USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century Vol. II > Part 37
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To our trusty and well-beloved Francis Nicholson, Esquire, our Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-chief of our Province of New York in America. And in his absence to such as for the time being take care for preserving the peace and administering the laws in our said Province of New York in America.
As the king, he wrote, understood from the letters of Nicholson and the 'principal inhabitants' of New York that they were ready to receive his orders, he now informed them that he was taking such resolutions concerning their province
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as would insure the welfare of its inhabitants. Meanwhile he authorized and empowered the addressee
. .. to take upon you the government of the said province calling to your assistance in the administration thereof the principle free- holders and inhabitants of the same or so many of them as you shall think fit. Willing and requiring you to do and perform all things which to the place and office of our Lieutenant-Governor and Com- mander-in-Chief of our Province of New York doth or may appertain as you shall find necessary for our service and the good government of our subjects according to the laws and customs of our said Province until further orders from us.
With these instructions the privy council sent an order to proclaim their Majesties at New York if this had not already been done, addressing it, except for a necessary change in pronouns, as the instructions were addressed.
Another royal letter, also dated July 30, authorized those who had taken upon themselves the government of Massachu- setts to continue in the same until the king should give direc- tions 'for the more orderly settlement of the government.' With this went a requisition that Andros, Randolph, and the other officials then in confinement at Boston be sent to Eng- land by the first ship, to answer before the king what might be charged against them. And on these papers the super- scription read :
To such as for the time being take care for preserving the peace and administering the laws in our colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England in America.
Increase Mather, still acting as agent for New England, was content with the king's orders, believing that the bill to revive all charters that had been valid in 1660 would soon become law. In fact, it failed to become law before the letters were actually despatched. On December 4 they reached Boston. Those for New York had been intrusted to John Riggs. Before hestarted, Nicholson had arrived in London. Nevertheless Riggs was not detained nor were the instructions altered even by a change in the superscription. Coming by way of Boston Riggs reached New York on Sunday, De-
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cember 8. What then happened may best be told in words that Nicholas Bayard wrote to Leisler a few weeks later when he was begging for his release from jail and therefore wrote respectfully. At the time in question, he explained, he had come secretly from Albany to New York to see his son who was very ill. Riggs, believing that in Nicholson's absence the packets should be delivered to the other council- lors, notified Philipse of his arrival. Philipse took him to Bayard's house where the matter was discussed. Riggs said that he did not believe Leisler would receive the packets even if they were tendered him, and promised to give them to the councillors when Van Cortlandt should join the others. But the next morning, before they could meet, Bayard was in- formed that upon Leisler's demand the packets had been delivered to him.
At the moment Bayard did not content himself with so simple a statement as this. On December 10 he dated and a few days later he finished letters to Andros, to Nicholson, and to Shrewsbury, William's secretary of state, all of which he sent by the hand of John Riggs to Sir Edmund at Boston, sending also the Deduction and Narrative that he had prepared for Nicholson to use in England as evidence against the Leis- lerians. In one or another of these papers he said that Riggs had suffered himself to be 'overhectored by the grand robber Leisler,' had been 'cajolled' by 'that villain Leisler.' In con- sequence the condition of himself and his friends was much worse than ever, for the rebels were now 'as proud as Lucifers,' pretending to 'some glimpse of authority from their Majes- ties' though in reality usurping powers which their Majesties had meant to bestow upon the councillors. Had the coun- cillors secured the packets they would undoubtedly have 'resettled the government,' for most of the people had grown sensible of their errors. Now, however, Leisler was entitled 'Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief by command from their Majesties.' He had already seated himself in the governor's pew in the church 'with a large carpet before him.' Henry Cuyler 'that betrayed the fort, a silly fool and coward,'
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was made major of the soldiers. Moreover, Leisler had formed a council, and the committee of safety was 'laid aside.'
