USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century Vol. II > Part 22
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Long before this Brockholls had learned, doubtless with satisfaction, that a new governor was appointed for New York. In fact, a commission to hold this place had been issued to Colonel Thomas Dongan in September, 1682, although his departure to take control of his province was postponed until the summer of 1683. One clause in the instructions prepared for him during this interval marks an epoch in the history of New York. It directs him to issue, as soon as possible after his arrival, writs informing the proper officials in all parts of his government and its dependencies that his Royal Highness thought fit that there should be 'a General Assembly of all the freeholders by the persons who they shall choose to represent them' and who were to consult with the governor and council
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what laws are fit and necessary to be made and established for
the good weal and government of the said Colony and its dependen- cies. . . .
It is said that the duke was influenced to this decision by the counsels of William Penn, and it is certain that he was influenced by the opinion rendered by Sir William Jones. Yet it is unlikely that, after ruling twenty years without an
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[1674-
assembly, he would have established one if his people had not demanded it in so emphatic a fashion, and if persons who knew them well - Andros and Dyre, Matthias Nicolls and John Lewin - had not convinced him that only with popular concurrence could he now raise money in a province already on the brink of bankruptcy. Nothing, wrote William Smith at a later day, could have been more 'agreeable' than his decision to the people of New York 'who whether Dutch or English were born the subjects of a free state'; and it was equally advantageous to the duke, for everywhere in the prov- ince and particularly on Long Island such a 'general disgust' had prevailed against the form of government set up by Colo- nel Nicolls that it 'threatened the total subversion of the public tranquillity.' Moreover, James Stuart was not fond of spending money for which he got nothing; and by granting an assembly he relieved himself of all pecuniary concern for his province.
The New Yorkers had won their victory in an interesting way. Their bloodless mutiny was not a revolt against the sovereignty of the English crown or a protest against the authority in general of the proprietor or of any of his deputies. It was not a little civil war like Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. It was not a struggle for autonomy like the one in which Massa- chusetts, striving to retain its charter, had long been engaged and was soon to be defeated. It was the first colonial rebel- lion against taxation from England. It was the same in spirit as the greater struggle which in all the colonies, some eighty years later, prefaced the Revolution. But in method it was bolder. The little city of 1681 did not say at the same mo- ment with many neighbors, 'We will not import.' Standing alone it said, 'I will continue to import but will pay no duties.'
In the earlier as in the later case the wrong resented was theoretical rather than actual. A matter of principle or senti- ment rather than an immediate material interest was at stake. 'Grievous,' said the petition of 1681, were the burdens the duke laid upon New York, 'undue and unusual' the customs he exacted. But this was true only in the sense that they were
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A GROWING CITY; A CITY IN REVOLT
1683]
arbitrarily imposed. The rates that James had fixed in 1674 were lower than any that had ever been settled in New Amster- dam or New York; and on the other hand, in securing the right to tax themselves the people accepted a heavy burden never felt before - the whole charge of the provincial govern- ment.
The duke was wise to yield to his people without any at- tempt at a contest. But in doing so he closed the eyes of pos- terity to the importance of the incident. What history loves best is drama. The most fecund seed of tradition is a drop of blood. If James had tried by force to reestablish administra- tive order and popular obedience on Manhattan, if he had caused the execution of a single citizen, or if his soldiers had killed one in a street brawl, then the two years and a half when his provincials maintained free trade in his despite would be better remembered. In one way they are more interesting than the highly dramatic years, soon to follow, of the so-called Leisler Rebellion. That is, they were typical, as Leisler's years were not, of the general course of the political develop- ment of New York. In 1681 New York took its first successful step upon that path of resistance to arbitrary government which New Amsterdam had opened in 1644 when its brewers refused to pay the tax laid by Governor Kieft. And along the same path the province passed by other gradual steps to the parting of the ways where, with its sister colonies, it ar- rived in 1776.
REFERENCE NOTES
PRINCIPAL PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS : Col. Docs., III, XIII [includes some Council Minutes] (398) ; Minutes of the Common Council, I [includes some Ordinances of the Court of Assizes] (409) ; Cal. of Hist. MSS., English (390) ; Cal. S. P. Col., 1677-1680 and 1681- 1685 (485).
GENERAL AUTHORITIES: Brodhead, Hist. of New York, II (405) ; histories of Long Island.
ANDROS'S REPORT, 1678 : his Short Account of the General Concerns of New York in Col. Docs., III, and in Doc. Hist., I (397).
