hundred fighting men, and the fort and its guns were almost useless. Late at night it was known that nineteen ships had come. All of this, says Sharpe,
. . . did so bereave our men of their wonted liveliness and vigor that in all that night there was little or nothing done in the way of preparation for an enemy.
On the morning of Tuesday twenty-one sail were counted in the lower bay. Manning pressed provisions in the city but had no time 'to think of mending' his guns or their carriages and platforms. The Long Islanders would not come in; and, 'the Dutch standing neuter,' only ten or twelve 'town livers' joined the sixty soldiers in the fort. 'All the town who stood in throngs by the waterside was in a strange hurly-burly' when during the afternoon several great frigates came through the Narrows and anchored 'under Staten Island.' All night the people 'took little rest,' some of them hurrying their goods out of the city while 'most of the English' thought 'no place so safe for their storage as the fort.'
On Wednesday morning the garrison 'cheerfully' made itself 'as ready for a brush' as it could though it had heard that the fleet carried three thousand men and still 'not a man' from Long Island appeared:
. . . a high shame for Englishmen, who have always worn the garland as to point of honor and valor, that in such an eminent occa- sion they should draw their necks out of the collar to save a few dirty goods (which is all they pretend for their non-assistance). . . .
Each party now despatched a boat under a flag of truce, Manning instructing his envoys, who were Thomas Lovelace,
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Carr, and Sharpe, to ask why such a fleet had come and to treat in an amicable and friendly way, and Evertsen and Binckes sending by a trumpeter a summons to surrender with a promise of 'good quarter.' To gain time, hoping that the governor and the Long Islanders would arrive, Manning kept the trumpeter two or three hours, 'treating him with meat, drink, and wine, and such accommodations,' and then sent him back to say that he could give no answer until his own envoys should return. Meanwhile part of the Dutch squadron stood up the bay, as Nicolls's ships had done, and drew near to Nooten Island while the English soldiers, their courage revived, cried eagerly, 'Let us fire ! Let us fire !' When the envoys returned they reported that the Dutchmen would give 'half an hour to consider of surrendering and no more' and had 'turned up' the hour-glass. 'Very proudly' they received Manning's plea for a delay until the next morn- ing, saying 'one half-hour more' and turning the glass again. Thereupon the Englishmen 'locked up' the fort, determined 'to stand upon their defence.' After the ships had fired a warning shot to say that the half-hour had expired both sides fired for 'about an hour.' Then, seeing that six dilapi- dated cannon could not oppose nine men-of-war and fearing an uprising of the townsfolk, the garrison 'put up a flag of truce ... and beat a parley.' Nevertheless the ships kept on firing while they were landing men on the North River shore, and soon 'the enemy was marching down the Broad Way' to storm the fort.
The commander of this storming party, Captain Anthony Colve, pausing before he reached the fort sent a trumpeter to ask whether it would surrender. Manning sent back three messengers vaguely instructed to make the best terms they could. Two of them Colve held prisoners, telling the third, Captain Carr, to inform Manning that he might have a quarter- hour in which to submit definite proposals. Carr brought no reply. When the quarter-hour had 'more than double ex- pired' the Dutchmen 'in a rage' began to march again. Then it was learned that Carr had not carried the message to the
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fort. He had deserted - 'like a traitor he had turned an- other way and was never since seen !' Granted still another delay, the Englishmen now asked in writing that the garri- son should march out with the honors of war and that all persons 'belonging either to the fort or town' who were within the fort should go where they pleased, unmolested, 'with their goods, bag and baggage.' Captain Colve promised this, says Sharpe, on 'the word and honor of a gentleman and soldier,' saying that he had no time to write; and about seven or eight hundred Dutch soldiers marched into the fort, the English troops 'making a guard for them.'
