USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century Vol. II > Part 3
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The most burdensome to the colonies of the commercial regulations was, however, the one forbidding them to import, even in English ships, any European products or wares except by way of England after customs dues had there been paid. This rule was mitigated by a few special privileges : all the colo- nies could receive wines directly from Madeira and the Azores, India goods from beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and pro- visions, horses, and bond-servants from Scotland and Ireland, while New England and Newfoundland could get from any part of Europe the salt that they needed for their fish-curing - all, of course, in ships of the legal sort. Yet the general law often made it impossible for colonial ships to get, in the foreign ports where they were free to sell some colonial com-
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modities, return cargoes that would be profitable after trans- shipment in England, thus compelling them to come home in ballast or to go in ballast to England and get a cargo there ; and it increased the risks of commerce by making so many North Atlantic voyages needful. Thus it tended to throw colonial traffic very largely into English hands.
After a time a complicated and often altered system of drawbacks lessened the duties on foreign wares imported into England and then re-shipped to foreign or colonial ports. The provisions of this system constantly gave offence to the English manufacturer and consumer; but of course they benefited the English merchant as well as the colonial con- sumer. In fact, they were framed to encourage England's export trade. And it may be noted that every other pro- vision in the Navigation Acts which chanced to favor the colonist was devised not for his sake but for that of some English interest. Nevertheless the 'mercantile system' out- lined by the Acts was not in any degree inspired by a spirit of hostility to the colonies. It was more liberal than the contemporaneous policies of other colonizing nations. It was not comparable for harshness to the policy which virtually prohibited the Irish from trading anywhere and anyhow. It was intended to hamper the colonies no more than a proper care for the welfare of the kingdom was supposed to require. It did not deny their right to administer their strictly local affairs - only their right to do anything that might lessen the possible benefits of colonial trade to England and to Englishmen at home.
In spite of its accepted name the 'mercantile system' never crystallized into a genuine system of colonial adminis- tration and control. But it defined the broad lines upon which colonial affairs should be supervised; and, such as it was, it remained in force until 1763, often modified in detail, never changed in its essential character. After 1763, when the Peace of Paris confirmed the English in the possession of Canada, the home government tried to inaugurate for the colonies a system of trade and revenue combined. But until
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then the desire to raise a revenue by taxation played no part in the mother-country's treatment of its dependencies. Wanting to regulate their commerce for its own benefit, England was willing, theoretically at least, to pay the price of providing for their defence; and actually it did bear the cost of protecting them upon the sea and in foreign ports except in so far as it was helped at times by their own priva- teers. The general design was the same that the West India Company had conceived although the methods employed were not identical. Naturally, the results were in many ways similar. Chief among them, if judged by the eventual out- come, was the consciousness, growing ever keener in America, that the interests of the colonies and those of the mother- country widely diverged.
Colonial governors being sworn to enforce the Navigation Acts, it was their duty to appoint naval officers to make entries of incoming and outgoing vessels and to see to the proper execution of the bonds by which colonial merchants pledged themselves to send their cargoes only where they might lawfully go. Collectors of the dues exacted in the colonies were to be appointed in England, but they, or the deputies whom they were permitted to send out to do their work, might be suspended by a governor for inefficiency. During the days of the Stuart kings, however, the home government made no vigorous, systematic effort thus to administer the Acts in the colonies.
Besides his commission the governor of a royal or pro- prietary province received a set of formal instructions mark- ing out the course he was to follow. Governor Nicolls's commission still exists, and so do the instructions he received, in common with his fellow-commissioners, in regard to their duties in New England. His instructions as the duke's rep- resentative in New York are lost, but various references to them reveal their tenor. And it is plain that, tempted by his wish to win New Netherland without the use of soldiers' methods, he ignored in ratifying the Articles of Surrender
VOL. II. - C
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some of the duke's desires as well as some of the provisions of the Navigation Acts. He had been ordered to give the people no share in the government, yet local self-government in the city of New York and in all the towns of the province, and also the right of the city as such to representation in a probable assembly, seemed to be secured by the sixteenth and the twenty-first of the Articles, which said that :
All inferior civil officers and magistrates shall continue as now they are (if they please) ill the customary time of new election, and then new ones to be chosen, by themselves, provided that such new chosen magistrates shall take the oath of allegiance to his Maj- esty of England before they enter upon their office.
