USA > New York > History of the state of New York. Vol. II, Pt. 2 > Part 19
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# Council Min., v., 229, 231, 235; Col. MISS., xxxv., 143-163, 171; Commission-, i., 70; ante, 4ST. In June, after Dungan went to Albany, John Knight, who was about to return to England, delivered the New York records in his possession, as de paty secretary, to Van Cort- landt, Phillipse, and Bayard. Col. Doc., iif., 407; Col. MISS., xxxv., 162; ante, 408, 434.
507
THOMAS DONGAN, GOVERNOR.
others, from Albany to Montreal. But the French were CHAP. X. . desired to evacuate Niagara."
168S.
The French did evacuate Niagara not long afterward. Niagara.
.
Louis would not admit the pretension of James that the Iro- quois were British subjects. Denonville was therefore di- s March. rected to send all the information he could to Paris respect- ing the French claim to Hudson's Bay, the Iroquois coun- try, and " the Southern portion of Acadia, from Penobscot to the River Kinnebec;" and Louis declared his intention of appropriating all the unoccupied American territory nec- essary for the maintenance of Canadian trade. Seignelay also wrote that the exchange or gaining of New York was s March. not possible at present, yet its inhabitants must be prevent- Canada, . ed from " thwarting the trade of the French." As the king Iroquois. must "chastise the Iroquois," he would send fresh Euro- pean soldiers to attack the Mohawks and Onondagas who should winter in their country. Forts Niagara and Fron- tenac must be maintained, and new posts established at So- dus Bay and Salmon River, on Lake Ontario, as well as at the southern end of Lake Champlain, "towards the Mo- hawks," which would be " at the head of the whole." More Iroquois prisoners should be sent to France, "as it is cer- tain that those Indians, who are vigorous and accustomed to hardship, can serve usefully on board his Majesty's galleys."}
This masterly European scheme of Louis was not to be accomplished. Irritated at the deportation of their breth- ren to France, the Iroquois harassed the Canadians all the winter. Denonville sent re-enforcements to Niagara, where Millet had succeeded Lamberville as chaplain, which were attacked by the New York Indians, who then besieged Fort Chambly. Some Onondaga captives were restored; and Lamberville, at Cataracouy, persuaded the Oneidas, Ononda- gas, and Cayugas to send deputies to Montreal. Six hundred The Iro warriors, headed by Haaskouan; or Outreouati, the Onenda- ace Mou- ga whom the French called " Grande-gueule," then descend- treal. ed the Saint Lawrence to the Lake Saint Francis, where they were joined by six hundred more. There the savage force halted, while Grande-gueule, with a few others, went
* Col. Doc., Ifi., 556, 503, 364; ix .. 391; Col. MAS., xxxv., 160; Quebec MISS. (ii. ), v., 415, 452, 455, 459, 460, 464, 503 ; Charlevoix, il., 364; Garneau, i., 207, 208 ; ante, 488, 404. t Col. Doc., Ix., 571-277; ante, 501.
New York,
queis med.
37.14
303
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
Cax.x. down to Montreal. Denonville gave them instant and
ence. Speaking for the Cayugas, Onondagas, and Oneida .. .
Grande- cuculo a j'enen- ville.
16SS. their orator set forth the weakness of the French, and the. nd ease with which the Iroquois could drive them out of Can- ada. Learning, he said, " that our warriors had resolved to, come and burn your forts, and houses, and granges, and corn, so that after famishing you, they could have you au easy prey, I begged so strongly in your favor, that I have got leave to warn Onnontio that he can escape this evil by accepting peace on the terms proposed by Corlaer."*
Montreal dismayed.
These haughty words from the glib Onondaga who had humbled De la Barre at La Famine four years before, andl the twelve hundred Iroquois warriors at the Lake Saint Francis, dismayed all hearts at Montreal. News had mean- while come that nearly all the French left at Niagara the year before had died. Fort Frontenac was invested by the Iroquois, while from the Sorel River to Montreal scarcely a Canadian could venture out of doors. So Denonville agreed to a peace, including the Western savages, and the Mohawks and Senecas, provided he could send supplies to Cataracouy. He also promised to solicit the return of their brethren now in the galleys at Marseilles. The truce was concluded " on the spot," and the Iroquois deputies left hos- tages to ratify it " at the wane of the August moon."t.
