USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century Vol. II > Part 31
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56
Provisionally, the direction of affairs was at once confided to him. Early in February a Convention Parliament, so called because of the irregular manner in which it was summoned, framed the famous Declaration of Rights which, enacted be- fore the end of the year as a Bill of Rights by a parliament regularly constituted, then became part of the law of England. Accepting its provisions, on February 14 William and his wife Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of England and all the territories thereunto belonging - equal in rank and dignity but unequal in power, for to William alone was intrusted the administration of the government. On March 1 a great majority of the Lords and Commons and of the clergy through- out the kingdom took the oaths of allegiance. On April 11 the new sovereigns were crowned, the king but not the queen seated in the chair of St. Edward. On May 11 they took the coronation oath as sovereigns of Scotland.
Echoes of this great revolution rang all along the American coast, but not at once for news crossed the Atlantic seldom and slowly in the autumn and winter months. In Massachu- setts and New York the conditions were most favorable for an imitative revolutionary outbreak; and, as it chanced, Massachusetts was late, New York was still later, in receiving from the new government in England instructions that should have prevented or quickly ended any public disturbance.
In January, before he was offered the crown, the Prince of Orange had issued a circular letter to colonial governors
357
A TIME OF CHANGES
1689]
directing that, until further commands were sent out, all officials who were not papists should continue at their posts and obey the orders that might recently have come from the mother-country, that all persons should yield them obedience, and that justice should be administered as before. This letter justified colonial officials in continuing to govern in the name of James II, for there had been no demise and as yet no transference of the crown. It was sent at once to the gov- ernor of the royal province of Virginia but not to the governor- general of the Dominion of New England. Increase Mather had been for some time in England urging upon James the restitution of the New England charters; William Phips had recently been sent out to his aid; and they induced the Prince of Orange to delay the despatch of his instructions. Should he get the crown, they believed, New England would get back its charters; but any confirmation of the powers of Sir Edmund Andros would mean delay and obstruction.
On February 14, the day of the accession, the new king by proclamation confirmed in office all persons being Protestants within his kingdom and appointed his privy councillors. Two days later he selected from among these councillors, as Charles II had done, the members of a Committee for Trade and Plantations, directing them to draft at once for publication in the colonies a proclamation announcing the accession and continuing for the present all incumbents, civil and military, in their offices. This command, it should be noticed, made no distinction, as did the one issued in January and the one relating to the kingdom itself, between Protestants and Catho- lics. Probably William now understood that no such dis- tinction could lawfully be drawn for the colonies, where the Test Act had never been in force. Again he directed that no instructions should yet be sent to New England; and to the new Lords of Trade he referred a petition from Mather and Phips asking for the removal of Andros and for the res- toration of the ancient privileges of Massachusetts, Con- necticut, Rhode Island, and Plymouth. The Lords of Trade decided that a governor should be sent to replace Andros
358
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
with a provisional commission and directions that no money be raised by act of the governor and council only; and that as soon as possible there should be framed a lasting form of government which would preserve the privileges of the people and yet secure their due dependence upon the crown. The agents from Massachusetts again prevailing upon the king to delay, on February 26 he directed that a draft of a new charter for New England be prepared and that two commis- sioners be sent to proclaim their Majesties and to administer the government temporarily. Thus William and his advisers showed a desire to respect the liberties of his colonial subjects and at the same time to secure the benefits implicit in James Stuart's policy of consolidation.
Consolidation was not what the New Englanders wanted. In March, largely through the exertion of their agents, parlia- ment passed a bill restoring all corporations, in the kingdom and in the colonies, to their condition before the accession of Charles II in 1660. This bill William vetoed as an infringe- ment of the royal prerogative. Mather then secured from him two promises: Andros should be removed and called to ac- count for his alleged misconduct, and the accession might be proclaimed in New England by the 'former magistrates.' In April Phips set sail for Boston bearing these promises and the delayed instructions for Governor-General Andros. Much had happened in Boston before he arrived.
Before anything at all had happened in England, rumors and more than rumors that great events were impending crossed the sea. Increase Mather advised his friends to prepare the minds of the people for 'an interesting change.' In December a ship from England brought news of a probable invasion by the Prince of Orange and a Dutch army. King James issued to all colonial governors a proclamation warn- ing them to be on their guard against a possible Dutch at- tack and to summon all the subjects of the crown to unite in defence of king and country. And the words of this procla- mation Andros embodied in one which he issued from Pema- quid in January, 1689.