That the town of Manhatans shall choose deputies and the depu- ties shall have free voices in all public affairs as much as any other deputies.
Again, the sixth and seventh Articles said, as in view of the Navigation Acts the Duke of York himself would not have been competent to say :
It is consented to, that any people may freely come from the Netherlands and plant in this country, and that Dutch vessels may freely come hither, and any of the Dutch may freely return home, or send any sort of merchandise home in vessels of their own country.
All ships from the Netherlands, or any other place, and goods therein, shall be received here and sent hence after the manner which formerly they were before our coming hither for six months next ensuing.
Such inhabitants as desired to remain were to be 'free denizens' in full possession and control of their property, and were to receive certificates to this effect should they desire to travel or traffic in England 'in obedience to his Majesty' or to trade with the Indians. No Dutchman or Dutch ship was upon any occasion to be pressed to 'serve in war against any nation whatsoever.' Should it prove needful to quarter soldiers on the 'townsmen of the Manhatoes' the
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burgomasters were to distribute them, and their officers were to pay for their keep. The 'liberty of their consciences in divine worship and church discipline' was promised to the Dutch, the enjoyment of their own customs 'concerning their inheritances,' and the careful preservation of all public papers and legal documents. All public buildings were to continue 'for the uses which they are for.' Any proved 'public en- gagement of debt' by the 'town of the Manhatoes' was to be satisfied in the 'way proposed.' The validity of all judg- ments previously passed in the courts was guaranteed, with a right of appeal to the States General in cases not yet satisfied. The property of the West India Company was secured to it or to the States General, barring lands and buildings within the forts; arms and ammunition the Company might remove or would be paid for. Persons owning houses in 'the fort of Aurania' (Orange) might 'slight the fortifications' and enjoy their houses as in places where there was no fort. And, as has been told, the Articles promised that the garri- son of the fort on Manhattan should march out with the honors of war and that the country should be redelivered into the hands of the States General should they and the king of Great Britain so agree.
As a whole these highly favorable Articles of Surrender seemed to imply that England was merely taking possession of a country it had always owned; but in tacitly permitting the laws of the province to remain in force until expressly abrogated they implied that England had acquired the country by conquest. In after years this ambiguity made much work for the courts. Nor have all the points it left debatable yet been definitively settled. As historians still differ with regard to the validity of the title of the Dutch to New Netherland, so lawyers still argue, notably in real estate cases, whether or not the Roman-Dutch system of law ever rightfully prevailed on Manhattan.
To form his council, of course his first concern, Governor Nicolls selected Matthias Nicolls whom he appointed secre-
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tary of the province, two military officers who had come with him from England, and two Englishmen from the eastern part of Long Island. When needful the former secre- tary, Van Ruyven, and one of the schepens of the city were to give them aid. Matthias Nicolls was not of the governor's family but had been called to his notice by Samuel Maverick as a person who had studied law and been 'bred a scholar.' It is sometimes said that he had been living in New Amster- dam, but his name does not appear on its records. Probably he had come with the governor.
The Anglican form of worship was now for the first time employed on Manhattan, the Dutch domines permitting the chaplain of the English garrison to use the church in the fort on Sundays between the hours of their own services.