TAX LISTS, 1676, 1677 : in Minutes of the Common Council, I. - LONG ISLAND TAX LISTS : in Doc. Hist., IV. - DIRECT MUNICIPAL TAX : Durand, Finances of New York City (186).
CITY IMPROVEMENTS : Minutes of the Common Council, I; Cal. of Hist. MSS., English; Dunlap, Hist. of New York, II, Appendix (401) ; De Voe, The Market Book (308) ; Wilson, New York Old and New (413) ; Durand, Finances of New York City. - HEERE GRACHT: Minutes of the Common Council, I; Hill and Waring, Old Wells and Water-Courses of Manhattan (536).
ACCOUNT TAKEN FROM MR. HARRIS : in Cal. S. P. Col., 1675, 1676. DEBTS OF THE CITY : Minutes of the Common Council, I.
LIQUOR LAWS, EXCISE: Col. Docs., III; Minutes of the Common Council, I; Thomann, Colonial Liquor Laws (271).
PRICES OF GRAIN : Minutes of the Common Council, I.
BOLTING ACTS : ibid .; Cal. of Hist. MSS., English.
SHIPPING OF ENGLAND: Sheffield, Commerce of the American States, 6th ed., London, 1784.
CHILD (quoted) : Concerning Plantations in his New Discourse of Trade (500).
NAVIGATION ACTS : see Reference Notes, Chap. XII.
RANDOLPH (quoted) : in Col. Docs., III, and in Hutchinson, Original Papers (311).
WEST INDIA COMPANY : Col. Docs., II.
250
251
REFERENCE NOTES
ANDROS'S REPORT, 1680: his Answer to Mr. Lewin's Report in Col. Docs., III.
FISHING COMPANY : Col. Docs., XIV; Report of State Historian, 1897, Appendix L (454) ; T. H. Edsall, Something about Fish, Fisheries, and Fishermen in New York in the Seventeenth Century in N. Y. Genea. and Bio. Record, XIII (199); S. E. Baldwin, American Business Corporations before 1789 in Amer. Historical Review, VIII (52), and in Annual Report of Amer. Historical Association, 1902.
CARTMEN : Minutes of the Common Council, I.
COOPERS' TRADE UNION : Trial of the Coopers of New York in Valen- tine's Manual, 1850 (508) ; Cal. of Hist. MSS., English.
LEWIN'S REPORT: in Col. Docs., III.
INDIANS AS SLAVES : Ellis and Morris, King Philip's War (258) ; Records of the several New England Colonies. - ANDROS'S PROCLAMA- TION : in Col. Docs., XIII, and in Minutes of the Common Council, I. APPEAL TO THE KING IN COUNCIL: Cal. S. P. Col., 1677-1680.
HILLER : Minutes of the Common Council, I.
TESSCHENMAEKER'S ORDINATION : Col. Docs., XII; Ecc. Records, I, II (167) ; Manual of Ref. Church (96) ; Historical Magazine, 1865 (213). - BISHOPS : A. L. Cross, The Anglican Episcopate and the American Colonies, New York, 1902.
CHURCH AFFAIRS : Ecc. Records, I, II; Manual of Ref. Church.
WOLLEY: Two Years' Journal in New York (256).
LABADIST FATHERS: Dankers and Sluyter, Journal of a Voyage to New York (530) ; Ecc. Records, II; B. B. James, The Labadist Colony in Maryland [with bibliography], Baltimore, 1899 (Johns Hopkins University Studies) ; Murphy, Anthology of New Nether- land (57) ; C. P. Mallory, Ancient Families of Bohemia Manor, Wilmington, 1888 (Papers of Delaware Hist. Soc., VII). - JAN VINJE : see Reference Notes, Chap. III. - AUGUSTINE HERRMAN : see Reference Notes, Chap. VIII.
ADAM SMITH (quoted) : His Wealth of Nations (535).
BROCKHOLLS'S CORRESPONDENCE : chiefly in Col. Docs., III, XIII, XIV. JOHN WEST: Notes to O'Callaghan's ed. of Wolley, Two Years' Journal in New York.
INDICTMENT OF DYRE: MS. Minutes of Mayor's Court; Col. Docs., III; O'Callaghan, Origin of Legislative Assemblies in New York (60) ; Lincoln, Constitutional Hist. of New York, I (132). - PETI- TION TO DUKE OF YORK: in Col. Docs., III, and in Brodhead, Hist. of New York, II, Appendix. - CHALMERS (quoted) : his Political Annals of the . . . Colonies (114). - HEATHCOTE: Notes to O'Callaghan's ed. of Wolley, as above.