359
A TIME OF CHANGES
1689]
The news that William had actually landed in England on November 5 reached New York by way of the West Indies sooner than it reached Boston yet not until February 5; and not until it came again, from another source, on March 1 did Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson send it on to Andros. Mean- while on February 23 John West wrote from Boston to Fitz- John Winthrop that he had recently come from Pemaquid leaving Sir Edmund there. Winthrop, he supposed, had 'long since heard of the invasion intended from Holland' as announced in the proclamation which King James had sent out for publication and which West now enclosed. Seven days before he wrote, news of the landing of the Prince of Orange had come from Barbadoes and it had since been con- firmed by another vessel from the West Indies. All was well in Boston, he added,
... save that some ill spirits appear in scattering and publishing seditious and rebellious libels, for which some are in custody.
Very different persons were soon to come into custody. When Sir Edmund, summoned by Nicholson's letter from New York, returned to Boston late in March he wrote to Brock- holls, whom he had left in command at Pemaquid, that he found 'a general buzzing among the people, great with ex- pectation of their charter or they know not what.' Before the end of the month they knew that James had fled from his kingdom. On April 4 a ship from the West Indies brought copies of a declaration in which the Prince of Orange, im- mediately after he landed at Torbay, had explained his pur- poses to the people of England. Signs of disturbance grew so evident that Andros retired to the fort. On the 18th the Bos- tonians rose in arms and seized the 'castle' on an island in the harbor and a royal frigate that lay there; and their lead- ers, members of the old colonial government, published a dec- laration setting forth the reasons for the uprising. Andros surrendered and was put for safe-keeping in the town jail with thirty or more of his chief supporters. Some were soon re- leased. Others were voted unbailable as public offenders
360
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
guilty of misgovernment, and among these were Andros him- self, Randolph, Dudley, West, Palmer, and Graham. It was assumed that the declaration of the Prince of Orange and the changes in England had made King James's commissions null and void.
Thus decapitated, the Dominion of New England died and disintegrated. In Massachusetts a council of safety managed matters until May 24 when by act of an elected convention the old government was revived as it had existed under the old charter, the delegates from forty out of fifty-four towns so voting. Then the officials chosen at the last election, in 1686, resumed their places with Bradstreet in the governor's chair. Plymouth Colony also restored its former constitu- tion and its former governor, Thomas Hinckley; and Con- necticut and Rhode Island, reviving their cherished charters, reinstated their old magistrates, with Treat as governor in Connecticut and Allyn as secretary.
All this happened before the news of the accession of Wil- liam and Mary or any official despatches came. On May 26, however, the seating of the new sovereigns was announced, and on the 29th Phips arrived with the despatches addressed to Andros. They were not delivered to him. They were opened by Phips, and on the same day their Majesties were jubilantly proclaimed - the most joyful news, as Hutchinson recorded almost seventy years later, that had ever been published in New England. Articles of impeachment were drawn up against Andros, Dudley, Randolph, Palmer, West, Graham, and two others, and the bail that was offered for them was refused. It was believed that if given his freedom Sir Edmund would try to hold the Dominion of New England for James Stuart; indeed, his Pemaquid proclamation was construed as an order to this effect.
In Virginia and in Maryland as well as in New York and New England any excuse to upset the existing state of things would have been welcome at this time; for Lord Howard, who was a Catholic, was on bad terms with his Virginians, and
361
A TIME OF CHANGES
1689]
although there were many Catholics in Maryland the larger part of the population, of Puritan stock, hated the rule of the Romanist proprietor, Lord Baltimore. All the colonies, moreover, had been alarmed by the rapid progress of James II toward absolute power; all lay open to attack by the French of Canada or by the Indians whom the French might excite; and these disparate sources of alarm became in the popular mind a doubly dangerous single source when, after the fall of James, Louis sheltered and befriended him. It was more than probable that if James should try with the help of Louis to retain or to regain his colonies he would begin with New York which was their geographical centre and for so many years had been his own property. Nevertheless every port along the coast feared the advent of a French fleet. Distrust and dread of Catholics naturally developed even where such feelings had not been known before, and in more than one place they took fantastic shape. In Boston, for example, it was widely believed that Andros was himself a papist and that he meant to bring in the French and Indians to fall upon the New Englanders. And Dudley wrote from his prison to Cotton Mather that some persons had declared that his reli- gion was 'tainted or shaken with popery,' he having hoped thereby to obtain the favor of James Stuart. How the same overcharged dread worked in New York will be told with more detail.