A few days after the surrender Nicolls despatched Sir Robert Carr with two of the king's ships to reduce the South River or Delaware region which, belonging to the city of Amsterdam, had not been included in the capitulation. An- other of the royal commissioners, Cartwright, he sent totake possession of the North or Hudson River settlements. Here no one tried to stir up resistance except Johannes De Decker. As he had signed and had helped to draft the Articles of Surrender, Nicolls dealt leniently in banishing him from the province. Fort Orange and the village of Beverwyck were renamed Albany from the second title of the duke, an old title derived from a name for the Scottish Highlands which is thought to be identical with the Celtic Albion, once applied to the whole island of Britain. At Albany and at Wiltwyck Cartwright set garrisons commanded in the one case by Captain John Manning, in the other by Captain Daniel Brod- head. Like some of his fellow-officers Brodhead had felt so sure of the success of the duke's expedition that he had brought his family with him. He was the ancestor of the historian of the province, John Romeyn Brodhead. Copies of the Articles of Surrender had been made for the North River as well as for the South River region, and Cartwright promised the people all that had been promised to New
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Amsterdam, left all civil officers undisturbed, and confirmed Jeremias Van Rensselaer in his authority over the patroon- ship. With sachems of the Mohawks and the Senecas he concluded the first treaty in which the Iroquois appeared as allies of the English, promising them all that the Dutch had given them in the way of supplies and opportunities for traffic, and binding the new government not to assist their enemies the Indians of eastern New England.
As the strict naturalization laws of England did not apply to the colonies, the duke's patent, authorizing him to rule all the king's subjects within his dominions, permitted the inclusion of aliens who would take the oath of allegiance. Therefore, as soon as all the territories of the West India Company were secured, on October 13 according to the English Old Style calendar, Nicolls directed the burgo- masters to summon the other magistrates and 'some of the principal inhabitants' to meet him at the City Hall on the following day when he would himself administer the oath. On the 14th he appeared with his secretary, say the minutes of the burgomasters' court, and asked where were General Stuyvesant, Secretary Van Ruyven, and the preachers. The reply was that no one knew they should be present. They should be sent for, said the governor, and 'being invited they immediately came.' The oath pledged allegiance as a true subject to the king of Great Britain, and obedience to the Duke of York, such officials as he might appoint, 'and none other whilst I live in any of his Majesty's territories.' When it had been read 'divers debates occurred' and then 'all the meeting roundly declared' that they could not take such an oath unless Mr. Nicolls would be pleased to add to it 'Conformable to the Articles concluded on the Surrender of this place.' It was feared that otherwise the oath might 'nullify or render void the Articles.' A few days later, when the burgomasters visited the governor on business and the matter was discussed, Nicolls mentioned the fact that 'the commonalty were greatly distracted by some.' The burgo- masters again declaring that they could not take the oath
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without the qualification, the governor gave them a paper saying that, in order that those who had believed a 'false and injurious aspersion cast upon the Oath of Obedience' might be undeceived, he thought fit to declare that 'the Articles of Surrender are not in the least broken or intended to be broken' by any words in the oath. Every one, said the same paper, must take the oath who intended to remain in the province, and at a meeting of the chief citizens on October 20 it was 'universally resolved in the affirmative' provided Governor Nicolls would set his seal to the ‘given writing.' As a 'catalogue' of those who then took the oath names two hundred and fifty-one, and as only a few of them were residents of Albany or Esopus, a great majority of the able-bodied men of Manhattan must have sworn. Almost all the leading names appear, General Stuyvesant's among them. Again Thomas Hall figures virtually as a Dutchman, and with him stand two other Englishmen, Thomas Chambers of Wiltwyck in the Esopus country and John Lawrence.
Meanwhile the Swedes of the Delaware country and the Dutch burghers of the little town of New Amstel had sub- mitted to Sir Robert Carr who, although the duke's patent named the river as his boundary line, had been ordered to occupy its western as well as its eastern bank and to hold it for the king until the claims of Maryland should be settled. The fifty soldiers in the little Dutch fort, however, held out until it was taken by assault with some loss of life to the garrison. Then Carr, declaring that the country had been won by the sword, sent the soldiers to Virginia to be sold into bondage, appropriated or gave away the best pieces of land, and sanctioned the plunder of farmers and burghers. Ordered to justify his conduct at Manhattan he refused, as- serting his independence of Governor Nicolls. In person Nicolls enforced his authority; and, changing the name of New Amstel to New Castle, he declared the region 'an ap- panage' of New York. Such it remained until William Penn obtained it.