The Exact Account, Nathan Gould's account, and other English reports and letters, some of them sent to England by Governor Leverett of Massachusetts with a despatch of his own, give details which supplement Sharpe's narrative or now and again contradict it. Persons, it was written, who went 'privately' from Staten Island and Long Island to the fleet when it first appeared bore witness that the people were 'ready to revolt,' being dissatisfied 'with the oppression of such as ruled the town and trade.' At once Evertsen wrote to the city magistrates promising all men their 'estates and liberties.' Certain volunteers who presented themselves at the State House promptly spiked the guns of the half- moon batteries near by. When Manning hoisted his flag of truce Captain Carr without orders pulled down the king's ensign. When Colve's troops landed (above the governor's garden, back of the site of Trinity Church) four hundred Dutch burghers 'all armed' met their fellow-countrymen and encouraged them to storm the fort. Nine of the invading vessels were men-of-war - 'not privateers but commissioned by the State to make spoil where they could'; the others were prize-ships. The largest fleet by far yet seen in the harbor of Manhattan it bore, all told, 1600 soldiers and seamen. Two English ships laden with merchandise that were captured in the harbor had not tried to aid the town or to defend themselves although one of them carried thirty- five guns. In the bombardment of the fort, it appears, only
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one man was killed on each side. The deserter, Captain Carr, fled to the Delaware country. Dutch historians say that six hundred men were landed with Captain Colve; also, that when the envoys from the fort asked Evertsen to show his instructions he replied that they were sticking in the mouth of one of his guns. And Cadwallader Colden's account says that when the Dutch ships came up to the town the inhabitants all flocked to the shore 'to welcome them with all the demonstrations of joy which they could make.' Doubt- less the Dutchmen thought themselves well justified in thus receiving the invaders, for they had been promised that they need not bear arms against any nation, and those who were not office-holders had taken only the conditional oath of allegiance, 'whilst I live in any of his Majesty's territories.'
After the English soldiers had marched out of the fort with the honors of war they were ordered in again, disarmed, and sent on board the Dutch ships while all the goods stored in the fort were confiscated. Thus, says Sharpe, Colve broke his promises. But not all the English accounts say that he promised anything, and he himself and the Dutch com- manders always averred that the place had surrendered without making any terms at all - without 'the smallest capitulation.' In the first excitement the Dutch troops plundered the houses of Lovelace, Manning, and Thomas Delavall who was the duke's auditor-general, sparing that of the English mayor, John Lawrence, because of the prayers of the burghers. The disorder was at once suppressed and a soldier afterwards caught thieving was condemned to death. Manning was courteously treated and permitted to retain his sword. Within a few days, the up-river garrisons having surrendered without trying to make terms, Manning and his wife, Dudley Lovelace, and part of the English troops were sent away on some of the Dutch ships which, after destroy- ing scores of fishing vessels and making a number of prizes off the coast of Newfoundland, proceeded to Fayal. Here the Englishmen were landed, penniless as Manning reported
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when with great difficulty, his wife dying on the journey, he had made his way at last to England.
Governor Lovelace reached Long Island but raised no militia there. Two depositions say that he returned to the fort on Manhattan with one of the Dutch commanders who had gone to seek him. Governor Leverett's report asserts that he was persuaded by one of the Dutch domines to come to the city for three days. As soon as he arrived some of the burghers caused his arrest for debt, and although he was not imprisoned he was forbidden to leave the province until his obligations should be discharged.
The Secret Instructions given to Evertsen settle the oft- debated question whether he and Binckes captured New York with or without orders. The general government of the Republic had nothing to do with the expedition; and the government of the province of Zealand had ordered simply that under certain conditions New York should be attacked and pillaged. When it was captured the two commanders had to arrange on their own responsibility for its provisional administration. Neither outranked the other. Alternately, day and day about, they held command of their combined fleets. And in perfect accord, so far as can be read, they made their civil and military arrangements - arbitrarily, of course, and rapidly, but evidently with the advice of some of the Dutch residents and certainly with thoroughness, modera- tion, and much intelligence. At once they restored the old Dutch name of the province. City and fort they named afresh, New Orange and Fort Willem Hendrick. Albany they called Willemstadt and for its fort they revived, un- wittingly no doubt, the title of the very first post planted at this place, Fort Nassau. All these names they gave in honor of the young Prince of Orange.
August 9 was the day of the surrender according to the Dutch calendar. On the 12th the commanders appointed their military associate, Captain Anthony Colve, to be gov- ernor-general of the province and the fort, setting the bounda-
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ries of the province on the mainland as the Hartford Treaty of 1650 had defined them but claiming for it the whole of Long Island. As an 'expert person' to assist the governor they chose Cornelis Steenwyck, naming him first councillor; but they did not issue either his commission or Colve's until the government had been reconstructed by a council of war composed of themselves, Colve, and two other captains.