Only in one colony to the southward of New York did the news of the changes in England provoke serious disturbance. This was in Maryland where a belief in a Jesuit plot between the French and the savages for the destruction of the Protes- tants caused a wild terror during the latter months of 1688. In the spring of 1689 the Protestants, not knowing that a messenger sent by Lord Baltimore with orders to proclaim their Majesties had died on the journey, alarmed by the delay, and fearing an immediate attack by sea, organized under the leadership of John Coode a league in arms to defend their own faith and the rights of William and Mary. By September Baltimore's governor was overthrown without bloodshed, a
362
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
new assembly was elected, the new sovereigns were duly pro- claimed, and trouble was at an end.
The same unfortunate messenger had carried the orders addressed to Pennsylvania. Consequently this province was governed in the name of James II until November when Wil- liam and Mary were recognized. In Virginia it was thought for a time that neither king nor government existed in Eng- land and, as in Maryland, there was great fear of a French fleet and of Catholic treachery. Yet here, the orders sent by William himself arriving promptly, his accession was pro- claimed sooner than anywhere else on the American main- land - on April 29, just a month before the ceremony took place at Boston. In Carolina also the change was recognized quickly and quietly.
The delay in sending instructions to New England which permitted if it did not occasion the uprising at Boston worked diversely in those parts of the Dominion which had not, like the colonies of New England proper, old forms of government that could be resuscitated to the people's satisfaction. The Jerseys were without a general government of any kind from the summer of 1689, when Andros's deputy, Governor Hamil- ton, returned to England, until the summer of 1692, but their town and county officers kept their places and, although some persons made a weak effort to join in the uprising in New York, there was so little disturbance that Samuel Smith, who in the eighteenth century wrote the first history of New Jersey, did not even mention this episode. In New York, on the other hand, the disturbance lasted longer than in any other colony and came much nearer to civil war.
It is hard to find an exact name for the troubles in New York. They were not, as was affirmed at the time by the conservative faction and has often since been said, the result of a mere 'conspiracy,' a 'Dutch plot,' or a 'usurpation' of power by a man or a faction intending if possible to remain in power. To call them the 'Leisler Rebellion' exaggerates the share that Jacob Leisler played in their inception. Indeed,
363
A TIME OF CHANGES
1689]
although they soon passed into a revolt, they can hardly be considered either a rebellion or a revolution in the same sense as the movements in Massachusetts and in Maryland, for the branch of his government that Andros had established on Manhattan proved too weak to deserve the name while, on the other hand, the New Yorkers were not inspired by a desire to restore antecedent political conditions or by a wish to con- struct new conditions for themselves. A majority among them believed that their province was in danger from internal and external foes and determined to defend it on behalf of the new sovereigns whom they hailed with a passionate loyalty as its saviors. Their uprising, prolonged by the delay of orders from William and by the vagueness of those that first arrived, developed as its initiators had not foreseen. Op- posed by a strong minority, in the words of William Smith it 'threw the province into convulsions.' It ended in a tragedy. And it so planted and watered and fostered political animosi- ties, personal hatreds, and the feuds of cliques that for many after years New York constantly tasted of its bitter fruits.
While it is hard to name this troubled period it is not easy to disentangle an impartial account of it from the mass of offi- cial records, reports, protests, petitions, affidavits, letters, and controversial pamphlets written while it lasted and from the similar papers of later dates which refer to it, among them the records of an enquiry conducted in 1695 by the parliament of England. In spite of its bulk this material is fragmentary. Although the greater part of it has been pub- lished or calendared no part has been helpfully edited. Al- most all the documents are strongly partisan and many might serve as object-lessons in the arts of misrepresentation and vituperation. The voice of the people at large does not make itself heard in them as it does in the documents of Governor Stuyvesant's time. And - a great hindrance to the student - very few comments upon Jacob Leisler's personal character or specific acts have come down to us except from the pens of violent adversaries. William Smith's history gives valuable evidence regarding those matters of general sentiment, of
364
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK [1684-1689
public temper, which hearsay or tradition may faithfully preserve, but it cannot be trusted in its statements of fact. Nor do modern historians help us much. They have never told the story of Leisler and his enemies in full detail and very seldom without a bias that reflects the passions of a peculiarly passionate time.