8 June. Denonville makes peace with the Iro- quois.
At Montreal, the Oneidas, Onondagas, and Cayugas re- jected Dongan's assumption that they were British subjects. 15 June. The Iro- quois as- sert their independ- ence of They declared that his claim " was not true; that they had always resisted his pretensions, and wished only to be friends of the French and English equally, without either the one France and or the other being their masters; because they held their England. country directly of God, and had never been conquered in war, neither by the French nor the English ; and that their intention was only to observe a perfect neutrality." Thus, while Louis and James were wrangling about American sov- ereignty, the Iroquois asserted their independence of both, and preserved Northern New York, as their own native land, from annexation to Canada.#
* La Potherie, il., 221-227; iil., 58 ; Col. Doc., iv., 34S; ix., 243, 247, 356, 3ST, 358, 390, 402; Charlevoix, 300-311, 313; Bancroft, if., 424; Garneau, i., 265; ante, 403, 404, 481.
f Col. Doc., ix., $30, 891, 995, 396; Charlevoix, ii., 364, 872-374; Colden. i., SS; Garneau, i., 268; ante, 405, 451. With traly British contempt for even French idiome, Smith, i., 5;, twists the " sur le champ" of Charlevoix into " in the field !"
: Col. Doc., ix., 354-356; Bancroft, ii., 424.
:
sie!
THOMAS DONGAN, GOVERNOR. 509
Soon afterward, the French captives whom Dongan had Cuar. X. . sent from Albany reached Montreal. In acknowledging
1688. his courtesy, Denonville said that, as soon as he could, he July. would withdraw the garrison at Niagara, " in order to con- 28 Aug. tribute to a permanent peace."
When Denonville's orders tardily reached Des Bergères 6 July. The at Niagara, he' assembled the officers and made a formal French fort record of the condition of the fort. A large wooden cross, demolish- at Niagara
eighteen feet high, with an appropriate inscription, which eil. Millet had solemnly blessed on the last Good Friday, was left standing in the middle of the square. The cabins and quarters were also preserved entire, "for the purpose of maintaining the possession his Majesty and the French have. for a long time had in this Niagara district." The garri- son then evacuated the fort, and came down Lake Ontario 25 Sept. . to Cataracouy in the bark "Ja Generale.""
This abandonment of Niagara by the French was chiefly owing to the policy and the firmness of Dongan .; But be- . fore the event was accomplished, his own authority over New York had ceased. On his return from Albany, Don- gan received the king's letter of the 22d of April, requiring him to surrender the government of New York to Andros on his arrival there. The unwelcome missive was read in es July. Council, and " ordered to be recorded amongst the records prepares to Dongan of the Province of New York." And now all was agog. give up his
vern- The Long Island Quakers set forth to the expiring govern- Andros. Inent to ment all the losses they had suffered for not training and not paying town-rates according to law; but they got no redress. The act which, in obedience to the king's desire, had been ordered to be engrossed in May, for the education of Indian slaves and negroes in the Christian faith, was ci- Negroes. ther forgotten or dropped. But it was resolved in Council July 30. " that all Indian Slaves within this Province, subjects to the slaves. Indian King of Spain, that can give an account of their Christian faith, and say the Lord's prayer, be forthwith set at liberty, and sent home by the first conveyance, and likewise them that shall hereafter come to the Province." This was only confirming the Council's action in the previous October.
Quakers.
* Col. Doc., ill., 556; ix., 886-3SS, 391, 200 ; Doc. Hist., i., 168, 160; Col. MSS., xxxv., 160; Quebec MISS .. v. (ii.), 460, 461, 502 ; La Hontan, i., 131, 132 ; Charlevoix, il., 357, 364, 372, 374. t Palmer, in his Impartial Account, p. 21, erroneously attributes the demolition of Niags- ra to the action of Andros under his new commission. Compare Col. Doc., iii., 556, 357.
