USA > New York > History of the state of New York. Vol. II, Pt. 2 > Part 15
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23 May. Palmer and Gra- l&m's re- port to Dongan. OT May. Dongan's report to Lord Sun- derlan.1.
Cuw. IX. proceed to judgment against the Connecticut charter ; and that as Whiting, the agent of the colony at London, had just written " that it was the discourse at Whitehall that all to the Westward of Connecticut" [probably meaning the Connecticut River] " will be joined to New York," and as " the rest is not worth desiring," it would be Andros's " in- terest to make Court at home for accomplishing the mat- ter." This "matter" was the annexation of Connecticut to New England rather than to New York, which the trusted agents of Dongan thus furtively advised Andros to "ac- complish." The Connecticut Court left its " emergent oc- casions" in the hands of Treat and six others. Treat ac- cordingly replied to Dongan " that the matter is in his Majesty's hands ;" but that, if a new disposition was to be made, " we do earnestly request that our whole Colony or Province may together be annexed to such government as his Majesty shall see fit; for a dividing of it will be very prejudicial." On their return to New York, Palmer and Graham reported to the council "that the people of Con- necticut are obstinate not to surrender to the king." Don- gan, however, informed Lord Sunderland that Palmer and Graham had told him that they had prevailed on the Con- nectieut Assembly to write him a letter, in which "they signified their submission," and asked him to get them " firmly annexed" to the government of New York; and that this letter was " ready to be signed, having the unani- mous approbation of the whole. But before that could be done, some of their clergy came among them, and quite overthrew all they had done; telling them that to whater- er government they should be joined it would be a grievous affliction. * * * With these, and such like contrary ex- pressions, the Assembly was wrought upon to let sending that letter alone.""
15 June.
Andros, on his side, again urged Connecticut to surren- der its charter as a " duty to his Majesty." Jolin Saffin, the last speaker of the late General Court of Massachusetts, also wrote to Secretary Allyn that all British America be-
11 Junc.
* Col. Doc., ill., 235, 236, 396, 415, 416; Col. MSS .. xxxV., 58, 61, 64, 73; ITutch. Coll., 556; R. I. Rec., ill., 223, 224; Col. Rec. Conn., iii., 227-236, 363-370, 379-331, 384; Palfrey, iii., 539, 540, 511 ; ante, 299, 985, 464. The Connecticut Records do not allude to this mission of Palmer and Graham from New York. Mr. Palfrey (ii., 539) wondrously muddles hi-tory by intimating that Dongan's agents were sent by Andros from Boston !
.
£
471
THOMAS DONGAN, GOVERNOR.
tween Carolina and Canada would soon " be brought under a CHAP. IX .. more immediate dependency and subjection to his Majesty" 1687. by the abrogation of all charters; that, whatever might hap- Connecti- pen in England, "matters will never be againe in statu quo cut urged to submit here, in each respective colony ;" and that if Connecticut to Andros. adhered "to the West," or New York, "you are an undone people, for there you' part with your best friends." But Allyn cautiously wrote back to Andros that the Connecti- 13 June. cut Court had "resolved to continue in the Station they are in, 'till his Majesty's pleasure be made known to them for a change," which would "readily be submitted unto."*
By a curious coincidence, Lord Sunderland, that same day, laid before the king a report of his Plantation Com- 18 June. . mittee on the Connecticut letter of the 26th of January. This report-incautiously assuming that letter to express, Error of by its promise to " submit" to the royal commands a sur- glish gor- the En- render of the charter, and also a desire to be annexed to ernment about the "submis- sion" of Connecti- cut. New England rather than to New York -recommended that Andros should be instructed to signify his majesty's acceptance of the " dutiful submission" of Connecticut; to take the colony under his government; and to swear Treat and Allyn in the council of New England. James at once approved his committee's report ; and Lord Sunderland was ordered to give the proper directions to Andros. This ac- tion was taken in too great confidence. All further pro- ceedings on the Quo Warranto were dropped, in spite of Randolph's advice that a legal judgment on the writ was Randolph's "absolutely necessary," as much in the case of Connecti- heeded. advice un. . cut as it had been in that of Massachusetts. It was an er- ror -- like that into which gentlemen sometimes fall when dealing with sharpers.t
Ignorant of this action at Whitehall, Dongan again urged s Septem. Lord Sunderland to have Connecticut and the Jerseys join- again Dongan ed to New York, because he thought that the addition of any Sunder- writes to part of Connecticut to Massachusetts would be "the most Connseti- unproportionable thing in the world, they having already a cut. hundred times more land, riches and people than this Prov- ince, and yet the charge of this government more than that,"
* Col. Rec. Conn., iii., 237, 381-383; Masa. Rec., v., 514; Masa. II. S. Coll., xxvii., 177; Hutch. Coll., 556; Dalrymple, il., 90.