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Soon after his installation Governor Nicolls had received a present from the government of Connecticut, five hundred bushels of corn. In November he welcomed Governor Win- throp and four others sent by Connecticut to congratulate him and to settle, should opportunity offer, the boundary of the two colonies. Nicolls, Cartwright, and Maverick act- ing on behalf of New York, both patents were examined. Plainly Long Island belonged to the duke, for it was men- tioned in his patent and not in Connecticut's. On the main- land the grant to the duke, covering everything west of the river, deprived Connecticut of New Haven and even, as Con- necticut pointed out, of its own 'very bowels and principal parts' including its capital town. The deed for the lands around Hartford given in 1633 by the Indians to Van Twiller's agent was put in evidence to justify the duke's claim as based upon the original extent of the Dutch province. But finally Governor Nicolls, deciding that he would best serve the duke and the king by showing their wish to do 'equal justice,' consented to a line that should lie 'about twenty miles from any part of Hudson's River.' This was better for the Dutch province by ten miles than the boundary that Stuyvesant had nominally secured by the Hartford Treaty of 1650. Unfamiliar with the country, however, Nicolls was deceived when the line was described in the written agreement, which said that it should begin on the coast at the mouth of Ma- maroneck Creek and thence should run 'north-northwest to the line of Massachusetts.' Thus, said the Connecticut men, although the agreement did not so declare, the line would keep 'twenty miles everywhere from Hudson's River.' But in fact a north-northwest trend carried it across the Hudson near the spot that now is Peekskill, a long way below the Massachusetts border.
This was soon understood by the royal commissioners who wrote home in 1665 that the line had been ‘mistaken by wrong information': it ought to run 'just north' from its starting point. And so tacitly confessed the Connecticut authorities themselves a few years later when they resolved
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. . . forthwith to run the line between this colony and the colony of New York from Momoroneck River to Hudson's River.
The agreement was not ratified in England. In New York, according to the earliest historian of the province, William Smith, whose book was published in 1757, it was always said to have been founded 'upon ignorance and fraud.' William Douglass, writing in Massachusetts at the same time, made a similar statement. And Cadwallader Colden, in an official report drawn up in 1764, likewise said that Nicolls had been deceived. So long-lived were the disputes thus engendered and frequently revived that the western limits of Massa- chusetts were not definitively settled until 1787 and those of Connecticut not until 1880 although a line which formed a basis for the present Connecticut boundary was established in 1685 and ratified by the crown in 1700. During these many years the old documents which set forth the claims of New Netherland were repeatedly produced to sustain the rights of New York.
Of course the seizure of New Amsterdam and the prospect of war in Europe put a stop to all intercourse with Holland. Within a month of his arrival Nicolls wrote home that thou- sands in Virginia, Maryland, and New England would suffer with his own people through the loss of the Dutch trade un- less 'speedy care' were taken to send out supplies for them and goods for their traffic with the Indians. In November Burgomaster Steenwyck drew up for the city magistrates an address to the Duke of York which, after expressing grati- tude for the fact that they had received as their governor so 'gentle, wise, and intelligent a gentleman' as Colonel Nicolls, 'under the wings' of whom they hoped, mixing their metaphor a little, to 'bloom and grow like the cedar on Lebanon,' asked that the same trading privileges enjoyed in England or even in Boston might be granted to New York. Then it would attract thousands of inhabitants and within a few years have a great trade yielding the duke a great revenue.