·
510
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
30 July. Tax law
Robert Allison, who had purchased an Indian slave at Thei. duras, and brought him to New York, asked that he might 1688. retain him in bondage there ; but his petition was rejected. 3) July. As the administration was soon to be in other hands. Don- gan and his Council, "for the case of this, his Majesty's Province, which it is his Majesty's pleasure should be an- nexed to his Government of New England, Ordered that all Eu-pendel. further proceedings towards the levying the late tax and im- position of £2555, 6, to be paid by the first day of Novem- ber next, do cease, and it is hereby suspended 'till further order, and that the sheriffs of the respective counties have notice given them accordingly." The last law passed by Dongan was "to prohibit shoemakers from using the mys- tery of tanning hides," when Counselors Broekholls, Bax- ter, Phillipse, Van Cortlandt, and Bayard were present. The same day the last New York patent under her recent pro- vincial seal from James the Second was issued by Dongan to the town of Huntington."
2 August. Shoetaak- ers not to tan hides.
Hunting- ton patent.
22 Jan. 10 Feb. April. Andro: at
In the mean time Andros had been afflicted by the death of his wife at Boston, where she was buried with great pomp. Soon afterward he went to New Hampshire and Maine, where his presence was required. At Pemaquid he Temaunid, refreshed himself " with sheep and soles," and then went, in the Rose frigate, to the French settlement at Penobscot. Learning his approach, Castin retired, leaving his house shut. Andros respected the baron's altar and emblems of his Roman faith, but he seized his other property, and sent it to Pemaquid for condemnation, on the charge of illegal trading within the British dominions, which were claimed to extend as far east as the Saint Croix River. On his re- turn to Pemaquid, Andros was joined by Secretary Ran- dolph, and a conference was held with the neighboring In- dian sachems, who were told not to fear the French, and promised the protection of the English. The conduct of Palmer and West in 1686 was thought by Randolph to be "as arbitrary as the Great Turke." Perhaps Randolph's criticism was deserved, yet not so much because Dongan's
* Col. Doc., ill., 314, 427, 550 : iv .. 510, 511 ; Council Min., v., 222, 224, 237, 238. 23; Col. MSS., xxxiv., 77, 78; xxxv., 162, 169 ; Doc. Ifist., 1 .. 107, 168; iii., 608, 609 ; Council Jour., i., Int., xxi., xxif., xxiii. ; N. Y. H. S. Coll., fif., 953 ; Patents, v., 833-340; Anderson's (.1. Ch., il., 303, 341; Evelyn, il., 245; Wood's Long Island, 103, 104; Thompson, i., 46% : an', 330, 331, 43-4, 455. 486. There are no regular New York Council Minutes in the secretary's office at Albany between 2 August, 1083, and 19 March, 1691.
£
511
·
THOMAS DONGAN, GOVERNOR.
late agents had been " arbitrary," as because they had ven- CHAP. X. tured " to tear all in pieces that was settled and granted at Pemaquid by Sir Edmund" in 1677, when he was Govern- 16SS. or of New York. But the jealousy of Dongan, which An- dros continually manifested, was soon appeased. News came from Boston that the king had determined to add 10 March. New York and New Jersey to Andros's present government. Fort Charles, at Pemaguid, was ordered to be repaired, and its command was intrusted to Ensign Joshua Pipon. An- dros then hastened back to Boston to receive his new com- 21 June. mission, for the arrival of which he waited "in great ex- turns to Andros re- pectation." Meanwhile James Graham, who had been his Boston. fellow-passenger from England in 1678, and seems to have preferred him to Dongan, had resigned his New York ap- pointments and hurried eastward, where he was made At- torney General of New England in place of Farewell. Gra- ham appears to have been assisted in his new office by Da- Graham vid Jamison, the Scotch "sweet singer," who had given up son favored and Jami- his Latin school in New York, and desired advancement by Andros. under the rising sun. John West was already at Boston as Randolph's deputy. John Palmer, one of the judges of New York, whom Dongan had sent to London with his dis- patches in September, 1687, now returned to New England, of which he had been named a counselor by the king. As the dominion was enlarged by the annexation of New York, Andros appointed Palner to be one of the judges of its Su- Palmer perior Court, along with Dudley, Stoughton, and Bulkley. New En- And now the governor was "safe in his New York confi- fudge. dents, all others being strangers to his Councill." Yet so far from being, as stigmatized by coarse Boston partisans, " a crew of abject persons," the gentlemen who came from New York were " well known to have lived there for a long time in esteem and reputation-enough to merit a better Epethite of all good and honest men.""