Other documents show that Van Cortlandt, who was evi- dently not far away, had hurried to the city when he heard of Riggs's arrival. Leisler had sent a lieutenant and two sergeants to bring Riggs to the fort. By Riggs's desire Philipse and Van Cortlandt accompanied him or met him there. Whether or not Bayard was asked and refused to go can only be conjectured. Although all who were present knew what the king had written to Boston none knew what he had written to New York. The councillors claimed the packets, believing that William was aware that Nicholson had left the province in their charge. Leisler also claimed them, believing that the king understood that, here as in New England, James's appointees had been cast down and that he therefore intended to sanction, here as at Boston, the people's provisional ar- rangements. After the matter had been debated, says the affidavit of Isaac De Riemer who was present, Riggs said that he would deliver the packets to Leisler if Leisler would give him a receipt for them, which was done 'without any force or compulsion used to the said Mr. Riggs.' Another affidavit says that just after Riggs had landed in Massa- chusetts he told the deponent that 'he knew not better' than to give his packets to Mr. Leisler ' being he was governor in New York.'
A sworn statement signed by Philipse and Van Cortlandt tells how they had tried in vain to get the packets, adding that Leisler had called them papists and used many other opprobrious words. But when the question was settled, say Bayard's letters, Philipse submitted to all the 'irregularities' imposed upon him by 'those villians'; and thus leading them to think that his colleagues should be 'regulated by his scandalous submission to avoid a little trouble and charge' he was doing the other councillors and the old magistrates 'much hurt.' The rebellion, Bayard now averred, had been first contrived by Leisler and some few others not only out of ambition but chiefly in the hope of destroying the revenue
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and thereby reaping personal advantage. The most part of the inhabitants of New York, King's, Queen's, and West- chester counties and of Bergen County in East Jersey were 'concerned in the rebellion' while the rest of the people in both provinces abhorred it. Orders from England, Bayard hoped, might reach New York before his letters could reach England-orders 'for the subduing and punishment of the chief rebels' and for the 'relief and reward of all their Majesties' loyal and suffering subjects that have done their duties.' Meanwhile, he explained, he thought it best for himself to 'abscond' again.
It cannot now be divined whether, when the king's instruc- tions were sent unchanged although Nicholson's flight from New York was known, it was intended that they should reach the hands of the councillors or of the revolutionary leaders. Probably the question was not even debated, the precise fate of the orders was thought unimportant. The desire of the king, based on the advice of the Lords of Trade, was simply to have things go as quietly as possible in the northern colonies until he could make for them permanent arrangements. The contingent form of address devised as well for the letters to Massachusetts as for those to New York shows that he and his advisers did not wish to indorse any local faction to the exclusion of a possible rival faction. Any, they may well have thought, might have fallen from a dominant to an op- position party before the king's instructions could arrive; and in such a case a definite superscription might provoke the very troubles they wished to prevent. To this neutral policy they adhered until a new governor set sail for Man- hattan, making no response to the conflicting reports and appeals that were pouring in from the province. But, owing to the long delay in sending the governor, a policy which seemed the wisest and safest proved for New York the worst that its sovereign could have adopted.
Although the three councillors so affirmed, it is not probable that if they had secured the packets from the king they would
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have been able to 'resettle' a government which they had been powerless to maintain. They had not shown the courage or the intelligence needed to master a populace which, while really willing to submit to the king's commands, would not easily have believed that he meant to support officials who, in New York as in Massachusetts, had been set aside by the popu- lar hand. It seems possible that if the councillors had secured the letters, and even if Leisler had then recognized their authority, civil war might have broken out.
On the other hand no one who believed that Leisler was justified in retaining the letters could doubt his right to as- sume the title, duties, and powers of a lieutenant-governor, not as by mere force of circumstances Nicholson's successor but as King William's actual if unknown and provisional appointee. William had ordered those who might be in power in Massachusetts to 'continue' the conduct of public affairs. But he had directed the recipient of the letter to New York to 'take upon' himself the conduct of affairs and to consider himself for the time being lieutenant-governor and commander-in-chief. Leisler's only logical course, his only possible course, was either to acknowledge that the instructions were not meant for him and to yield all authority into the hands of Frederick Philipse as the senior councillor or else to assume at once the new titles and the full powers that they implied. This he did, all testimony indicates, with the entire approval of the committee of safety which he had thus far recognized as being the 'supreme authority' in the province until royal commands should come.