REFERENCE NOTES
PRINCIPAL PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS : Col. Docs., III, IX (398) ; Cal. of Council Minutes (142) ; Minutes of the Common Council, I [in- cludes orders and proclamations of the governors] (409) ; Cal. of Hist. MSS., English (390) ; Andros Tracts (56); Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688 [includes letters of Dongan's not in Col. Docs.] and 1689-1692 (485).
GENERAL AUTHORITIES : Brodhead, Hist. of New York, II (405), and The Government of Sir Edmund Andros over New England in 1688 and 1689 in Historical Magazine, 1867 (213) ; Osgood, The Ameri- can Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (116); Trevelyan, Eng- land under the Stuarts (180) ; histories of New England.
DONGAN'S REPORT ON THE STATE OF THE PROVINCE, 1687 : in Col. Docs., III, in Doc. Hist., I (397), and in Valentine's Manual, 1850 (508).
HUGUENOT IMMIGRANTS : Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688; Registers of the Eglise Françoise (173) ; Ballard, The Huguenot Settlers of New York City and Its Vicinity (230) ; Baird, The Huguenot Emigra- tion to America (229) ; Riker, Harlem (209); histories of West- chester county.
CHURCH AFFAIRS : Ecc. Records, II (167) ; Papers Relating to the State of Religion in the Province (452) ; Manual of the Reformed Church (96).
SELYNS (quoted) : in Ecc. Records, II. - His LIST OF CHURCH MEM- BERS: in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Collections, 1841 (214), in Mem. Hist., I (408), and in Valentine, Hist. of the City of New York (402). JEWS: Minutes of the Common Council, I. - ROLL OF FREEMEN: in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Collections, 1885.
HINCKLEY TO BLATHWAYT: in Hinckley Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4th Series, V.
QUAKERS : Papers Relating to Quakers and Moravians in Doc. Hist., III.
JAMISON : E. B. O'Callaghan, David Jamison, Attorney-General of New York in Mag. of Amer. Hist., I (303).
365
366
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
POST OFFICE : Letters of Gov. Dongan in MSS. lettered "N. Y. MSS., Letters and Documents," in N. Y. Public Library, Lenox Building. WALL STREET: Valentine, History of Wall Street (531) ; Lamb, Wall Street in History (532).
MARKET: Minutes of the Common Council, I; De Voe, The Market Book (308).
CITY ORDINANCES : Minutes of the Common Council, I.
LIST OF NEW YORK VESSELS: in Valentine, Hist. of the City of New York, and in Ships and Vessels of our Port in Olden Time (469).
- CLEARANCES : Vessels Navigating the Hudson River in 1684 in Valentine's Manual, 1866.
EAST JERSEY AND PERTH AMBOY: New Jersey Archives, I (374) ; Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688; Whitehead, East Jersey under the Proprietary Governments (375).
STATEN ISLAND KILLS: see Reference Notes, Chap. XXII.
CAPTAIN ALLEN: Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688. - LORD HOWARD TO PEPYS : ibid.
COUNCIL TO THE KING : in Papers Relating to Pemaquid (435).
SPECIAL TAX: Papers Relating to Denonville's Expedition in Doc. Hist., I; Cal. of Council Minutes; Cal. Hist. MSS., English; Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF OTHER COLONIES: New Jersey Archives, I; Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688.
ANDROS : Andros Tracts. - His COMMISSION : in Col. Docs., III. DONGAN'S RECALL: Col. Docs., III; Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688.
ANDROS'S COUNCILLORS: Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688; Hutchinson, Hist. of Massachusetts-Bay, I (313).
NEW YORKERS IN BOSTON: Andros Tracts; Hutchinson, Original Papers (311) ; Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692. - RANDOLPH TO POVEY : in Hutchinson, Original Papers. - BYFIELD (quoted) : his Ac- count of the Late Revolution in New England, London, 1689; New York, 1865; and in Andros Tracts. - WEST AND ALLYN, CORRE- SPONDENCE: in Records of Connecticut Colony (125). - PALMER (cited) : his Impartial Account of the State of New England, Bos- ton and London, 1690, and in Andros Tracts.
