USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 8
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is perzuvedl anth thedufest Public Sensibility,
RESOLVED .:
this moraespecially as it is made by his Stomp
That the Clock of this Board communicate a copy hereof
GENERAL PHILIE VAN COURTLANDE
de General Phily Jan Cowillandt
who served as a Colonel in the Army ofthe Revolut
Wand cause his Leters and the preceding Resolutions
with@lowWork Line and au@personallyon the Baypureof
to be Published.
GeneralSurgorise
and that the original Retour be deposito in the Birchines ofthe
FORD CORNWALLIS andtheir Armus.
COMMON COUNCIL
Egy Jumsthe Niets
Dangerd ond Wihtn.
y Proef Bogy Mick.
Fac-simile of Testimonial from the Corporation of the City of New York.
With portrait of Lieutenant-Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt. [Original in possession of the family.]
had become impaired, and his private affairs required attention. He thanked his constituents with much feeling for their continued confidence and support during the trying scenes through which he had passed.
Lieutenant-Governor Van Cortlandt at the same time declined re-elec- tion on account of advanced age. He had reached his seventy-fifth year.1
1 Lieutenant-Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt (born 1721, died 1814) was the grandson of the first lord of the manor, Hon. Stephanus Van Cortlandt, and the great-grandson of Oloff S. Van Cortlandt, the founder of the family in America. (See Vol. I. 90, 277, 278, 606.) Through his mother, Catharine De Peyster, he was the grandson of Treasurer Abraham De Peyster, and the great-grandson of the founder of the De Peyster family in America. (See Vol. I. 225, 226, 420, 421.) And through his grandmother, the famous Gertrude Schuyler, he was the great-grandson of the founder of the Schuyler family in America. (See Vol. I. 153, 154.) He married his second cousin, Joanna Livingston, born 1722, the daughter of Gilbert and Cor- nelia Beekman Livingston, and granddaughter of Robert, the first lord of Livingston manor, the founder of the Livingston family in America. Their children were : 1. Philip, the general, born 1749, never married ; 2 Catharine, born 1751, married Abraham Van Wyck ; 3. Cor- nelia, born 1753, married Gerard G. Beekman, Jr. ; 4. Gertrude, born 1755, died unmarried ; 5. Gilbert, born 1757 ; 6. Stephen, born 1760 ; 7. Pierre, born 1762, married first Catharine Clinton, daughter of George Clinton, second, Ann Stephenson ; 8. Ann, born 1776, married Philip Van Rensselaer, the Albany mayor, only brother of Lieutenant-Governor Stephen Van Rensselaer, the patroon. - Family Archives.
57
with equal Ricide and Pleasure
tendering to the Common Cxmail
which were unanimously adopted ;.
RESOLVED
with assurances, that the Bust shall be placed in the City Hall,
of our great and glorious Sevolution
408
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
Side by side with Governor Clinton for eighteen successive years, he had given his time and strength to the administration of the new State government. Clinton being necessarily much absorbed in military duties, Van Cortlandt had been left chief executive officer and civil magistrate a greater portion of the period of the war. Peace returning, he presided over the Senate, and with such dignity and sound judgment that he was deservedly popular. He was the fifth son of Philip and Catharine De Peyster Van Cortlandt (double cousin of the mother of Chief Justice Jay), and by the death of his elder brother heir-at-law to the manorial estates. His lofty character was illustrated by the dis- dain with which he rejected the offer of royal favor, and safety to his property, if he CO would cease opposition to the crown, made by Governor Tryon on the occasion of a personal visit to the manor-house at Croton Landing just before the outbreak of hostil- ities. Van Cortlandt's services in the New York Congress, Convention, and Committee CO of Safety, and his example of undismayed General Philip Van Cortlandt. faithfulness when driven from his estates, [Copy of rare miniature in possession of Pierre Cort- landt Van Wyck.] and while adverse clouds darkened the en- tire horizon, were of priceless value to the American cause. He was one of the thirty-eight patriots who ratified the Declaration of Inde- pendence - on horseback -at White Plains on the 9th of July, 1776; and from October of the same year, when elected vice-president of the Convention, was almost the sole presiding officer of that heroic body until it completed its labors. Few men of his time inspired a higher degree of confidence and respect among all classes in the State of New York.