t Mase. II. S. Coll., xxxii., 197, 20S; Chalmers's Ann., i., 20S, 305-310; Col. Rec. Coun., Li., 377, 378, 384, 355, 470; Force's Tracts, iv., So. 2, p. 47 ; ante, 408.
land about
172
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CuAr. IN. which had " a vast advantage" by the recent annexation of
Pemaquid. The next month, on hearing that Treat and
1687 Allyn had written to London their wish that Connecticut 4 October. " might be added to Boston," Dongan bluntly expressed to ligan re- proves the conduct of the Hartford Court his " great surprise" at the weak or the Treat and deceitful conduct of their governor and their secretary ; Allyn. and-yet in the dark about what had been done in En- gland-pressed the Connecticut legislators to join their col- ony to New York. When, at length, the whole truth was revealed, Dongan, with Celtic impulsiveness, told Lord Sun- derland that Connecticut had been taken from "the bul- wark to Boston," and been added to New England, " by the fraud" of Treat and Allyn, "unknown to the rest of the The people General Court; and, for one that wishes it as it is, there is of Connec- ticut wish a hundred in that colony that desires it were annexed to it to be an-
hexed to the Government of N. Yorke." Dongan wrote honestly ; New York. but he did not fully know the mind of his sovereign in England .*
Hartford.
As soon as he received.his " effectual orders" from James, 22 October. Andros left Boston with several of his council, and some Andros at sixty grenadiers as his guard; and, traveling by way of Providence, New London, and Wethersfield, reached Hart- ford, " where he was received with all respect and welcome congratulation," and was "greeted and caressed" by the governor and assistants of Connecticut. A General Court 31 October. of the colony, specially sunnoned by Treat, was in session, and there was "some treaty between his Excellency and them that evening." It is related, upon " tradition," that Treat remonstrated against the surrender of the charter ; Andros re- and it is said that after Andros had seenred one of the cures the Connecti- cut char- ter, and Wads- worth its " dupli- copies of the instrument, the lights were "blown out," and that Lieutenant Joseph Wadsworth secretly carried off "the duplicate" from the table, and hid it in a large hollow oak tree. No contemporary writing, however, mentions this alleged occurrence. Andros himself does not appear to have observed it; and Secretary Allyn, in his own hand- writing, closed the old records of the colony with the fol- lowing entry: " His Excellency Sir Edmund Andros, Knight, Captain General and Governor of His Majesty's Territory
* Col. Doc., ill., 429, 511 ; Col. Rec. Conn., ifi., 366, 5ST. New England writers seem to have shunned or obscured this detail : see Palfrey, iii., 541, 542.
473
THOMAS DONGAN, GOVERNOR.
and Dominion in New England, by order from his Majesty CHAP. IX. James the Second, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, the 31st of October, 1687, took into his hands the Government of this Colony of Connecticut, it being by his Andros takes the Majesty annexed to the Massachusetts and other Colonys ment of under His Excellency's Government. FINIS." Thus did Connecti. Andros-according to Puritan notions -"commit a rape hands. on a whole colony."
