USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress. Vol. II > Part 52
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Accordingly on the 3d of September the American diplomatists, whose superiors as such were not to be found in any nation of Europe at that day, proceeded to the apartments of Hartley, and the Sept. 3. Definitive Treaty of Peace between Great Britain and the United States was signed. The sketch is a fac-simile of the signatures, from the original document in the State Department at Washington, with indications of the seals, now nearly obliterated, and of the ribbon, which is of pale blue. The treaty was in due course of time ratified by the King and Congress. Vergennes delayed the ceremony of signing the treaties at Versailles between Great Britain and France and Spain until a messenger from Paris arrived to announce that the signing of the American treaty had actually taken place; after which, before the end of the same day, all the belligerent powers of Europe concluded peace, except the Dutch, who had assented to preliminaries only the day before.
Benjamin West, successor of Sir Joshua Reynolds as President of the British Academy, made an unfinished study in oil of the act which re- stored peace to the world. An engraved copy of this painting was pre- sented by George Grote, the historian of Greece, to John Jay, grandson of the Revolutionary diplomatist, while United States Minister to Vienna.1 The benign countenance of Franklin, then in his seventy-seventh year, with his grandson, Temple Franklin, secretary of the Commission, stand- ing behind him ; the well-poised head and handsome features of Adams, scarcely forty-eight ; the pale, feeble-looking Laurens, not yet recovered
1 To the courtesy of Hon. John Jay the author is indebted for a copy of the unfinished study by West, which, published for the first time, in our full-page engraving, illustrates one of the most interesting scenes in modern history.
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from the hardships of his imprisonment in the Tower of London, a scholarly man of fifty-nine ; and the tall, slight figure of Jay - who was ten years younger than Adams, and forty years younger than Franklin - standing, apparently addressing the Commission, with face and attitude expressive of the calm serenity, self-respect, and refined power of the highest type of human intellect and character, together form a picture which Americans will ever cherish with national pride.
It is refreshing to note the gracious spirit with which the senior mem- bers of the Commission accorded the glory of obtaining the fisheries, the Mississippi, and the magnificent boundaries of the United States, to the youngest of their number. The British plenipotentiaries bore testimony to the same effect. Documents at present existing in both France and England prove that the French government, neither anxious nor willing America should lay the basis for such magnitude and grandeur, worked industriously to prevent England from yielding the fisheries, and labored vigorously to have the Mississippi given to Spain. The community of fault-finders in the end acknowledged the sound judgment of the Amer- ican envoy who dared to veer from his instructions and take lofty ground with kingdoms and crowns, upon individual responsibility - through a sense of duty to the rising nation. And a just and prosperous people, in full enjoyment of the magic blessings made doubly sure through the clear order of his thought and the keen foresight of his statemanship, bless- ings which shine with advancing splendor as the years roll on, will never cease to honor with gratitude the achievement of John Jay of New York.1
Only the American commissioners appear in the painting, the portrait of the English Minister not having been accessible to West. Some two years later, David Hartley presented Franklin with a large mezzotint portrait of himself, engraved by Walker from a painting by Romney, which Franklin in his note of acknowledgment, dated Philadelphia, October 27, 1785, said, " I shall frame and keep in my best room." It represents Hartley seated by a table upon which lies the Definitive Treaty of Peace with the United States, his right hand resting near the scroll, and the pen and ink in the background with which he is about to
1 " It was not only chiefly, but solely, through his means that the negotiations of that period, between England and France, were brought to a successful conclusion," wrote Fitz- herbert (Lord St. Helens) some years afterward. John Adams always affirmed that the title of " the Washington of the negotiation," bestowed upon himself in Holland, properly be- longed to Jay ; and he wrote, while President of the United States, under date of November 24, 1800, " The principal merit of the successful negotiations for the peace of 1783 was Mr. Jay's." Governor William Livingston wrote to Jay, "The treaty is universally applauded." Alexander Hamilton wrote to Jay, "The people of New England talk of making you an annual fish offering."