In deference to the commands that now had come, and speaking as their Majesties' appointee, on December 10 he caused them to be again proclaimed according to the form that had been enclosed with the king's letter. On the 11th he proceeded to call to his aid some of the principal inhabit- ants. Summoning in consultation a number of his immediate supporters, upon their recommendation, so the record runs, he accepted and established eight councillors. Three were of English origin, five of Dutch. From Queen's County VOL. II .- 2 F
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Samuel Edsall was selected, from King's Dr. Gerardus Beek- man, from Westchester Thomas Williams, from Orange William Lawrence, and from the city and county of New York Peter Delanoy the new mayor, Hendrick Jansen Van Veurden one of the newly elected aldermen who was as often called simply Jansen, Dr. Samuel Staats a New Yorker by birth who had studied medicine in Holland, and Johannes Vermilye one of the original patentees of New Harlem. Most of them had been members of the committee of safety. Before the end of the year three more councillors were putting their names to public papers: Johannes Van Couwenhoven who was another alderman, Hendrick Cuyler, and Captain Blagge an English-born shipmaster of long transatlantic experience. In after years Edward Antill, a prominent merchant who was always an anti-Leislerian, declared that when Leisler was brought to trial in 1691 he asked him to act as his counsel. Because of the careless orthography of the time this has sometimes been read to mean that Antill was once offered a place on Leisler's council.
Many orders issued by Leisler and his council are preserved but only a few fragments of the minutes of their proceedings. The first of these is the record of a resolution that Jacob Mil- borne be appointed secretary of the province and clerk to the council and that Mayor Delanoy be commissioned as collector. A goodly family party was thus gathered at the council board, for four who had seats there - Milborne, Delanoy, Lawrence, and Blagge - were sons-in-law of another, Samuel Edsall.
Up to this time Delanoy had merely taken from the mer- chants, in the stead of customs dues, notes to be paid when required; now he began to collect the dues in the king's name. And now in the king's name Leisler began to issue civil and military commissions - to high sheriffs, justices, and militia officers for all the southern counties including Suffolk. They said that the appointees were 'thus to continue until I receive further orders from his Majesty King William.' English names are many on the civil list but appear only once or twice
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on the list of the twenty-one militia officers of the city. Among the six captains who had been elected by the people in September were only two of those who had led the uprising, De Peyster and De Bruyn. One of the new captains was Leisler's English son-in-law Robert Walters.
Leisler did not publicly proclaim his appointment as lieu- tenant-governor and, his enemies declared, would not show the royal instructions to any except his own partisans. To the governors of other colonies, however, he announced that he had received the king's commission, giving no sign that he felt the slightest doubt of the legality of his course. All the southern parts of the province accepted his authority except the eastern half of Long Island; and even here in Suf- folk there was no preference for his opponents - only a desire for annexation to Connecticut.
The feeling of the opposition leaders need not be imagined. It is plainly recorded. Leisler was 'an incorrigible brutish coxcomb' and a 'villainous usurper.' The godmother in the bestowal of his new title, says the Modest and Impartial Narrative, was ambition, the godfather was Mr. Milborne, and both promised on his behalf that he would faithfully serve and 'cleave to the Infernal Prince and his works' as long as 'the many-headed beast the multitude' would stand by him. William Nicolls, justifying the Leislerian epithet 'passionate Mr. Nicolls,' wrote:
Out of hell certainly never was such a pack of ignorant, scandalous, false, malicious, impudent, impertinent rascals herded together; they are the shame and infamy of all that may be called government.
And Matthew Plowman did not confine himself to words, for an order of arrest issued at this time charged him with using scurrilous language about the king's officials and with beating a justice on Staten Island.
Writing on the 12th to Randolph, still in jail at Boston, Van Cortlandt said that Leisler had sent for the seal of the province. This meant the old one given by James as duke, for the later one Andros had broken when the province was
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gathered into the Dominion of New England. After alter- ing the ducal coronet it bore into a royal crown Leisler used it in signing commissions and land patents, evidently in ignorance that he was thus infringing the royal prerogative.