The next morning Andros was conducted by the offi- 1 Novem. cers of the late Corporation of Connecticut to its " public Court-house" at Hartford, attended by the royal counselors Stoughton, Mason, Winthrop, Usher, Pynchon, Gedney, and Tyng, who had accompanied him from Boston. Suspect- ing no duplicity respecting the actual surrender of the Andros'a Connecticut charter, the governor general had his commis- mission royal com- sion publicly read, and then swore the complacent Treat licly in read pub- and Allyn into office as royal counselors of New England. cut, and Connecti- After establishing royal courts in Connecticut without any royal coun- opposition, Andros crossed from New London to Newport, sworn. where the old seal of Rhode Island was broken. and his unquestioned authority was acknowledged. At last the dominion of James the Second was supreme throughout New England. A post-route-which had been originally 23 Norem. suggested by Lovelace and urged by Dongan-was soon in New En- Post-office afterward arranged by Andros between Boston and Stam- gland.
* Col. Rec. Conn., iii., 243, 249, 387-390, 450; Trumbull, i., 371, 372; Holmes, i., 421; Bancroft, il., 430; Arnold, i., 504, 506; Palfrey, ili., 541-543, 545; Force's Tracts, iv., No. 9, p. 47. 48. Chalmers (writing in 1750, eleven years before Trumbull) states that the Con- necticut charter was carefully concealed "in a venerable elm," at the time that the " sub- mission" letter of 26 January, 16ST, was written : Annals, i., 298, 306; ante, 465. The tree in which Trumbull (1, 371) says that Wadsworth hid the charter on 31 October, 16-7, stood in front of the house of Simuel Willys, and was long known as " The Charter Oak," until it was blown down, in a great storin, on the merning of 21 Angust, 1850: Holmes, i., 422; Hist. Mag., i., 4, 5; Palfrey, ill., 542. In May, 1715, the Connecticut Court granted Wads- worth " the sum of Twenty shillings," In consideration of his good service, "e-pecially in se- curing the dupltente charter, in a very troublesome season, when our constitution was struck at, and in saf: ly keeping and preserving the game ever since, unto this day :" MS. Conn. Rec., quoted by Palfrey, ill., 543. According to Doctor Stiles, Nathaniel Stanley took one copy of the charter, and John Talcot the other, when the lights were " blown out" in the Hart- ford Meeting-house. One of these documents is now in the office of the Secretary of State of Connecticut; and a fraginent of the other is in the Library of the Historical Society at Hartford, " having been obtained from a tailor to whom it had been given, or sold :" Pal- frey, iii., 513. Considering that Wadsworth appears to have safely kept " the duplicate" in his possession until 1715, it looks as if he secured it in January, 1657 (at the time stated by Chalmers), and that the original, which wa. so ostentatiousy " brought into the Court" on 15 June, 1687 (after Wadsworth had " secured" the duplicate), was the one of which it is supposed that Andros " obtained possession" in October of the same year : compare Col. Rec. Conn., iii., 238; Palfrey, ili., 539, 543. Chalmers and Palfrey-the earliest and the Intest printed anthorities -- make me skeptical about the traditionary stories of Stiles or Trumbull, so reiterated in New England Common School books.
1687. 31 October.
cut into his
£
474
IHISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
Char. IX. ford, on the border of New York, upon which John Perry
1687. was appointed to carry a monthly mail as the deputy of the provincial postmaster Randolph .*