The eldest son of the lieutenant-governor, General Philip Van Cort- landt,1 was at this time a member of Congress, having been elected in
1 General Philip Van Cortlandt (born 1749, died unmarried at the Van Cortlandt manor- house, November 21, 1831) was one of the Commissioners of Forfeitures for the counties of Westchester, Richmond, Kings, Queens, and Suffolk ; he was the first Supervisor of the town of Cortlandt in 1788, a member of the New York Assembly from 1788 to 1790, and of the Senate from 1791 to 1794, at which time he took his seat in Congress, until 1809. He was a member of the New York Convention which adopted the Constitution of the United States, and in 1812 was an elector for President. He was also one of the original members of the Cincinnati, and its first treasurer. When the war broke out he burned his commission of Major in the "Tryon Guards " of the manor of Cortlandt, and was elected to the Provincial Convention which met in New York City, in defiance of the established government, to choose delegates to the Continental Congress. He was shortly after appointed Lieutenant-Colonel in the American army, and served fearlessly and nobly through the war ; for his gallantry at
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GENERAL PHILIP VAN CORTLANDT.
1793 ; and he continued to represent his district in that body for sixteen successive years, until he declined re-election. His personal resemblance to Lafayette, with whom he was on terms of intimacy, and whom he accompanied through the United States on his memorable tour in 1824, was remarked by all who knew him, and on one occasion was turned to decided advantage. At a large reception Lafayette, wearied with hand-
Yorktown he was made a brigadier-general. Many of the striking incidents in his career are revealed through his private correspondence, to which the author has had access. In the spring of 1776 he was on duty at Ticonderoga, and member of a court-martial for the trial of Moses Hazen, charged by Benedict Arnold with disobedience of orders. "I remained," he wrote, "long enough to discover the vile conduct of Arnold in procuring a vast quantity of goods from the merchants of Montreal, which he intended for, and which, I believe, was appropriated to his own use. For this, and also for improper conduct before the court, he would have been arrested himself, but escaped by procuring an order from General Gates, to send me, the morning after the court adjourned, to Schenesborough (Whitehall) by which means the court was dissolved and Arnold escaped." Being one of the court-martial convened in Philadelphia in 1780 (see Vol. II. 236) for the trial of Arnold, in connection with four other officers who had served on the Hazen trial, he wrote : "We voted for cashiering him, but were overruled by a sentence of reprimand. Had they all known what we knew, he would have been dismissed the service." Van Cortlandt adopted his nephew, Philip Gilbert Van Wyck (elder brother of Pierre Cortlandt Van Wyck, recorder of the city as mentioned in note, p. 86), son of Abraham and Catharine Van Cortlandt Van Wyck, to whom he left the great bulk of his property by will. Philip Gilbert Van Wyck married Mary Gardiner, descend- ant of the first lord of the manor of Gardiner's Island. Their children were : 1. Joanna Liv- ingston Van Wyck ; 2. Catharine, married Rev. Stephen H. Battin ; 3. Philip Van Cortlandt, died unmarried ; 4. Eliza, married William Van Ness Livingston ; 5. Gardiner, died unmar- ried ; 6. Fanny Van Rensselaer, married Judge Alexander Wells, whose only daughter, Gertrude, married Schuyler Hamilton, Jr., great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton ; 7. Pierre Cortlandt Van Wyck.
The father of Abraham Van Wyck, who married Catharine Van Cortlandt, was Theodorus, of the fifth generation. one of the sisters of
celebrated
Rev.
Dr.
sister of Dr. Theodorus cial Convention, married and Altie, another sis- John Bailey, one of beth, married the dis- James Kent, and an- John R. Bleecker of ter of the latter, married late governor of New the Van Wyck family stituting a substantial tion, and are connected ORE E York families through- Wycks of Holland are and continue to bear the Van Wyck Arms. those brought by the Van Wycks to America upwards of two centuries ago.
Catharine Van Wyck, Abraham, married the John Mason ; Mary, Van Wyck of the Provin- Hon. Zephaniah Platt ; ter, married Colonel whose daughters, Eliza- tinguished jurist, Hon. other, Esther, married Albany ; Mary, daugh- Hon. Horatio Seymour, York. The branches of are very numerous, con- element of the popula- with other notable New out the State. The Van an aristocratic family, same coat of arms as
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
shaking, suddenly disappeared, leaving Van Cortlandt as his substitute to receive the greetings of the multitude, who, not discovering the change, went away satisfied with having, as supposed, grasped the hand of the French nobleman and patriot. Van Cortlandt's portrait, copied from a rare little miniature painted about the close of the Revolution, reveals to the curious reader traces of that extraordinary likeness to Lafayette which misled the enthusiastic crowd. His younger brother, Pierre, succeeded to the manor-house property at Croton Landing, of whom mention will be made upon a future page.