On December 14 the new government, in insistent need of money, directed that the customs and excise dues be col- lected according to the revenue act passed by the assembly of 1683. The order was torn down from the door of the custom-house and a contemptuous paper affixed in its stead by persons signing themselves English freemen of the province. As the revenue act of 1683, they said, had never been ap- proved by James either as duke or as king its imposition violated Magna Carta and the liberties of English subjects. Those who thus spoke, said Leisler's government, falsely construed 'the wholesome laws of England' and ignored that act of the freemen of New York which had declared that supreme authority should forever reside, under the crown, 'in a Governor, Council, and the people met in General As- sembly.' He might have added with truth that James as duke had approved both this act, embodied in the Charter of Liberties, and the revenue act, and that he had let the revenue act stand when, as king, he repealed the Charter.
In accordance also with the acts of the assembly of 1683 Leisler ordered the erection in the several counties of local courts to try small cases. On December 28 he issued to Captain Staats at Albany an order to take possession in the king's name of the fort there, to discipline his soldiers strictly, and to consult upon all occasions with the civil magistrates 'in what may concern them' regarding the interests of the king and the welfare of the people. As he informed Staats, he had directed the magistracy to order a free election for new magistrates, and he was willing that certain persons, whom he named, should be chosen 'if the people will elect them.' Furthermore he directed all persons in the province who held commissions from Andros or Dongan to deliver them to the justices of their respective counties upon pain of being con- sidered ill-affected to the existing government.
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While he was thus trying to consolidate his own authority he was thinking of broader colonial affairs. To one Nicholas Rust he issued a commission to attempt with twenty-five volunteers the reduction of 'Kaderockqua,' the far-distant Fort Frontenac, not knowing that it had already been aban- doned. The fort was to be 'razed down to the ground' to insure so far as possible that it would never be rebuilt, the Frenchmen were to receive 'Christian quarter ... if desired,' and none were to be given to the Indians 'to exercise their cruelty over them.'
It was the desire to possess the wide rich lands in the valley of the Ohio that eventually precipitated the war between French and English for continental dominion. Leisler and his generation had long passed away before either English- men or Frenchmen seriously thought of exploiting these lands ; but there is in existence a paper attributed to the month of December, 1689, which shows that certain individuals already coveted them, for reasons which in part were sensible although in part fantastic enough. The paper is headed: ‘Account of a country for which a patent is desired in North America.' The country is described as lying in the centre of the continent between thirty-six and a half and forty-six and a half degrees of north latitude and between the western skirts of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania and 'the Pacific or South Sea.' In it there were two vast lakes, the lesser six thousand miles in circumference and as navigable as the ocean. Between them ran a great river, navigable for great ships almost fifteen hundred miles from the sea but barred by many great falls. To annex this country would deprive the French of some of the richest branches of their commerce, for the fur trade, worth to them at least £50,000 a year, would be cut off should the English settle on the hither side of 'the cataract.' More- over, there was great mineral wealth, the iron being better than in England. There were cinnabar and several kinds of dye-woods. Silk-worms and the cochineal fly could be raised. There were vast quantities of cotton and flax growing wild, fruits and timber, innumerable birds and beasts. And among
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the beasts were 'infinite numbers of Pesikions or Sibils,' a species, unknown till recently to Europeans, which had hair of the nature of Spanish wool and fit for many manufactures. May this be thought an early glimpse of the bisons of the West ?
REFERENCE NOTES
PRINCIPAL PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS : Col. Docs., III (398) ; Minutes of the Common Council, I (409) ; Papers Relating to the Adminis- tration of Lieut .- Gov. Leisler (278) ; Documents Relating to the Administration of Leisler (276) ; Cal. Hist. MSS., English (390) ; Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692 (485). - LEISLER'S CORRESPONDENCE : chiefly in Papers as above.
LEISLER TO THE GOVERNOR OF BARBADOES : in Papers Relating to . . . Leisler.
DUTCH LETTER, 1698 : in Documents Relating to . . . Leisler.
NEWTOWN: Riker, Annals of Newtown (300).
ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS OF COMMITTEE OF SAFETY : in Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692.