Jhingan a
true . New
Of all the British colonial governors of New York, Don-
6 June.
Yorker." gan was perhaps most truly a "New Yorker." He seemed to have identified himself with her hereditary catholicity in religion, and her comprehensiveness in secular affairs. Learning that Lamberville had urged the Onondagas to .meet the governor of Canada at Cataracouy, he forbade 7 April. them to go there, and ordered the Jesuit to come to New York. Not long afterward, it was further ordered in coun- cil that the French should not be allowed to hunt "toward Schuylkill and the Susquehanna." When it was ascertain- ed that Denonville really meant to attack the New York Iro- The Sene- quois, the Senecas, warned by Dongan, recalled their war- cas seek the protec- parties from Ohio and Virginia, and sent delegates to Alba- "Corlaer." ny to ask help from " Corlaer." The Indian commissioners there made the savages large presents of ammunition, but declined to send European soldiers to aid them in repuls- ing the Canadians. As they went sadly home, the Seneca ambassadors replied, "Since we are to expect no other as- sistance from our Brethren, we must recommend our wives and our children to you, who will fly to you if any misfor- tune shall happen to us."t
But while Dongan was thus striving to hinder the French from interfering with the Iroquois, whom he graphically described as " the bulwark" between New York and Cana- da, his sovereign at Whitehall was paralyzing his well- meant zeal. The politics of Europe again swayed the in- James and terests of America. Louis, troubled by the condition of Louis. affairs in Canada, sent the Count D'Avaux to London "oh purpose" to settle the boundaries between it and Hudson's
* Col. Rec. Conn., ili., 300, 391, 303, 397, 398, 438, 439, 446; Arnold, i., 505, 506; Palfrey, iii., 536, 543-548 : Force's Tracta, iv., ix., 47, 48; Mass. II. S. Coll., xxvii., 178; Col. MSS., xxxiii., 261; Chalmers, i., 203, 463; ante, 196-198, 413, 434. There is much curions and novel information about Boston and its neighborhood, in the autumn and winter of 1657, in a pamphilet entitled " Report of a French Protestant Refugee," privately printed by Mr. J. Carson Brevoort, of Brooklyn, L. I., in 1568. Among other things, the writer says, " You may also own Negroes and Negresses; there is not a house in Boston, however small may Le its means, that has not one or two." " " "Negroes cost from twenty to forty Pistoles, ac- cording as they are skillful or robust :" Report, etc , p. 20 ; compare ante, 351. A list of the inhabitants of Boston in 16ST has recently been published by the Prince Society as an appendix to John Dunton's Letters.
t Col. MSS., xxxv., 51, 55, 00, 06 ; Col. Doc., ill., 593, 440; ix., 225; Colden, i., 73, 50; Doc. Ilist., L, 144; Charlevoix, ii., 349; Penn. Col. Rec., 1., 202; ante, 412.
:
tion of
475
THOMAS DONGAN, GOVERNOR.
Bay on the north, and New York on the south. But this Cuar. IX. was found to be "a thing which it was not possible to de- cide." Yet, to make the union of James with Louis "more 1687. perfect," the British ministers proposed a Treaty of Neu- trality, which should be observed by the subjects of both crowns in America. James therefore empowered his Chancellor Jeffreys and others to arrange the details with Barillon, the representative of Louis. A treaty was ac- 1686. cordingly signed at Whitehall, by which it was agreed that 19 Novem. there should be peace and good correspondence between Treaty of Whitehall the subjects of both kings in America; that those subjects in North Neutrality should not assist the "wild Indians" with whom either America. king might be at war; that those of the one should not fish or trade in the territories of the other; that unlicensed privateers should be punished as pirates ; and that, notwith- standing any breach between their sovereigns in Europe, a firm peace and neutrality should be maintained between English and French subjects in America. The ministers of Louis foresaw " that if the King of England should arm and commission his subjects in New England, the French- men in those parts could not stand before them." It was not pretended, on the part of James, that the Iroquois were his subjects, " and not a single word was said about it." In this remarkable treaty the F'rench king gained a great Effect of advantage over his English brother, who thus sacrificed to of Neutral- his "mistaken politics" those noblest of native American ity. tribes who had so long been "a mighty wall against the irruptions of the Canadians." Copies of it, in English and Latin, were sent to Dongan by the Privy Council, with or- ders to cause it to be " duly observed and executed.""