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Waiting for an answer to these appeals, before the end of the year Nicolls sent all the royal frigates back to England. The one that carried his despatches describing the surrender perished off the Lizard. The last of the four he detained for a month because of a serious mutiny, not among his new subjects but among his own soldiers. The province had now received its English name, the same as the name of its capital city, while the country between the Hudson and the Dela- ware was called Albania, Long Island was called Yorkshire, and most of the Dutch towns were known by English or anglicized names. So in the year 1664 the king of England had peaceable possession of the whole coast between Florida and the Bay of Fundy - a secure grasp upon the long strip of seaboard which was narrowed and shut away from the interior of the continent but at the same time solidified and protected by the great Appalachian mountain barrier. For geographical reasons alone the acquirement of New Nether- land, the keystone of this region, may be called the most important event that as yet had marked the history of the English plantations. Furthermore it assured to the Eng- lish, should they follow the good example set by the Dutch, an inestimable advantage which at first they could not appreciate - the friendship of the Five Nations. And it struck a fatal blow at the North American trade of Eng- land's great commercial rival.
The measure of self-government that the people of New Netherland had so patiently striven for and secured was now supported only by the Articles of Surrender. They soon dis- covered how frail this buttress was.
With the opening of the year 1665 Nicolls began the recon- struction of the province. Previously he had ordered that the customs dues prescribed in the English Book of Rates be paid to the collector Thomas Delavall, one of his councillors. Now, in February, he fixed for the benefit of the duke a special tariff, laying export duties of ten and a half per cent on beaver skins and of twopence a pound on tobacco, and im-
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port duties of ten per cent on liquors and goods for the Indian trade and of eight per cent on all other articles except those grown or manufactured in England, which were admitted at five per cent. These charges were to be paid partly in wam- pum, partly in beavers to be valued at eight guilders or thirteen shillings and fourpence apiece.
In February also the governor established at New York a court of assizes which, he said, copied or continued with certain modifications the court of the Dutch governor. For the moment it consisted only of himself and his councillors. It was to be the 'superior court' of the province with original and appellate jurisdiction in common law and equity, with executive powers, and with the 'supreme power of making, altering, and abolishing laws' subject to the revisional powers of the Duke of York.
As the duke's patent, like other colonial charters, said that his province should be governed in so far as possible in con- formity to the laws of England, Nicolls immediately set the new court at work to frame a civil and criminal code collected, as he wrote to Clarendon, out of the laws of the other colonies but with such alterations 'as may revive the memory of old England among us.' The codes of Massachusetts and New Haven were consulted; a copy of the Connecticut laws could not be obtained in time.
When the new code was completed the governor, remem- bering his promise to summon deputies to advise upon the affairs of Long Island, ordered that delegates elected by the Dutch and English freeholders of all the Long Island towns and of the town of Westchester should convene in a 'general meeting' at Hempstead on the last day of February to adjust town boundaries and to give their 'best advice and informa- tion' about settling good laws for the province. Thirty- four delegates - nine Dutchmen and twenty-five Englishmen - came from seventeen towns. Among them were Jacques Cortelyou, Jan Evertsen Bout, John Bowne the Quaker, George Baxter's old associate James Hubbard, John Under- hill, and John Young.
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They remembered not only that Nicolls had promised, two days after the surrender, that deputies should be sum- moned to advise 'in all matters tending to the peace and benefit of Long Island' but also that he had subsequently promised, in a letter to John Young and John Howell, that the Long Islanders might
... . assure themselves of equal (if not greater) freedoms and im- munities than any of his Majesty's colonies in New England.
Therefore they were deeply disappointed and not a little angered when they found that they had in fact been sum- moned merely to ratify a code already prepared, and that this code, although it rejoiced them by showing, as com- pared with those of New England, 'an abatement of severity' in matters of conscience and religion, conspicuously failed in every other direction to tally with the governor's pledge. In a few minor matters Nicolls accepted their amendments, but when they asked for the right to elect all their own magis- trates, and some of them demanded that only through depu- ties of the people should moneys be raised, he told them that they must go to the king if they wanted a share in the government of the province. Silenced for the moment, on March 1 they ratified the new code and drew up a loyal address to the Duke of York.
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