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DAVID HARTLEY.
consummate the final act necessary for the restoration of tranquillity to five great nations. He is waiting in his Paris apartments for the arrival of the American Ministers, on the morning designated for the signing of
Definitive Treaty with the United States
David Hartley. [From a painting by Romney. ]
the document ; and his emotional features beam with delighted satisfaction as he anticipates the final triumph his own noble and persistent efforts have contributed so largely to accomplish. The picture hung in the study of Franklin until his death. It is now in possession of his great- grandson, Dr. T. H. Bache, through whose courtesy the copy has been
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made which we present for the first time to the reading public. It possesses a dramatic interest beyond the mere portraiture of the man. It is an impressive illustration, in which we behold the ceremony of older institutions, represented by kings and nobles, bowing unconsciously before the divinity of a new liberty and a new world.1
Vergennes entertained the diplomatists from the various countries at
1 David Hartley, Member of Parliament for Kingston-upon-Hull, and "His Britannic Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary appointed to treat with the United States of America " (born 1729, died 1813), was the son of Dr. David Hartley, author and metaphysician (born 1705, died 1752), whose publication of "Observations on Man " in 1749 gave him world-wide celebrity, and of whom it was said that "he was addicted to no vice in any part of his life, neither to pride, nor ostentation, nor any sordid self-interest, but his heart was replete with every contrary virtue "; his great talents were specially directed to the moral and religious sciences ; he was the son of the Vicar of Armley, County of York, an eminent divine, whose family, one of great antiquity, was descended from the Hartleys of Chorton, of whom was Sir John Hartley, knighted in the eighth year of Charles I., October 23, 1633. The motto of the family, "vive ut vivas," seems to have breathed through the character of a long line of generations of learned and philanthropic men. David Hartley, the statesman, like his father, was a student of science, and belonged to the highest type of the cul- tured Christian gentleman. His manly integrity, universal benevolence, and sincerity of heart were so well known in England, that in all his mediations for the good of America he commanded the respect and con- fidence of the contending parties at home. His "Letters on the Amer- ican War," addressed to the mayor and corporation of Kingston-upon- Hull, comprehend some of the ablest arguments of the period. He was VIVE UT VIVAS also one of the first in the House of Commons to introduce and advocate Hartley Arms. measures for the abolition of the slave-trade.
Of the sons of the Vicar of Armley, James, next to David, was distinguished for eminent piety and intellectual vigor. Robert, eldest son of James, born 1736, married Martha Smithson, granddaughter of Sir Hugh Smithson, Baronet, and the cousin of Lord Percy, second Duke of Northumberland. See page 242 (Vol. II.), note. Isaac Hartley, the son of Robert Hartley and Martha Smithson, born at Cockermouth in 1766, married Isabella Johnson in 1787, and in 1797 established his residence in New York. They were the parents of Robert Milham Hartley, born at Cockermouth in 1796, who has been so thoroughly identified during a long and useful life with church and charity in New York City. He was classically educated, but resigned studies for the ministry because of impaired health. Devoting himself to philanthropic works, he has been largely instrumental in founding several of New York's most important charitable institutions, now in noiseless and successful operation, among which was the first organization for the relief of the poor. His published reports, numbering thirty-four volumes, form a complete library in this department of social and economic science, and are quoted by writers on similar themes in Europe as well as America. He has also written other works upon kindred topics, been a regular contributor to the religious press, and for nearly half a century a leading elder in the Presbyterian Church of New York City. He married Catharine Munson, daughter of Reuben Munson, member of the New York legislature and alderman of the city for many years ; and he has nine children, four sons and five daughters, who have intermarried with the old families, and are among the substantial citizens of New York ; his third son is the Rev. Dr. Isaac Smithson Hartley, of the Dutch Reformed Church, Utica.
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SIR GUY CARLETON.
a memorable dinner at Versailles immediately after the signing of the treaties.