When Andros's vice-regal commission reached Boston, it was proclaimed from the town-house balcony, and Captain 15 July.
" Col. Doc., ifi., 428. 420, 430, 450, 513, 515, 551, 567, 571, 657, 662, 663; iv., 252, 476; v., 478; Ix., 263, 265, 380, 396 ; Charlevoix, ii., 360, 357 ; Col. Rec. Conn., iii., 437-416; Hutch. Mass., i., ?64, 370, 371, 381 ; Coll., 557-565; Adlard's Sutton Dudleys, 77; Palmer's Impartial Ac- count, 22; Force's Tracte, iv., No. 9, p. 8, 9, 16, 13, 21, 22, 37. 40, 53, 58; No. 10, p. S; Mather, Mag., H., 586 ; Williamson. i., 550-398 ; Belknap, i., 196; Palfrey, iii , 526, 533, 549, 552. 538 -560, 562; Mass. H. S. Coll., xxvil., 190; xxxs., 190; R. I. Rec., ill., 257; Audros Tracts (I'rince Soc.) i., 13, 43, 114; ante, 310, 319, 4 7, 444, 415, 467, 403, 402, 481.
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£
512
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
car. x. Francis Nicholson was installed as Lieutenant Governor of the dominion. A fortnight afterward the governor general 16SS. SI July. Andros set out for New York, attended by Mason, Dudley, U-her, Randolph, and Walley, of his Council, and deputy Secretary New York. West. Nicholson accompanied his chief as far as New London, whence he was sent back to Boston, because the Indians were making trouble near Springfield. On his way Andros was joined by Counselors Clarke, Newberry, Smith, Winthrop, and Allyn."
11 August. Andros in the me- tropolis. . On Saturday, the eleventh of August, the governor gen- eral reached the metropolis, where he was received by Col- onel Bayard's regiment of foot and a troop of horse. The king's new commission was read in Fort James, and then published at the City Hall. Immediately afterward, An- dros sent for and received from Dongan the almost virgin seal of the late government of New York, " which was de- The seal of faced and broaken in Council," according to the king's In- New York broken. structions. In its stead, the great seal of New England was. 11 August. thenceforth to be used. A proclamation was at once issued continuing all persons not removed by order of the king in their offices, and directing taxes to be continued. Thus Andros began his second government of New York. He had left it seven years before to be justified with the Duke of York. In the interval, the province had gained and had lost a popular assembly. Her old governor now revis- ited familiar seenes to assume almost imperial authority as the viceroy of James the Second.1.
A few days afterward the governor general went over to New Jersey, with several of his Council, and at Elizabeth- 15 Angust. town published his commission, as well as the proclamation for continuing officers and the revenue. Similar ceremo- 18 August. nies were observed at Burlington. Andrew Hamilton and 5 August. others were appointed justices of the peace by Andros un- der the great seal of the dominion. It was remarked that New Jer- sey re- duced. . the "out places" of both East and West Jersey were ".very thinly inhabited," but that " all showed their great satisfac- tion in being under his Majestic's immediate government."+
* Col. Doc., ill., 550, 557, 507, 568; ix., 392; Hutch. Mass., i., 371; Coll., 500; Col. Rec. Conn., ill., 447 ; Barry, i., 426; Bancroft, il., 431; Charlevoix, ii., 352.