Stephen, the elder brother of Lieutenant-Governor Van Cortlandt, was a loyalist; his son Philip, who married Catharine Ogden, was an officer in the British army. That branch of the family retired to England, where their descendants are connected with some of the best families in the kingdom. The granddaughter of Stephen Van Cortlandt married Clement Clark Moore, son of Bishop Moore.
The interesting question of selecting candidates for the two important offices of governor and lieutenant-governor at once occupied attention. The nomination of governor was tendered to Hamilton, to whom the free- dom of the city was also awarded after his return from Philadelphia, but he positively declined. Jay was in England. His business, however, was approaching completion. Negotiations had prospered under the conduct of Lord Grenville, with the favor of the king, and a treaty was already signed. " Various rumors are circulated respecting Mr. Jay's return to this country," wrote Rufus King in March. " Those who wish his elec- tion as governor of the State expect him in the spring, certainly before the month of July." In the mean time he received the nomination for governor, and Stephen Van Rensselaer, the patroon, for lieutenant- governor.
Congress adjourned on the 3d of March. Four days later the famous treaty was received, and submitted to a quorum of the Senate convened for the purpose, Vice-President Adams in the chair. Such was the state of party feeling, that the mere intelligence of the arrival of the treaty, even while its provisions were undivulged, lashed the Opposition into a fury. Some of the newspapers denounced the President as no statesman, hardly a soldier, called him a " tool of England," declared boldly that he had drawn money fraudulently from the Treasury, and said, "If the in- fluence of a treaty is added to the influence Great Britain already has in our government, we shall be colonized anew." Not this particular treaty, but any treaty with Great Britain was clearly under condemnation. " A republic should form no connection with a monarch," was the cry.
Until the question of its ratification should be duly considered, pro-
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THE JAY TREATY.
priety required that the contents of the treaty should remain a secret with the administration, especially as it had not been published in Eng- land. But the Opposition seized upon what little they could learn of it to excite public distrust. Meanwhile, at the April election in New York John Jay was elected governor of the State by a large majority over the opposing candidate, Robert Yates - chief justice of the Supreme Court of New York from 1790 to 1798 - and Stephen Van Rensselaer was elected lieutenant-governor. The Federalists also obtained a majority in both houses of the Legislature. The result of the state canvass was declared on the 26th of May. Two days afterward Chief Justice Jay arrived May 26. from the court of England. He was welcomed in the most noisy and joyful manner, all the bells in the city mingling with the roar of cannon, and conducted to his house from the wharf by an excited multi- tude eager to testify their gratitude for his successful mission of peace.
Alas ! this popular applause was quickly succeeded by a whirlwind of the most unqualified abuse. Every effort was made to impeach the char- acter of the great jurist; he was called an "arch-traitor," accused of perfidy and double dealing, and of kneeling in idolatry to the enemy of France. He took the oath of governor of the State of New York July 1. on the 1st of July, having previously resigned his high seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. The following day a Virginia senator, regardless of official decorum, sent a copy of the treaty, still under discussion in the Senate, with closed doors, to the editor of a Philadelphia newspaper, who prematurely printed July 2. it in full. A pile of combustibles was ready for the torch, composed of French emigrants devoted to their cause, general malcontents who were persuaded that a war with England would be a relief, Western settlers who wanted the navigation of the Mississippi, Pennsylvanians who were seeking the abolition of the excise laws, refugees of every class from all nations, who through their crimes or desperate fortunes " had taken refuge in patriotism," and men and classes disappointed in ambitious projects, and who were aggrieved, or fancied themselves so, by the operation of various measures, and an explosion immediately followed. A mob collected in Philadelphia on the 4th of July, and paraded the streets bearing aloft the effigy of John Jay, with a pair of scales in his hand, labeled on one side " American Liberty and Independence," on the other " British gold," while from the mouth of the figure proceeded the words, "Come up to my price and I will sell you my country," which was publicly burned. Meetings were held in every part of the country denouncing the treaty. In New York one was convened in the open air in Wall Street, and Hamilton and Rufus King upon the balcony of Federal Hall undertook its defense. A
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
shower of stones was leveled at them by the exasperated multitude. " These are hard arguments to encounter," said Hamilton, smiling. The party, after adopting violent resolutions against the treaty, marched with the American and French colors flying to the Bowling Green, in front of the new government house, the residence of Governor Jay, and with demoniac shouts burned the treaty. At an adjourned meeting a committee of fifteen, with Brockholst Livingston, Mrs. Jay's brother, chairman, reported twenty-eight condemnatory resolutions. A counter-current led to a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, of which Comfort Sands was the president, where resolutions of approval were adopted.1
Jay entered into no defense of either himself or his treaty. "God gov- erns the world," he said, " and we have only to do our duty wisely, and leave the issue to him." On the 11th he responded to a letter from Major-General Henry Lee, saying : "The treaty is as it is; and the time will certainly come when it will universally receive exactly that degree of condemnation or censure which, to candid and enlightened minds, it shall appear to deserve." Hammond writes, "It would be unjust to ac- cuse the great body of reflective republicans of participating in or even approving the outrages that were perpetrated." But Fisher Ames de- clared that the passions of the crazy multitude were scarcely more deadly to public order than the theories of philosophers. "Our Federal ship is near foundering in a mill-pond," he wrote on the 9th.