The minutes of this council of war, beginning on August 12, show that it then released the old city magistrates from their oaths to King Charles and the Duke of York. Mayor Lawrence surrendered the city seal, the mace, and the magistrates' gowns. On the 17th the council reestab- lished the magistracy in its old Dutch form but with three burgomasters instead of two, the double nominations having been made by a vote of the burghers at large, the choice of the incumbents of course by the council. The burgomasters were Johannes De Peyster, Johannes Van Brugh, and Ægidius Luyck; the schout was Anthony De Milt. Included in the magistrates' oath of office was a pledge to maintain the Christian religion 'conformably to the Word of God and the order of the Synod of Dordreght, as taught in the Church of Netherland.' It did not imply any proscription of other faiths but tacitly it excluded from municipal office those not in communion with the Dutch church and therefore pre- sumably all or almost all Englishmen.
Naturally the oath of allegiance administered to the people at large took no account of the West India Company whose lost province had been recovered by the fleets of Zealand and Amsterdam. It prescribed obedience to the ‘Lords States General' and 'his Highness of Orange' and to such officials as might represent them. Englishmen it excused from taking up arms against their fellow-countrymen unless these should come in company with the forces of another nation - meaning of course the French.
Staten Island, the Five Dutch Towns on Long Island, and their English neighbor Gravesend had instantly welcomed the new masters of the province. In Governor Carteret's
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absence the chief places in New Jersey had also volunteered submission. All the other towns near Manhattan and on Long Island were ordered to send delegates to give in their allegiance, a proclamation promising that, although the sur- render had been 'without any capitulation or articles,' every inhabitant would be treated as a 'true and faithful' subject as long as he so demeaned himself.
On August 18 the council of war nominally sequestered all property belonging to the kings of France and England and their subjects but actually attached only the estates of the representatives of Charles and the Duke of York. Those who suffered were Governor Lovelace, Thomas Delavall, and Delavall's son-in-law William Dervall who is usually thought to have been an Englishman but must have been a Dutch- man as Governor Leverett once so described him and Gov- ernor Nicolls had issued to him letters of denization which an Englishman did not require. What Lovelace lost by this confiscation he himself described when, in August, he wrote to Winthrop that digitus Dei had decreed the fall of New York:
Would you be curious to know what my losses amount to I can in short resolve you. It was my all which ever I had been collecting ; too great to miss in this wilderness.
Thomas Delavall, it appears, had become the chief land- holder at New Harlem and had considerable possessions else- where - one or two of the East River Islands, a warehouse at Kingston, and property at Albany. At first the collector of customs, afterwards auditor-general of the duke's revenues, he was now accused of having collected the tapsters' excise without paying the debts which according to the Articles of Surrender of 1664 should have been discharged with it - that is, the war-loan advanced by the city to Stuyvesant as the representative of the West India Company.
The Dutch and English towns near Manhattan, all receiv- ing local governments of the Dutch pattern, were formed into several groups under district courts resembling those of Stuyvesant's time and the more recent courts of sessions.
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The court of New Harlem continued in subordination to the city court, and another of the same kind was erected for the 'Out District' which, extending from the Kalck Hoek Pond or Fresh Water to New Harlem, embraced the Bowery village. Five commissioners were sent to administer the oath of allegiance on Long Island, two of them being Eng- lishmen - William Lawrence a brother of John, and Charles Bridges who had long been an office-holder under Governor Stuyvesant and was more generally known as Carel Van Brugge. The English towns were warned not to resist the government as they had in Stuyvesant's time 'contrary to honor and oath.' The up-river communities, the Delaware country, and New Jersey, which was renamed Achter Col from the early name of Newark Bay, were also peacefully and thoroughly reorganized. Everything was done, of course, subject to approval or revision by the home authorities. A full account and balance were demanded from Cornelis Van Ruyven as collector and receiver-general of the Duke of York's revenues.
The English residents of the city, John Sharpe declared, suffered 'hard imposures and molestations' besides 'the ex- tirpation of them all from out their territories' as soon as the new Dutch rulers had got 'all they had . .. the narrative whereof . . cannot but draw tears from all tender-hearted Christians.' This meant that so many strangers were com- ing and going at New Orange who would give no account of themselves that for safety's sake the council of war decreed that only Dutch subjects should remain there or should enter without a license. A few Englishmen, John Lawrence among them, then consented to take the oath that saved them from banishment; and thus they also saved their estates when the property of all subjects of England and France except those who resided in the other colonies was actually sequestrated in the name of the Republic.