+ Col. Doc., ill., 283, 256, 516, 427, 51%, 850, 554, 507, 722; Min. of C. C., i., 220, 350; Dun- lap, ii., App. cxxxv ; ante, 38, 151, 491, 503.
# Col. Doc., ili., 533, 054, 507; Chalmers, i., 500, 622; Smith's N. J., 204, 206, 5CS; Gut-
-
toTati
513
SIR EDMUND ANDROS, GOVERNOR GENERAL.
If the people, of New Jersey were satisfied with the Char. X. change which brought them directly under the government of their king, the people of New York were not generally 1688. pleased that their province should lose its individuality, and be consolidated with New England. It was true that their old governor, Andros, whom many preferred to Dongan, had come back to them. But Andros's return was accom- panied with disagreeable circumstances. Geographically, politically, and socially, New York was unlike any other British possession in North America. For half a century Situation before her conquest she had remained a distinct territory York. of New of the Dutch Republic, lying between the Puritan colonies of England at the east, and the Episcopalian and Roman Catholic colonies of England at the south. For more than that period her relations with the French in Canada and the savages within her own borders had required peculiar skill in their management. Up to this time New York had always been differently governed from any other British American colony. She had never been a chartered or a corporate government under Dutch or English authority. Her eclectic people never wished to be ruled by incorpo- rated oligarchies like those in New England. What they desired, and what, for a season, they had enjoyed, was a "Charter of Liberties," securing to every inhabitant a share in local legislation, freedom of conscience, and equality of all modes of Christianity. While a Dutch province, New New York York, with the comprehensive liberality of her fatherland, had invited strangers of every race and creed to nestle gland. among her own early colonists. The invitation had been greedily accepted. For these and other reasons, her peo- ple-especially those of Batavian origin-cherished a mag- nanimous " State pride," not surpassed by that professed in any of the colonies by which she was surrounded. She had desired the annexation of Connecticut and the Jerseys be- cause they had belonged to her ancient territory, and be- cause their restoration would only make her what she was intended to be by the patent which Charles the Second had granted to the Duke of York. But New York did not wish
don, 53; Bancroft, ii., 413, 431 ; Whitehead's E. J., 113, 121. The original great seal to Ham- ilton's commission still exists: Index N. J. Col. Der., 13. It is difficult to understand what Palfrey, il., 502, means by saying that " New York and New Jersey had never before had what might seem a stable government of any kind."
II .- KK
didlikes an- nexation to New En-
514
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
Cuar. x. to be united with Massachusetts, which -- although included within the Dutch "New Netherland" of 1614, six years he-
pant.
1688. fore the "New England" of James the First --- had never been in her actual possession, and, if now joined to her, might be "ruinous and destructive." It is not surprising New York- that, under these circumstances, the people of New York + ers indig- felt themselves to be in an "unmerited state of degrada- tion," which they contemplated with "just dissatisfaction." Their metropolitan city, knowing that it had become "the envy of its adjacent neighbors, who did not cease by all their little artifices to interrupt its trade," especially la- mented " that unhappy annexation to New England."*
Peculiar .reasons against t annexation of New York to New En- glind.
%
New York and Mas- sachusetts very differ- ent.