GREAT SEAL OF NEW ENGLAND: G. Adlard, Historical Account of the Great Seal of New England in Valentine's Manual, 1862, and in Historical Magazine, 1862; J. Appleton, The Great Seal of New England Used by Governor Andros in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 1st Series, VI; Palfrey, Hist. of New England (363).
FLAG OF NEW ENGLAND: Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688; Arnold, Hist. of Rhode Island (459).
DONGAN TO ANDROS: in Col. Docs., III.
FOOT COMPANIES FOR NEW YORK: Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692.
367
REFERENCE NOTES
COUNCIL, DESPATCHES OF 1691 : in Col. Docs., III.
BLATHWAYT TO RANDOLPH: in Hutchinson, Hist. of Massachusetts- Bay, I.
ANDROS AND HIS COUNCIL IN NEW YORK: O'Callaghan, Origin of Legislative Assemblies in New York (60).
DUTCH LETTER OF 1698: in Documents Relating to the Administration of Leisler (276) and in Ecc. Records, II.
HUTCHINSON (quoted about birth of the prince) : his Hist. of Massa- chusetts-Bay, I.
VALUATION OF CITY PROPERTY : in Minutes of the Common Council, I. ANDROS AND THE FIVE NATIONS: Col. Docs., III; Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688.
FORT JAMES : Abstracts of Wills, I (546) ; Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688. TROOPERS' PETITION : Usurpation Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collec- tions, 3d Series, VII.
COURT OF LIEUTENANCY : in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Collections, 1880.
PROCLAMATIONS OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE: in Cal. S. P. Col., 1689- 1692.
ANDROS'S PROCLAMATION FROM PEMAQUID : in Brodhead, Hist. of New York, II, Appendix, and in Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688.
JOHN WEST TO FITZ-JOHN WINTHROP : in Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 6th Series, III.
HUTCHINSON (cited) : his Hist. of Massachusetts-Bay, I.
DUDLEY TO COTTON MATHER : in Winthrop Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 6th Series, III, Appendix.
THE REVOLUTION IN THE COLONIES: Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688, and 1689-1692; Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, III; Doyle, The Puritan Colonies (113); F. E. Sparks, Causes of the Maryland Revolution of 1689, Baltimore, 1896 (Johns Hopkins University Studies); histories of the several colonies.
CHAPTER XXV
THE UPRISING IN NEW YORK
1689
(LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR NICHOLSON)
Our only design and intention was to secure ourselves and country to be wholly devoted to your Majesties' will and pleasure in disposing of our government, to which we are ready with all loyalty and obedi- ence to submit. - Address of the Militia and Inhabitants of the City of New York to William and Mary. June, 1689.
IN 1689 Jacob Leisler, as described in affidavits taken a few years later, was a merchant of 'very great dealings' and 'very good reputation.' He must also have been widely esteemed for good judgment, for in 1686 the people of eastern Long Island had empowered him to petition Governor Dongan on their behalf with regard to their trading rights and prac- tices, and soon afterwards a number of Huguenots intending to come over from England employed him as their agent in the purchase of lands. Under every governor from Stuyve- sant to Dongan he had held minor appointments as a member of a commission, a committee, or a court; but he had never been appointed or elected to municipal office; it is as certain as negative proof can make it that he was not a member of the assembly of 1683 or of 1685; and his name had stood on none of the lists indicating men who might well be raised to the council which from time to time the governors sent to England. There is nothing to show that before 1689 he had any political ambitions, or that he had ever taken part in public affairs except when he attacked Domine Van Rens- selaer during the first year of Andros's first administration. There is, indeed, a letter written by Fitz-John Winthrop to
368
369
THE UPRISING IN NEW YORK
1689]
John Allyn of Connecticut which, as it stands in print, is dated in October, 1682, and says:
'Tis monstrous and unmanly to suffer that cursed yoke of Leis- lerism to be tied about our necks by the appointment of such trivial instruments where the poorness of the persons makes the yoke the greater.
But the word here printed as 'Leislerism' or, more prob- ably, the date of the letter, must have been wrongly tran- scribed from the manuscript, which is not now to be found among the many letters written by or to the Winthrops that are preserved by the Massachusetts Historical Society. Such a protest might well have been written in 1690. It could not have been thought of in 1682, for nowhere else can any hint be read that there was even a dim presage of 'Leislerism' in New York at this time, a time when Governor Dongan had not yet arrived and when no feud had yet originated on Manhat- tan to spread in Connecticut antagonism to any New Yorkers.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.