As soon as it was received at New York the Neutrality 1687. Treaty was published. Dougan also dispatched Anthony S June. L'Espinard, of Albany, with a copy of it to Denonville, 39 June. whom he requested to avoid any correspondence with the notifies Dongan New York Indians " of this side of the Great Lake;" and ville. Denon- that, as he was "daily expecting religious men from En- gland," whom he intended to put among the Five Na-
* Clarke's James IT., ii., 93, 94: Charlevoix, iii., 340, 341; Shea's Charlevoix, iii., 273; Chalmers's Ann .; i., 589; CHI. Doc., ill., 388, 393, 476, 508; iv., 169, 210; ix., 322, 530, 914, 915; Sylvius, xxiv., 4: Corps Dip .. vil. (ii.), 141; Anderson on Commerce, il., 575, 576, 537; Holmes, i., 418; Grahame, i., 435; Bancroft, il., 425 ; Force's Tracts, iv., No. 11, p. 9; ante, 466. Smith, i., ES, notr, erre in stating that this treaty made the Indian trade in America " free to the English and I'rench." It did just the reverse: Garneau, i., 202.
476
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
Cuar. IX. tions, he asked that Lamberville should be ordered, as long as he staid with those Indians, to "meddle only with the 1687. affairs belonging to his function.""
5 Tcb'y.
30 March. Louis again or- ders Iro- quois cap- tives to be sent to l "galieys."
Louis had meanwhile sent a copy of the Whitehall Neu- trality Treaty to Denonville, with orders to "execute it ex- actly." He also approved the proposed expedition against the Iroquois, and directed that all prisoners who might be taken from them, in obedience to his order to De la Barre of 31 July, 1684, should be sent to France, to serve "in the galleys." The English were not to be attacked; but if Dongan should not obey his instructions to execute "the Treaty of Neutrality," his conduct was to be reported, so that " his Majesty may demand his recall from the King of England."+
May. Vaudreuil With these dispatches came a re-enforcement of eight in Canada, hundred French regulars, under the command of Philippe de Rigaud, Chevalier de Vaudreuil, an accomplished sol- dier, who had distinguished himself at Valenciennes. . A S June. camp had meanwhile been formed near Montreal, in which were assembled eighteen hundred regular soldiers and mi- litia, one hundred voyageurs, and three hundred domiciled Iroquois, among whom were the Oneida Garonhiague, and Denon- ville's ex- Indition against the New York Senecas. Kryn, "the Great Mohawk." Denonville took the chief command, assisted by Callières and Vaudreuil. The army, accompanied by the Jesuit fathers Bruyas and Vaillant, went up to Cataracouy, where Millet was now stationed as chaplain and interpreter. In the mean time a number of Iroquois chiefs had come there, at the invitation of Lam- Iroquois erized at Catara- cony and sent to France. berville, to confer with the governor of Canada. These were seized by Champigny, the intendant, and bound fast to stakes in the fort; whence, with some others captured on the Saint Lawrence, making in all fifty "able-bodied men," they were sent down to Quebec and quickly em- barked for France, in obedience to the king's reiterated or- ders. Among these American prisoners was Oreouaté or Tawerahet, the Cayuga chief who had driven the Father Carheil out of that canton three years before. The capture
* Col. MSS., xxxiii., 142; xxxv., 67 ; Cel. Dhc., ifi., 465, 467-472, 497; ix., 326; Doc. Hist., i., 145; Mun-ell's Alb. Ann., ii., 100; ante, 412. By D'Espinard, Dongan sent to Denon- ville "some oranges, hearing they are a rarity in your partes;" but the marquis replied that "it was a great pity that they shoul I have been all rotten" before they reached Mon- treal : Col. Doc., iii .. 405, 472.
+ Col. Dec., iii., 487; ix., 253, 312- 323, 230; Charlevoix, ii., 820, 240, 341 ; ante, 376, 406.