While these events were transpiring in Europe the war was at a stand- still in America. Washington's army returned from the capture of Corn- wallis to the vicinity of New York City. Predatory excursions were frequent during the winter. But with the change in the British Ministry Sir Henry Clinton was superseded by the humane Sir Guy Carleton. "I should be very sorry," wrote Governor Livingston, when he heard. how bitterly the loyalists were blaming Clinton for the misfortunes of Corn- wallis, "to have Clinton recalled through any national resentment ; because, as fertile as England is in the production of blockheads, I think they cannot easily send us a greater blunderbuss, unless, peradventure, it should please his Majesty himself to do us the honor of a visit." Carleton arrived early in May, 1782; and his first act was to liberate from a New York prison, without exacting a parole from either, Sir James, brother of John Jay, who had been instrumental in the passage of the New York Act of Attainder, and Brockholst Livingston, the brother of Mrs. John Jay. Carleton sent the latter home to his father with a courteous letter, stating that he (Carleton) had come to conciliate, not to fight. The governor was not to be thus lulled into security while a hostile army occupied the chief city of the country, and significantly remarked, " In worldly poli- tics, as well as religion, we should watch as well as pray."
Washington accepted Carleton's expressions of good-will with caution. But as the weary summer rolled by and neither Sir Guy nor Admiral Digby seemed inclined to act offensively by land or by sea, he began to feel assured that no further military operations would be undertaken. Peace was expected. It came so slowly, however, that the patience of the American army waned. Both officers and men fretted in idleness. There was scarce money enough to feed them day by day ; their pay was greatly in arrears ; and a general mistrust prevailed that Congress would fail to liquidate their claims in the end, and cast them adrift penniless.
New York City breathed more freely under the new military admin- istration. Carleton found the inhabitants grievously oppressed. Un- principled officials had dispossessed persons of their property who had taken no part in the Revolution, because perchance some member of the family resided out of the British lines. Houses were rented and the rents paid into the city funds. Justice could not be obtained, not ever a trial or a hearing; for civil law had been abolished, and all power and authority centered in a police court established by the military. The city charter was declared forfeited by the civil governor and his satellites ; and the revenues of the corporation were appropriated to their private
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uses. Carleton was amazed at the infamous character of the frauds and the cruelties from which the New-Yorkers had suffered, and instituted a vigorous war upon official corruption. Jones says " he broke, discharged, dismissed, and cashiered such a number of supernumeraries, pensioners, and placemen as saved the British nation, in the course of one year only, about two millions sterling."
The French troops embarked for the West Indies in October. The American army went into cheerless winter-quarters on the Hudson. The impoverished condition of the country was perpetually discussed by the intelligent classes ; commerce was nearly annihilated, and the heavy burden of debt rested like an incubus on the people. Many doubted the possibility of maintaining a republican form of government. Finally the idea, long discussed in secret, found expression in a letter from Colonel Lewis Nicola, on behalf of himself and others, proposing to Washington to be made King of the United States for the " national ad- vantage!" Washington declined with indignant asperity, and reprimanded Nicola for having entertained such a thought. But it was no easy mat- ter to control the restless and unpaid soldiers through the idle months, and Washington's greatness in the emergency became more than ever conspic- uous. A mutinous spirit, provoked by repeated and irritating delays in obtaining compensation for services, and fresh difficulties arising from the uncertainty attending peace negotiations, kept him industrious and anx- ious. The spring of 1783 brought news of the signing of the armistice at Paris in January, and a cessation of hostilities was publicly announced to the army at noon, April 19, just eight years to a day since the conflict at Lexington. It was naturally next to impossible for the excited troops to distinguish between this proclamation and a definitive declaration of peace ; hence many considered any further claim on their military services unjust. Washington met the crisis nobly. Explaining the situation to Congress, he obtained discretionary powers to grant furloughs, the soldiers being led to understand perfectly that their terms of service would not expire until the signing of the Definitive Treaty. During the summer following, men singly and men in groups were returning to their homes ; thus the danger of disbanding large masses at a time, of unpaid soldiery, was effectually obviated. On the 6th of May Washington and Sir Guy Carleton met at Orangetown to arrange preliminaries for the evacuation of New York City, whenever the royal order should arrive. In the month of June, Egbert Benson was commissioned by Congress to co- operate with commissioners chosen by Carleton to inspect and superin- tend the embarkation of loyalists and their effects for Nova Scotia ; his associates were William Stephens Smith and Daniel Parker.
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THE CINCINNATI.