LEWIN : Minutes of the Common Council, I; Col. Docs., III.
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
ANDROS AND DYRE IN ENGLAND : Col. Docs., III; Cal. S. P. Col., 1681- 1685.
SAMUEL WINDER: Cal. S. P. Col., 1681-1685.
DYRE'S AFTER HISTORY : Cal. S. P. Col., 1681-1685 ; and see Reference Notes, Chap. XX.
WAIT WINTHROP TO HIS BROTHER: in Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 5th Series, VIII.
PENN'S GRANTS : Col. Docs., XII; Cal. S. P. Col., 1677-1680 and 1681-
1685 ; Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, II (116) ; F. D. Stone, The Founding of Pennsylvania, in Narr. and
Crit. Hist., III (49) ; histories of Pennsylvania and of Delaware. BAXTER AND GRAHAM: Abstracts of Wills, II (546).
CONNECTICUT: Col. Docs., XIV.
PEMAQUID: Col. Docs., XIV ; Papers Relating to Pemaquid (435).
SLAVES: Minutes of the Common Council, I.
DONGAN: see Reference Notes, Chap. XXII. - His INSTRUCTIONS in Col. Docs., II, and in O'Callaghan, Origin of Legislative Assem- blies in New York. - SMITH (quoted) : his Hist. of New York (420).
CHAPTER XXII
THE FIRST ASSEMBLY
1683-1685
(GOVERNOR DONGAN)
No aid, tax, tallage, assessment, custom, loan, benevolence, or imposition whatsoever shall be laid, assessed, imposed, or levied on any of his Majesty's subjects within this province or their estates upon any manner of color or pretence but by the act and consent of the Governor, Council, and Representatives of the people in General As- sembly met and assembled. - Charter of Liberties and Privileges. 1683.
THANKS to good judgment or good luck, the Duke of York sent his province a much better succession of governors than did any of the sovereigns who succeeded him as its proprietors. The fourth whom he chose, Colonel Thomas Dongan, was the first of the many Irishmen who have helped to administer public affairs on Manhattan. He was the younger son of Sir John Dongan, baronet, of Castletoun in the county of Kildare, and heir presumptive to his brother William who had been created Baron Dongan and Viscount Claine in the Irish peerage and in 1685 became the Earl of Limerick. He was born in 1634 and bred a Catholic and a soldier. For years he served in the armies of France, his name, which was pro- nounced 'Dungan' and spelled in various ways including 'Dun- can,' sometimes standing in the French records as 'D'Unguent.' Colonel of a regiment of Irishmen when all the British troops were ordered home in 1678, he then refused the liberal offers with which the French king tempted him to remain in his service, and lost in consequence a great sum that Louis owed him for recruits and arrears of pay. The king of England, it is said, promised him as compensation an annual pension of
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
£500, which it is evident he never got, and appointed him lieutenant-governor of Tangier where he served for two years. With some experience in the management of a dependency and some knowledge of the Dutch and French tongues, he had an acquaintance with French ways and ideas which, at a time when the Canadians needed careful watching, was no less desirable in a governor of New York than military train- ing. Doubtless it had counted in his favor that he was a Catholic, and also that he was nephew on his mother's side to 'lying Dick Talbot,' for many years the Duke of York's in- timate friend and associate in the lowest phases of his private life and, after the duke became king, Earl of Tyrconnel and viceroy of Ireland.
This evil uncle, however, the nephew in no way resembled. Some fifty years later the distinguished New Yorker Cad- wallader Colden wrote that Dongan was remembered as an 'honest gentleman,' an 'active and prudent governor'; and William Smith recorded that he was 'a man of integrity, mod- eration, and genteel manners,' who surpassed all his prede- cessors 'in a due attention to our affairs with the Indians' and, although a 'professed Papist,' might be classed 'among the best of our governors.' More than this was true. Dongan was the ablest of all the colonial governors of New York, and more than any other he helpfully influenced its fortunes.
Embarking in the midsummer of 1683 Governor Dongan landed near Boston, continued his journey by way of Long Island, and reached New York on Saturday, August 25. On Monday he published his commission at the City Hall and announced that he was directed to 'give and confirm' to the city all its existing rights and privileges 'and more if neces- sary.' The magistrates, their records go on to say, escorted him back to the fort, and on Tuesday his Honor dined with them at the City Hall, meeting also 'several of the old magis- trates and ancient inhabitants,' receiving 'large and plentiful entertainment,' and giving 'great satisfaction' by his com- pany.