477
THOMAS DONGAN, GOVERNOR.
of these savages was the weakest treachery ever ventured CHAP. IX. by a governor of Canada. Its first effect was to jeopard the life of Lamberville, who remained at his post, umcon- 1687. Lamber- scious of Denonville's pertidy. When the news from Cata- ville in racouy reached Onondaga, its " Ancients" summoned their danger. "Dawning of the day" into their council, and, full of just indignation, told him what "Onnontio" had done. But, while "Ticorensere" awaited his death-stroke, which ap- peared inevitable, an old Onondaga, through the influence of Garakontie, thus addressed him : " We have every right to treat thee as an enemy ; but we cannot resolve to do so. We know thee too well not to be assured that thy heart hath had no part in the treason thou hast done against us ; and we are not unjust enough to punish thee for a crime of which we believe thee to be innocent, which thou dost, . . no doubt, detest as much as we, and for having been the in- strument of which, we are convinced that thou art in de- spair. Yet it is not proper for thee to remain here. Oth- ers would not, perhaps, do thee the justice which we do: -and when once our young men shall have sung the war song, they will see in thee only a traitor, who hath betray- ed our chiefs into a harsh and degrading slavery, and they will listen only to their fury, from which we shall not be able to save thee." With these words the great-hearted sachems of Onondaga dismissed the trembling Jesuit, and The Je wit ordered trusty guides to conduct him " through by-paths" dismissed pared by the Iro- toward Cataracouy ; who never quit " Ticorensere" until hic quois. was beyond all danger. Thus the French missions among the Iroquois were closed by an act of the Canadian gov- ernor, the insanity of which was hardly relieved by the self-denying virtues of those faithful devotees who had labored so long to spread Christianity through Western New York .*
Denonville, on reaching Cataracouy, where he was in- 33 June. | formed by Lamberville of the result of his folly, sent back
* Col. Doc., iii., 431, 433, 453; ix., 234, 208, 324 -034, 852-363, 402, 925; La Potherie, i., 332 ; ili., 57, 62; La Hontan, i., 90-95; Charlevoix, ii., 242-546, 350, 424; Shea's Charle- voix, fii., 275-278, 282, 233; N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii. (l.), 153, 154, 165-172; Pinkerton, xiii., 200, 221; Colden, i., 73, 79; Shea's Colden, 27, 13%; Garneau, i, 261; Shea's Mission:, 300, 315, 317: Bancroft, ii., 423; Doc. Hist., i., 134, 146 ; ante, 236. 377, 402, 442, 474. There is an interesting account of the galleys to which Louis condemned the Iroquois in the London Quarterly Review of July, 1366, p. 59-64, and another in the Edinburgh Review of July, 1565, p. 50-120.
478
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAr. IX to Onondaga the imprisoned son and the brother of Grand.
1687. Gueule, or " Hotre-houati," whom it was important to con-
24 June. ciliate. The French expedition then proceeded along the 4 July. south shore of Lake Ontario, so as to keep the Iroquois doubtful which of their nations was to be attacked. Aft- 30 .Tune. er a week's coasting it landed at "Ganniag-atorontagouat." 10 July. The French at Ironde- quoit, in or what is now called " Irondequoit Bay," in Monroe Coun- ty; the literal meaning of which, in English, appears to be New York. " an opening from the Lake." There Denonville was join- ed by the French and Indian auxiliaries under Tonty, La Durantaye, and Du Lhut, who had been ordered thither from the West .* While coming from Lake Huron, carly in May, about twenty leagues below Michilimackinac, La Durantaye met Dongan's trading party, which had set out from Albany the previous September, under the command of Captain Rooseboom. It consisted of twenty-nine Chris- English and Dutch oners by tians, three Mohawks, and two Mahicans, who were at taken pris. once made prisoners, and their goods, which would have the French, bought eight thousand beavers, were pillaged. Below Fort Saint Joseph, at " the Detroit of Lake Erie," Du Lhut, who had been joined by Tonty, soon afterward seized MacGrego- rie and his later company of twenty-nine Christians, six In- dians, and eight prisoners. Both these captured New York expeditions were brought to Niagara, and then to Ironde- quoit Bay, where they were delivered to the French gov- ernor. By Denonville's order, the young La Fontaine Ma- rion, who had accompanied Captain Rooseboom's troop, by order of was shot to death as a Canadian deserter, in conformity
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