The month of May was distinguished by the organization of the cele- brated Society of the Cincinnati, which originated in the fertile mind of Knox, its object being to cement and perpetuate the friendship of the officers of the army who had fought and bled together, and to transmit the same sentiment to their descendants. The plan was drafted by a committee composed of Knox, Hand, Huntington, and Shaw. The final meeting for its adoption was held May 13, in the Verplanck Mansion at Fishkill on the Hudson, the headquarters of Baron Steuben, who, as senior officer, presided. Washington was chosen the first president, and officiated until his death.
Sadness and despair overwhelmed the loyalists. New York City pre- sented a scene of distress not easily described. Men who had joined the British army, and exhibited the utmost valor in battle, quailed before the inexorable necessity of exile from their native land. They must leave the country or be hanged. Such was the general belief, for those who had shown no mercy counted upon none in return. The conscientious and the unprincipled were alike involved in pecuniary ruin. Seeing that they must abandon large estates, many appealed to Carleton for power to collect debts due upon bonds, mortgages, and contracts, before the evacu- ation of the city should take place, for they were penniless. The compli- cations were insurmountable, and nothing was accomplished in that direction. Angry lamentations filled the very air. The victims of civil war inveighed against England for abandoning them, and against their own kindred and country for the inexorable harshness of their doom. They did not pause in their wretchedness to consider what would have been the fate of those who had expended or lost fortunes in the cause of liberty, if triumph had been with themselves.
While Carleton was providing transports and embarking twelve or more thousand deeply humbled loyalists, with their household and other effects, to Nova Scotia, the Bahamas, and Great Britain, and multitudes were hastening from the country to New York for passage, determined to risk starvation on foreign shores rather than encounter the terrible vengeance of those whom they had injured, Washington and Governor George Clinton were riding on horseback through the picturesque valleys of the Northern Hudson and the Mohawk, inspecting the posts and the battle- fields, and taking note of the wonderful topography of New York. Theirs was the faint glimmer, not the full dawn, of the future. One angle of the State rests upon the Atlantic, another reaches to the St. Lawrence, and the third stretches to the chain of Great Lakes connected with the Mis- sissippi ; thus without overcoming one mountain ridge the city of New York might communicate with the Western States and Territories of our
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Union, simply following the easy and natural course of valleys, rivers, and lakes, and control the commerce of the continent. The Missouri can now be navigated into the very gorges of the Rocky Mountains. From New York Bay to the Pacific Ocean, except a short space between the head-waters of the Missouri and the Columbia Rivers, we have an unbroken silver chain of water. The State in which every county and almost every spot of earth bore marks of bloody strife - the great battle- field of the Revolution -was in the broadest sense indeed the key of the Continent.
Intelligence of the signing of the Definitive Treaty came at length ; and Sir Guy Carleton gave notice that he should be ready for the final
Nov. 25.
evacuation of New York on the 25th of November. George
Clinton, by virtue of his office as governor of New York, was to take charge of the city, and repaired to Harlem to await events, accompanied by Washington. The British troops had been drawn in from Kingsbridge, McGowan's Pass, the various posts on Long Island, and Paulus Hook. By request of Carleton, to prevent any disorder which might occur as the British retired, a detachment of American troops under Knox marched from Harlem, on the morning appointed, down the Bowery Road to a point near the Fresh-Water Pond, where they remained seated on the grass until about one o'clock in the after- noon. As the rear-guard of the British army began to embark, they moved silently forward to the Battery, and took possession of the fort. Knox then galloped back with a chosen few to meet and escort Wash- ington and Clinton into the capital. The formal entry was witnessed by thousands. Washington and Clinton on horseback, with their suites, led the procession, followed by the lieutenant-governor, the legislature, offi- cers of the army, prominent citizens, and the military, amid the most heart-stirring and grateful enthusiasm. This scene forms a grand epoch in the annals of New York.
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THE RETURN OF NEW YORK FAMILIES.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
1783 - 1787.
NEW YORK CITY AFTER PEACE WAS ESTABLISHED.