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THE FIRST ASSEMBLY
1685]
His commission, dated in September, 1682, described the province in the words of the duke's patent and then expressly excluded East and West Jersey but said nothing of the aliena- tion of Pennsylvania and the Delaware country or of the claims of Connecticut. His instructions, more carefully drawn than Andros's and more fully directing him how to develop the resources of his province, established a type pretty closely adhered to in after years for the guidance of governors of royal provinces. For the first time they laid stress upon the choice of the councillors who, appointed by the duke or in his name, were technically his councillors, not the governor's. And in this connection New Yorkers were for the first time named for office in England. To form 'my council,' as the duke called it, Dongan was directed to appoint Frederick Philipse and Stephanus Van Cortlandt with other 'eminent inhabitants' not exceeding ten in number. Named by the duke were also Anthony Brockholls who retained the office he had held under Andros, John Spragge who came to replace John West as secretary, and Lucas Santen who replaced Wil- liam Dyre as collector and receiver-general. To these the governor added John Young and, a little later, Lewis Morris who was also a councillor in East Jersey.
Forty-nine years of age at this time, Governor Dongan had neither wife nor child to bring with him. Certain nephews of whom there is later mention probably did not come as soon as he did. As chaplain for the garrison there came the Rev- erend John Gordon, most likely the same person as the John Gourdon who had been commissioned in 1674 to accompany Governor Andros. An English priest, Father Thomas Harvey, brought by Dongan as his private chaplain, was the first Catholic ecclesiastic who is known to have visited the city excepting the French missionaries who had tarried there briefly in the days of the Dutch.
Domine Selyns, who had left his congregations on Long Island and at the Bowery village to return to Holland in 1664, had often been urged to come back to New Netherland. When Domine Van Nieuwenhuysen died he consented to take
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charge of the church in the city. He had arrived in 1682. Now he wrote to the classis of Amsterdam that Domine Pierre Daillé, formerly a professor at the Huguenot college of Saumur in France, had come out to serve the French congregation. Daillé, it appears, had been in England and came to New York under the auspices of the bishop of London who was always regarded, vaguely at first, definitely in after years, as the di- ocesan of the Anglican churches in the colonies. The first regular pastor of the French congregation, Daillé assembled it in the Dutch church after Selyns's second service, the English chaplain officiating after his morning service - an amicable arrangement which must have interested a governor fresh from the seething sectarian animosities and fears of the Eng- land of Charles II. At one point Dongan's written instruc- tions were less explicit than his predecessor's: they said noth- ing of freedom in religion or of religion at all. But Selyns re- ported that his Excellency, who was very friendly and 'a person of knowledge, refinement, and modesty,' assured him that the duke's orders were to permit 'full liberty of conscience.'
According to the duke's orders the members of the assem- bly, not to exceed eighteen in number, were to be elected by the freeholders of all parts of the province and its depen- dencies after thirty days' notice had everywhere been given. Freedom in debate was guaranteed to them. Their acts were to come before the governor for approval or veto. If ap- proved they were to be 'good and binding' until passed upon by the duke. If disapproved by the duke they were then to 'cease and be null and void.' In the royal province of Vir- ginia the practice prevailed of sending the acts of the legisla- ture to be passed upon in England, but no provision to this effect had been inserted in any of the early colonial charters. It had figured for the first time in William Penn's.
Except by due process of law as aforesaid no 'customs or imposts' were henceforward to be exacted in New York. On the other hand the duke ordered Dongan to take 'effectual care' that there should be a 'constant establishment' for rais-
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THE FIRST ASSEMBLY
1685]
ing sufficient money to discharge all arrears and to support the civil government and the garrison. No money should be voted for public purposes except with 'express mention' that it was granted to the duke for the use of his government or for some particular object named in the act, and none at all should be expended except upon the governor's personal warrant. All laws save those 'for a temporary purpose' were to be 'with- out limitation of time.' Without his master's sanction the governor was to sign none that might lessen or impair the revenue. Upon the governor was bestowed that powerful weapon for coercive use which the sovereign held in England - the right to summon and to adjourn or dissolve the assembly as he might see fit. All these arrangements were intended to safeguard the interests of the ducal proprietor by limiting the power of the provincial government. Under the differing conditions that prevailed in the mother-country the provision that supplies granted by parliament were to be spent only for the purposes it might indicate - a provision which was established as a general principle in 1665 when the House of Commons voted Charles II his great subsidies for the war against Holland - had been devised for the protection of the nation, for the bridling of the crown.