1 Comfort Sands (born 1748, died 1834) was descended from James Sands (born 1622), of Reading, Berkshire, England, who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1658, and in 1660, in company with others, bought Block Island from the Indians, and removed there the fol- lowing year. His son John married Sibyl Ray, and resided at Sand's Point, Long Island. His son John had also a son John (married Elizabeth Cornwell), the father of Comfort. The latter was a prominent merchant in New York City, and an active patriot throughout the war ; he was a member of the New York Congresses, and auditor-general of public accounts from 1776 to 1781. He married, 1. Sarah, daughter of Wilkie Dodge; 2. Cornelia, daughter of Abraham Lott. His son Joseph, of the great banking-house of Prime, Ward, & Sands, married Marie Therese Kamflin, the ceremony being performed at Paris by Talleyrand, Bishop of Au- tun, in 1782. His daughter Cornelia married the banker, Nathaniel Prime, whose children have intermarried with the Hoffmans, Jays, Costers, Rays, and other prominent New York families. Richardson Sands, brother of Comfort Sands, born 1754, married Lucretia, daughter of John Ledyard, who after his death married General Ebenezer Stevens ; his only son, Austin Led- yard Sands, was a well-known merchant of New York, who died in 1859. The sons of Austin Ledyard Sands : 1. Samuel Stevens Sands, married the daughter of Benjamin Aymar, whose son, Samuel Stevens Sands, Jr., married, April 6, 1880, Annie, second daughter of Oliver Harriman ; 2. Austin L. Sands, M. D., of Newport ; 3. William R. Sands, married Mary Gardiner, daughter of Hon. Samuel B. Gardiner, proprietor of Gardiner's Island ; 4. Andrew H. Sands. Joshua Sands, younger brother of Comfort Sands, was a State senator from 1792 to 1799 ; member of Congress in 1805 and in 1825 ; Collector of the port of New York front 1797 to 1801 ; and a large real estate owner in Brooklyn. His granddaughter married Hon. Rodman Price, governor of New Jersey from 1854 to 1857. His son Joshua, rear- admiral in the U. S. N., married the daughter of John Stevens of Hoboken. - Haldane.
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THE JAY TREATY.