THE RETURN OF NEW YORK FAMILIES. - DESOLATION. -- REV. DR. JOHN RODGERS. - CHURCHES. - RUTGERS COLLEGE. - REV. DR. HARDENBERGH. - WASHINGTON PARTING WITH HIS OFFICERS. - WASHINGTON'S RESIGNATION OF AUTHORITY. - JAMES DUANE APPOINTED MAYOR OF THE CITY. -- THE MAYOR'S COURT. - RICHARD VARICK. -- THE NEW YORK LEGISLATURE. - OLD MORRISANIA. - THE MORRIS FAMILY. - THE LOYAL- ISTS. - CONFISCATION ACTS. - THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE REORGANIZED. - SCHOOLS. - FIRST REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK. -- COLUMBIA COLLEGE. - NEWS- PAPERS. - FIRST CITY DIRECTORY. - POLITICAL THROES. - WEAKNESS OF THE GOVERNMENT. - CITIZENS. - BANKING INTERESTS. - COUNTERFEIT MONEY. - THE DE LANCEYS. - THE LIVINGSTONS. -- THE LAWYERS OF THE CITY.
H OME again. From all quarters came together the limbs and frag- ments of dismembered families. It was a costly victory that had been won, and many a tear fell amid the general rejoicings. There was scarcely a domestic circle into which death had not entered; and charred and silent ruins greeted multitudes in place of homes left seven years before. Dwellings that had escaped the flames were bruised and dis- mantled ; and gardens and grounds were covered with a rank growth of weeds and wild grass, fences had disappeared, and the débris of army life was strewed from one end of the town to the other. Public buildings were battered and worn with usages foreign to the purposes of their erection, and the trade of New York was ruined, and her treas- ury empty.
The Rev. Dr. John Rodgers arrived in the city the day following the evacuation, and found both the Brick Church in Beekman Street and the Wall Street Presbyterian Church in unfit condition for public worship- having been used as hospitals by the British. But the Episcopalians courteously offered him the use of St. Paul's Chapel and St. George's Chapel, in which he preached alternately to his congregation for several months.1. He was a courtly personage, of gentle and conciliatory manners,
1 The change in public feeling is strikingly illustrated by this incident. See Vol. I. 751. The Brick Church on Beekman Street was the first repaired. The Wall Street Church was
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but " uncompromising in matter." Jones says that he " had given more encouragement to rebellion, by his treasonable harangues from the pulpit, than any other republican preacher, perhaps, upon the continent." His influence was now exerted to perpetuate the peace secured. "I have the good old gentleman at this moment distinctly before me," writes Duer, " in his buzz-wig, three-cornered hat, gold-headed cane, and silver buckles in his well-polished shoes - as he passed along the street in his gown and bands, which he wore not only on Sundays, but on week-days when visiting among his people - bowing right and left to all who saluted him." The Dutch Reformed Church in Garden Street was found intact, and reopened on the Sabbath following the evacuation. Rev. Dr. John Henry Livingston occupied the pulpit.1 It was seven years before the Middle Dutch and the North Dutch Church edifices were restored from the ruinous condition in which they were left by the British. A School of Theology, established in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1770, was chartered under the name of Queen's College - now Rutgers- and the trustees elected Rev. Dr. Jacobus Rutsen Hardenbergh President ; but it had not been in practical operation through the confusion of events. Meanwhile Dr. Hardenbergh had preached at Raritan, taken no pains to conceal his republican sentiments, as a member of the New Jersey Con- vention which framed the Constitution of the State was frequently in counsel with Governor Livingston, and was visited at his little parsonage daily by Washington when quartered in the vicinity. He came to New York to witness the triumphal entry of Washington ; and before he returned to his charge arranged with Dr. Livingston to use every exertion in obtaining an endowment to carry the plan of the college into execu- tion. This was achieved within the next three years, and Dr. Harden- bergh removed to New Brunswick, where he labored indefatigably for its advancement until his death in 1790.2
not opened until June 19, 1784. The expense of restoring the two edifices to their former condition was met by private subscription. On the 6th of April, 1784, the Presbyterian Church became a body corporate, and was thus relieved from the difficulty it had so long sustained for want of a charter. Memoirs of Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, by Rev. Dr. Samuel Miller.
1 See Vol. I. 750 ; Rev Dr. Laidlie died at Red Hook in 1778.
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