Besides these political considerations were some of an- other character. The colonists at the eastern end of Long Island, who had chiefly come from New England, and who wished to barter their oil and other commodities at Boston rather than New York, were perhaps gratified at the change which brought them back to old sympathies. But the an- cient Dutch possessors of New Netherland and their de- scendants had no reason to like most of the New England colonists or their characteristics. If they liked any, they preferred the people of tolerant Rhode Island, whom al- most all other New Englanders disliked. The genial Epis- copalians of Virginia and the liberal Roman Catholics of Maryland were nearer the hearts of the New York Dutch- English Calvinists than were the sour Puritans of Massa- chusetts, whose predecessors would not be comforted in Holland by the calm pleasures of a Leyden Sunday. On the American side of the Atlantic these antipathies deep- ened. Rivals and antagonists from the start, New York and Massachusetts could not be sympathetic. The two col- onies differed essentially. The oldest, Dutch one, was al- ways grand, inviting, and magnanimous :- the later, English one, was ever sectional, narrow, and selfish. The cardinal principle of New York was comprehensive liberality :- that of Massachusetts, Procrustean rigor. Both erred in perse- cuting noisy Quakers. But the history of the old Dutch province in North America is not marred by the despotie self-righteousness which deforms the annals of the "Bay
* Col. Doc., ill., 576, 722, 595, 700 ; Chalmers's Pol. Ann., i., 500; 11., 20; Rev. Col. , 1, 212: Min. of N. Y. C. C., il., 93-96; Dunlap, ii., App. cxli. ; ante, vol. 1., 62-65, 95, 06; ii., 500.
4.
£
515
SIR EDMUND ANDROS, GOVERNOR GENERAL.
State." So it was natural that genial New York did not Cuar. x. like too intimate an association with her surly and grasp- ing eastern neighbor. She had acquiesced in the conquest 1688. which reduced her, in 1664, under the dominion of Charles the Second and the Duke of York, but she could never have submitted to the selfish and arrogant colonists who so long and so vainly coveted her territory. It was inevitable that New York should consider her compulsory union with Massachusetts, by order of their common sovereign, "an abhorred connection.""
Yet, if the people of New York generally felt it a " deg- radation" for their province to be annexed to New England, there were some who at first enjoyed a vainglory. The resident counselors Broekholls, Phillipse, Bayard, and Van Cortlandt found their official importance rather increased than diminished by the change. If the New England coun- selors could now vote on the affairs of New York, the New York counselors could likewise vote on the affairs of New England. This they were soon called upon to do. At a Council held at New York, a law to regulate the carrying 20 August. of passengers in ships and vessels, which Andros could not ed at New Laws pass- pass at Boston because so many counselors there "strenu- York. ously opposed" it, was readily enacted. It was also order- 20 August. ed that the New York revenne act of the seventh of May, which Dongan and his Council had suspended on the thir- tieth of July, should " be fully and duly executed."+
Some of the Protestants in New York, who had been troubled at observing Papists settling themselves in the province " under the smiles" of Dongan, appear to have re- joiced in the return of their old governor, Andros. The Dutch Domine Selyns informed the classis of Amsterdam 10 Oct. that "Sir Edmund Andros, Governor at Boston and the like, Selyny's Domine and now stepped into this Government of New York and opinion of Andres. Jersey-as such having charge from Canada to Pennsylva- nia-is of the Church of England ; and understanding and
* Col. Doc., ill., 391, 402, 576, 797, 790 ; Chalmers's Rev. Col., i., 219.
t Col. Rec. Conn., iii., 447, 448; Doc. Hist., ii , 45; Col. Doc., ili., 567, 50S; Rev. in N. E. Just, in Force's Tracts, iv., No. 9, 13, 55; Palfrey, ili., 551, 562 ; ante, 510. The counselors present on this occasion were Dudley, Usher, and Randolph, of Massachusetts; Mason, of New Hampshire; Walley, of Plymouth; Clarke, Newberry, and Smith, of Rhode Island ; Winthrop and Allyn, of Connecticut; Brockholle, Phillipse, Baxter, Van Cortlandt, Younge, and Bayard, of New York; in all sixteen, besides the governor. John West acted as depu- ty secretary.
£
516
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
Www. X. speaking the Low Dutch and French, he attends mine and
Mr. Daille's preaching." Yet no danger could arise from
Hinckley's opinion of Dougan.
ICSS. the few Roman Catholics who assembled to worship their creator with Dongan and others in a small chamber in Fort James. Even the Puritan Hinckley, of Plymouth, testified that the late Governor of New York showed " himself of a noble, praiseworthy mind and spirit; taking care that all the people in each town do their duty in maintaining the minister of the place, though himself of a differing opin- ion from their way."#
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