When the treaty was conditionally ratified by the Senate, a howl was raised against the Constitution, because it provided that senators should hold place six years. Threats of coercing the President into a veto were audibly uttered. Some talked of "bringing John Jay to trial and to justice," and a few violent agitators even went so far as to lament the want of a guillotine. Grave, weighty, conspicuous men, who had hith- erto been well affected towards the administration, and not a few who had been leading Federalists, were among the opponents of the treaty. While Washington delayed his decision, he was showered with remon- strances and invectives. The treaty was by no means all that he desired. Its commercial adjustments were mutilated by the restrictive policy then prevailing. In 1783 the American commissioners at Paris, in their nego- tiation with David Hartley, endeavored in vain to induce the British Cabinet to open the ports of their West India colonies. The policy of the European powers in monopolizing the trade of their colonies seemed to be immovably established. Even France in her treaty of 1778 granted no share of her colonial trade to her new and cherished allies ; and from the colonies of Spain all foreign vessels were rigidly excluded. England, moreover, was in a deadly war with France. Peace might change the possession of many islands and countries. It was hardly to be expected that she would, at such a juncture, depart from the exclusive system to which long habit and common opinion had strongly attached her. So sen- sible had been the President of the obstacles which Jay would encounter, that he instructed him to ask for the "privilege " of carrying on this trade in vessels of " certain defined burdens." Jay's task had not been an easy one. He had succeeded in obtaining a partial relaxation of the colonial monopoly, but it was only on certain conditions and securities ; and he was obliged to decide whether, under all the circumstances, it was most advisable to reject or accept them. If he rejected them, the United States would lose what England was ready to concede, reciprocal and perfect liberty of commerce with the British dominions in Europe and the East Indies - which has since proved a source of vast wealth to the country ; also the abandonment of the western posts. It was im- possible to negotiate in regard to these posts without encountering the complaints of Great Britain relative to the debts - a subject excessively offensive to the debtors in the various States. The treaty provided for the rights of neutrals, and agreed that the citizens of one country should not enter into the service of a foreign power, to fight against the other; and such as accepted foreign commissions for arming vessels as privateers against either of the parties might, if taken, be treated as pirates. The article declaring that neither debts due from individuals of one nation to
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
individuals of the other, nor money which they might have in the public funds or in public or private banks, should ever, in any event of war or national differences, be sequestered or confiscated, created, for reasons obvi- ous to every student of history, more wrath than all the others combined.
Jay was not himself satisfied with the treaty as a whole, but had written from London, " I have no reason to believe or conjecture that one more favorable to us is attainable." He furthermore said : " Difficulties which retarded its accomplishment frequently had the appearance of being in- surmountable. They at last yielded to modifications, and to that mutual disposition to agreement which reconciled Lord Grenville and myself to an unusual degree of trouble and application. They who have leveled uneven ground know how little of the work afterward appears."
Hamilton was displeased with some of the provisions of the treaty, and thought " valuable alterations " might be made in the 13th article, and perhaps in others. At the same time he told its enemies that a trade which was increasing at a rapid rate despite annoyances should not be sacrificed to a war with Great Britain, except for the most urgent rea- sons.1 In reply to Brockholst Livingston, who assailed the treaty through the press as "Decius," he wrote numerous articles under the signature of " Camillus." So much was Jefferson alarmed at the force of Hamilton's reasoning, that he begged Madison "for God's sake " to take up his pen, there being no one able to meet that Federal champion, whom he de- scribed as "really a Colossus to the anti-Republican party. He is a host within himself. His adversaries having begun the attack, he has the advantage of answering them, and remains unanswered himself." 2
On the 15th of August the President, with a moral independence which posterity will never cease to admire, signed the treaty, in accord- Aug. 15. ance with the advice and consent of the Senate; and notwith- standing the House threatened to nullify the act, and for two weeks was the scene of an exhibition of eloquence never probably exceeded either before or since in the American Congress, the great body of the merchants, and of the more judicious and reflecting portion of the people came to the conclusion that his course was that of consummate wisdom.
The immediate effect of the treaty was to avert a war from which the United States could have derived no possible advantage which the treaty did not secure. And, with one exception, the treaty removed every exist- ing obstacle to the continuance of peace between the two countries. This exception was the right claimed by Great Britain to impress her
1 The exports had risen in five years from nineteen millions annually, to forty-eight millions. - Hildreth's History of the United States.
2 Jefferson to Madison, September 21, 1795.
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RANDOLPH'S RESIGNATION.
own seamen, when found on board neutral merchant-vessels at sea ; a claim which a subsequent war and treaty failed to extinguish.
Twelve days before the President ratified the treaty the troublesome and expensive contest with the Northwestern Indians was brought to a satisfactory conclusion, by terms of peace duly signed at Fort Greenville, where Anthony Wayne met the chiefs of the Wyandots, Delawares, Shaw- anoes, Ottawas, Chippewas, Potawatomies, Miamis, Weéas, Kickapoos, Piankoshaws, Kaskaskias, and Eel River Indians. The Indians ceded sixteen detached portions of territory, which included the post of Detroit, that at the foot of the Maumee Rapids, and Chicago at the mouth of the Illinois River, with several other sites of forts or trading-houses, still in possession of the British, but which were to be surrendered under Jay's treaty. In return the Indians were promised presents to the amount of $20,000 ; also an annual allowance to the value of $9,500. But the Southern frontier, through frequent bloody outrages, was to remain nearly another year in a state of inquietude: on the 29th of June, 1796, a treaty was finally concluded between the President and the Creek Indians.
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