ABRAHAM GOUVERNEUR : Purple, Ancient Families of New Amsterdam and New York (184) ; Riker, Harlem. 1 GOLD AND FITCH: Col. Docs., III; Papers Relating to . . . Leisler ; Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692.
COMMISSIONS ISSUED TO LEISLER: Papers Relating to . . Leisler. LOYALTY VINDICATED: in Documents Relating to . . . Leisler. RANDOLPH TO LORDS OF TRADE: in Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692. MODEST AND IMPARTIAL NARRATIVE: in Col. Docs., III.
MCKENZIE TO NICHOLSON : in Col. Docs., III, and in Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692.
SMITH (quoted) : his Hist. of New York (420).
LEISLER TO BRADSTREET: in Hutchinson, Hist. of Massachusetts- Bay. I (313).
ADDRESS AND LEISLER'S LETTER TO KING AND QUEEN: in Col. Docs., III.
AFFAIRS AT ALBANY : Papers Relating to .. . Leisler; City Records [of Albany] in Munsell, Annals of Albany, II (40) ; Colden, Hist. of the Five Indian Nations (188) ; Hinckley Papers in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4th Series, V; Records of Connecticut Colony (125). IROQUOIS ATTACK ON CANADA: Parkman, Frontenac (191) ; histories of Canada.
BAYARD TO RANDOLPH: in Col. Docs., III, and in Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692.
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ELECTIONS and COMMON COUNCIL: Minutes of the Common Council,
I; Papers Relating to . . . Leisler.
LAWRENCE FAMILY : see Reference Notes, Chap. XII.
BAYARD TO MILITIA OFFICERS: in Col. Docs., III, in Ecc. Records, II (167), and in Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692.
LEISLER AND COODE, CORRESPONDENCE: in Papers Relating to . .. Leisler.
CHALMERS (quoted) : his Political Annals of the . . . Colonies, Book II (114).
GOVERNORS PROPOSED FOR NEW YORK : Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692.
KING WILLIAM'S ORDERS: in Col. Docs., III.
BAYARD'S PETITION TO LEISLER: in Papers Relating to . . . Leisler. BAYARD'S LETTERS and BRIEF DEDUCTION AND NARRATIVE: in Col.
Docs., III, and in Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692.
DE RIEMER'S AFFIDAVIT: in Documents Relating to . . . Leisler.
COMMISSIONS ISSUED BY LEISLER: in Papers Relating to . . . Leisler, in Muster Rolls in Report of State Historian, 1896, Appendix H (454), and in Cal. of Hist. MSS., English.
WILLIAM NICOLLS (quoted) : in Col. Docs., III, and in Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692.
VAN CORTLANDT TO RANDOLPH: in Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692.
LEISLER ABOUT KADAROCKQUA : in Papers Relating to . . . Leisler.
OHIO LANDS: Account of a country for which a patent is desired in North America in Cal. S. P. Col., 1689-1692.
CHAPTER XXVII LEISLER'S ADMINISTRATION 1689, 1690
(JACOB LEISLER, ACTING LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR)
What we now propose is not merely for our own safety but the general good of all New England since we are all embarked in one bottom and, though they who are nearest the fire burn first, yet if Albany be destroyed, which is the principal land bulwark in America against the French, then there is not only an open road for the French and Indians to make incursions into your Honours' territory but the Five Nations who are now for us will be forced to turn their ax the other way. - The Agents of Albany and Ulster Counties to the Govern- ment of Connecticut. March, 1690.
As the year 1689 had opened, so it closed - amid fears of the French. The allies in the great struggle in Europe, de- claring their purpose to destroy the commerce of the French, forbade even neutral nations to trade with them. This car- ried the war at once into the West Indies. Despite King William's promises he could as yet spare no ships to protect the mainland colonies or even properly to defend the islands then thought so much more important. St. Christopher's, as Leisler knew by August, was taken by the French; the other English West Indies were in imminent danger; and far at the north French privateers were capturing New England fishing- smacks while the royal frigate that the insurgents at Boston had dismantled in the spring was still lying a prisoner in their harbor. It seems to have been owing to Leisler's good prepa- rations for defence that there was no great dread in New York of any one who might come by sea.
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