On the day before this order was issued, September 19, Anthony Colve was installed as governor-general with Steen-
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wyck as his first and for the time his only councillor and Nicholas Bayard as his secretary and the receiver-general of the province. On September 27 Evertsen and Binckes sailed for Holland together, taking some of their prize-ships with them and sending others to the neighboring English colonies to deliver the English prisoners whom, on account of their great number, they could not take home. Two of their vessels they left to protect the harbor - the Surinam of 24 guns commanded by Captain Evert Evertsen Franszoon, and the snow Zeehont (Seal) a smaller vessel commanded by Captain Cornelis Eewoutzen. Colonel Lovelace, ordered now to leave the province, was taken by his own request on Binckes's ship, Thomas Delavall accompanying him. His brother Thomas got permission to remain. Probably Love- lace had nothing to carry away with him except forty beaver skins given him 'in consideration of the wampum he had delivered to the council of war.' Driven by storms to Fayal, by the end of December the squadron had got no farther than Cadiz on its homeward way.
During the war then in progress Jacob Binckes served the Republic again in the West Indies, taking for it Cayenne, St. Martin where many years before General Stuyvesant had lost his leg, and some of the other French Antilles. He was killed on shore in 1677 while defending Tobago against the French - blown up in the explosion of a powder magazine. Cornelis Evertsen the Younger had a longer career. He was one of the two admirals in command of the fleet which in 1688 carried William of Orange to England; and it was he who in 1690 saved the English fleet from disaster in the battle of Beachy Head when the English admiral treacherously left his Dutch allies to bear the brunt of the French attack. A journal written by Evertsen and preserved among the archives of the province of Zealand may contain details as yet unpublished about the conquest of New York and its reorganization as a Dutch province.
Governor Colve soon enlarged his council, which served of course as the superior court of the province, by the addition
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of Nicholas Bayard, Cornelis Van Ruyven, and Willem Knyffe, an infantry officer who filled the revived office of schout- fiscal. In all important affairs the governor consulted also the city magistrates. He was described by an envoy from Connecticut as 'a man of resolute spirit and passionate' who managed matters 'so as is not satisfactory to the people nor soldiers.' But the needs of the moment, which had required that not a civilian resident but a soldier be set to govern the province, called for strictness, even sternness, as well as for much activity and alertness on the governor's part. Things were not as they had been when Colonel Nicolls cap- tured the place in a time of peace. Now it instantly feared an attack from England or New England.
In October, because the city was so encumbered by 'houses, gardens, and orchards . .. close under its walls and bul- warks' that it could not be rightly defended, the magistrates concurred in Colve's order that the buildings adjacent to the fort and to the wall, including the new Lutheran church, should be razed or moved, the damage to be appraised and the owners to be compensated from the proceeds of extra import and export duties. This was duly done, the com- mittee of appraisement consisting of the three burgomasters, Councillor Steenwyck, and two carpenters. Martin Cregier in concert with a military engineer was appointed to super- intend this work and also the repairing or rebuilding of the city wall. All burghers and inhabitants were to contribute the labor of their hands. The burgher guard was reorganized with three foot-companies, and a company of horse.
The towns of the eastern end of Long Island when first summoned to accept the new order of things had asked for privileges larger than the council of war could grant, and had then refused or temporized while appealing to Con- necticut to receive and to protect them. Connecticut hoped that the return of the Dutch meant a chance to secure the whole of Long Island for itself; yet, fearful at first for its own safety, it did not receive the supplicants but merely sent envoys to Manhattan to reproach the Dutch commanders
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for troubling English towns and for capturing a Connecticut vessel. The Long Islanders were subjects of Holland, the commanders replied, and the vessel belonged to the enemies of Holland whom they had been ordered to injure as much as they could. In October the eastern towns were formally summoned to take the oaths of allegiance. Three of them, refusing, sent another appeal to Connecticut. Then the government of Connecticut wrote to Colve that it would resent any 'malicious oppression' of his Majesty's subjects, explaining that, as it was not 'the manner of Christian or civil nations' to disturb poor people 'in country cottages and open villages in time of war,' he was probably seeking 'some plausible pretence of plundering and pillaging.' If such things should happen, said the writers, they well knew where there might be 'easy reparation' among the farms and villages of New Netherland. Indignantly Colve returned a copy of this letter to Governor Winthrop, writing that he could not believe that so 'impertinent and absurd' a document had come from persons 'bearing the name of Governor and General Court.' The Long Island towns, he said, had at first submitted upon favorable conditions, surrendered their colors and constables' staves, and chosen new magistrates; and they would peacefully have taken the oath but for the counsels of 'evilly disposed' persons from Connecticut. Every one, he added, knew how much more gently than the Eng- lish the Hollanders always treated 'vanquished enemies.' Winthrop replied that the letter was genuine and com- mended it to Colve's consideration.
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