In a brief letter addressed by the duke to the assembly- to-be he empowered it to 'consult and propose all such matters as shall be for the public good.' Nevertheless upon the gov- ernor he had bestowed all military power including the control of the provincial militia, and upon the governor in council the power to establish courts and to grant lands.
Just after Dongan's arrival one of the towns of eastern Long Island, Easthampton, drew up an address saying that it hoped he had been instructed to restore to the Long Islanders their 'birthright privileges'; if not, they would appeal directly to the king. Elsewhere no signs of distrust appeared. Nor, indeed, were they given time to develop, for, after a hasty visit to Albany, on September 13 the governor in council or- dered the issue of writs instructing the sheriffs throughout the province and its dependencies in regard to the election of
VOL. II. - S
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representatives to meet in assembly at New York on October 17. Although the duke had said that there should be eighteen he had left their apportionment to the governor and his coun- cillors. Four, they decided, were to be returned by the city including New Harlem and 'the bowries or farms' elsewhere on Manhattan, two by each of the three ridings of Yorkshire, one by Staten Island which Andros had set off from the West Riding, two by the Esopus country, two by Albany and Rensselaerswyck in common, one by Schenectady and the neighboring settlements, one by Pemaquid, and one by Mar- tha's Vineyard and Nantucket. In the more thickly settled parts of the province they were to be chosen by a direct vote of the freeholders, in the eastern islands, Yorkshire, and Eso- pus by elected delegates, four from each town, who should meet at the 'sessions house' of each district.
Among freeholders were included, as in England, occupants of leasehold properties. In no colony did manhood suffrage then prevail. In Connecticut a property qualification of £30 was prescribed in 1659; in Virginia the franchise was limited in 1670 to freeholders, leaseholders, and tenants; in Penn- sylvania the payment of taxes at least was required; and in Massachusetts, although the visit of the royal commissioners of 1664 had forced a technical change in its system of govern- ment, no one could vote in a general election who had not cer- tified sectarian as well as property qualifications. In New York a property qualification was not abolished until 1826 and even then was still required of colored voters.
In October the new governor presided in the court of assizes met for its regular annual session. After it adjourned the sheriffs who had attended it drew up an address to the duke thanking him for sending Governor Dongan and for granting an assembly. Dongan, wrote John West to William Penn on the 16th, was 'very civil and obliging to all,' and :
In the assizes though he showed himself magis Mars quam Mercu- rius yet his behavior was with discretion, patience, and moderation, showing in himself that principle of honor not wilfully to injure any, and had a regard to equity in all his judgments.
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THE FIRST ASSEMBLY
1685]
The assembly convened as ordered on October 17, a day to be remembered as the birthday of representative government in New York. It met in the fort where Kieft's Twelve Men had met forty-two years before, when representative govern- ment drew its first faint breath of life in New Netherland. The journal of the assembly is lost, no list of its members survives, and there is nothing to show which one of the eigh- teen was missing - for only seventeen assembled. But West wrote to Penn that 'the greatest number' were 'of the Dutch nation' and, he believed, would 'fully answer expectation.' It is known that the most experienced official in the prov- ince, Matthias Nicolls who had recently returned from Eng- land, was chosen speaker; and although he is described as ' of the East Riding' where he had a large estate, he is said to have been and undoubtedly was one of the four representatives of the city. From local records it may be gathered that a Dutchman and an Englishman, Henry Beekman and William Ashford sat for Esopus, Giles Goddard for Pemaquid, and Samuel Mulford of Easthampton in one of the two seats al- lotted to the East Riding of Yorkshire. As a few years later John Lawrence was granted a sum of money by the city 'for his services as an assemblyman' he was one of the city mem- bers of this house or of its successor, elected in 1685, and probably of both. And as William Nicolls - a son of Mat- thias, who had been educated as a lawyer in England - is said to have boasted in after years that he framed the prin- cipal act passed by the first assembly, he also may plausibly be counted among its members. As its clerk there served so important a functionary as John Spragge - secretary of the province, member of the council, and clerk of the court of assizes.
The fact that this was the initial assembly in a proprietary province may well be forgotten in reading its record. Dur- ing its first session, which lasted three weeks, it passed fifteen acts. The first calls itself, boldly assuming that the duke would ratify it, 'The Charter of Liberties and Privileges granted by his Royal Highness to the Inhabitants of New
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
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York and its Dependencies'; and its leading paragraphs read :
Be it enacted by the Governor, Council, and Representatives now in General Assembly met and assembled and by the authority of the same,
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