USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume I > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57
88
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
enough to start an explosion. Colonel Bayard, of the Royal Council, known to be in sympathy with Nicholson, or at least not to mistrust him, endeavored to allay the fears or suspicions of the militia. But it was in vain; to trust the friends of the deposed King was already a long way toward being an adherent one's self, as people then rea- soned. The whole council, even their three fellow residents, came under suspicion. Who could be trusted in those days? How soon might not the French be upon them? Quick, decisive action, disarm- ing all enemies of the true religion, was the only safety. The militia marched into the fort. The senior Captain, Jacob Leisler, drew up an agreement which all the captains signed, that they should in turn, as before, keep guard there, and hold the town for William of Orange till he could be heard from. " The captain whose watch it is to be for that time captain of the fort." Four hundred citizens affixed their names, besides the captains; and now the people breathed more freely. The date we have now reached is June 3, 1689.
When the militia captains took command of the fort the Lieuten- ant-Governor summoned the councilors to meet at the City Hall on Coenties Slip. They had not been long in session when Captain Lodo- wiek, " Captain of the fort " for that day, entered the room and de- manded the keys of the fort and of the city. The unmistakable atti- tude of the entire force of the train-bands, with the population to back them, compelled Nicholson to yield. He gave up the keys, be- took himself to an English ship in the harbor ready to sail, and went to England. There was an opportunity now for the members of the council to act according to their preferences, the flight and abandon- ment of the situation by their chief leaving them free so to do. Bay- ard, Philipse, and van Cortlandt might have taken sides with their fellow citizens, and surely the company of De Peyster or Stuyvesant or Minvielle need not have repelled them; while Leisler was related by marriage to Bayard and van Cortlandt both. But they chose to keep aloof from the popular movement. Bayard made an ineffectual attempt to regain power by ordering the militia, as their colonel, to disband. Ile also contested the appointment of a collector of the port by the popular party in the place of the Catholic incumbent, and in a personal encounter at the Custom House doors he received some rude handling. Then he went to Albany. Philipse also left the city, but Mayor van Cortlandt remained at his post.
On June 6, 1689, the news reached New York that William and Mary had been crowned King and Queen, but it was unaccompanied by any appointments to office. Then, on June 10, Leisler and the other captains, still acting as of equal authority among themselves, issued a call for a convention of delegates from all the counties. This convention met on June 26. It appointed a Committee of Safety, whose action now for the first time brings into prominence above the rest of the popular party the man with whose name this whole episode
89
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
is associated, and who himself tasted the most bitter fruit of it. The committee made Jacob Leisler captain of the fort permanently, with- out rotation with the other captains; and later, on August 16, 1689, they requested him to assume the military command of the province, voicing in this the desire of the residents of the various counties.
In the good ship the " Otter," arriving at New Amsterdam on April 27, 1660, there was a company of fifteen soldiers for the re-en- forcement of the garrison. Second on the list stands the name of " Jacob Loyseler, from Francfort." His father was pastor of a Re- formed Church in that German City, and in 1670, when Peter Stuyve- sant and Oloff Stevenson van Cortlandt were in the consistory of the Dutch Reformed Church in New York as elders, Jacob Leisler was one of the deacons. In 1662 he married Elsje Loockermans, the widow of Cornelius Vanderveer, a niece of Anneke Jans ; and by this marriage genealogists assure us he came into quite near rela- tionship with Councilors Bayard, Philipse, and van Cortlandt. He was now a prosperous merchant, owning ships, and sailing in them himself at times, and he occupied a substantial brick house on the " water side," or on Whitehall Street, between State and Pearl, west side. He had one son, Jacob, and two married daughters, one, Mary, the wife of an English- man, Jacob Milborne, who, after the tragedy which de- prived her of father and hus- band at one fell blow. became the wife of Abraham Gouver- neur, who was also a promi- nent adherent of Leisler's. In 1667 we saw Leisler, as noted in the preceding chapter, one of a jury acquitting a man and woman accused of witchcraft. 122 At the beginning of the pres- LEISLER'S RESIDENCE. ent troubles he had protested ... against paying duties on his ship in port to a Catholic Collector, and as he championed his cause stoutly before the council, it had brought him favorably before the people as a man of decision and courage. As senior captain of the train-bands he had also necessarily been some- what in the public eye. A firm hand and determined spirit being now in demand, and Leisler possessing these, it was to be expected that the choice of leader should have finally fallen upon him.
We advance another month, and on September 29, 1689, by direc-
90
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
tion of the Committee of Safety, and in line with the principle of pop- nlar sovereignty which was now the vogne, an event took place hitherto nuprecedented in the history of this city, and not to be re- peated until 1834, or one hundred and forty-five years later. The people gathered in their several wards aud voted not only for the Aldermen and Assistants of each ward, but also for the Mayor and the other appointive officers. Peter de la Noy. Collector of the Port in 1679, and brother of the schoolmaster, was elected Mayor; John John- sou, Sheriff, and Abraham Gouvernent, Clerk. On October 14 these men were indneted into their offices by proclamation of the " Captain of the Fort." But Mayor van Cortlandt, while ousted from the City Ilall, would not recognize the validity of his successor's election, and refused to yield up the books and seals.
Leisler was as yet ouly what the Committee of Safety had made him. Captain of the Fort and Military Commander of the Province. By a curious conjunction of circumstances, a letter from their majes- ties now nuwittingly conferred upou Leisler, by royal sanction, the supreme command of the Province. It was dated JJuly 30, 1689, aud reached New York early in December. The superscription read, " To Francis Nicholsou, Esq., Lientenant-Governor and Commander-in- Chief iu onr Province of New York, and, in his absence, to such as for the time being take care for preserving the peace and administering the laws." It is easy to surmise why William and Mary had con- cocted so peculiar an address. What had taken place in England might well have been supposed to occasion similar changes in the dependent colonies. Who could know what had happened at New York? If Nicholson ruled, all right; be he still our Lieutenant-Gov- ernor; if some one else, then be he the man. Certainly Nicholson was " absent "; quite permanently so. Certainly Jacob Leister " for the time being " was taking care of the peace and administering the laws. The Committee of Safety was quite clear, therefore, that Leister should now regard himself " for the time being," and until another inemmbent should arrive, Lieutenant-Governor of New York. Aud the occupation of the Committee being also now gone, Leisler re- solved it into a council, composed of eight members.
Small notice need here be taken of Leisler's acts so far as these relate to affairs ontside of the city. Yet it cannot be left withont emphatic remark that it was due to him that there convened the first colonial congress, and took place the first concerted movement on the part of the colonies in their own defense. In February, 1690, or- enrred the massacre and burning of Schenectady by the Indians, iu- stigated by the French. At once Leisler raised aud seut to Albany a force of armed men under Jacob Milborne, his son-in-law. He sum- moned a Provincial Assembly to provide meaus and supplies for a vigorons assault on the Indians; and uot deeming that enough had been done, he sent the members of his council as emissaries to the
91
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
6 6 Fort William July 81" lego :- And you John Coman ~
-
J' having Perifer your iform of Banksy in denfrand your (grievance & threatening of your authority for having punctualy offered of Same awrong to y rolls & Covenant made with "Pote shirt Plymouth & Boston of Py " two father absolutely Brother I have here Inlife find you forfull atteste affo " Gory of fi letter Delivered to me by Conextrinbts agente witheg Be of Service to fiore I find you alfe wo Prideneed whereby A mary apeare what Inclinations Living phone had for our Thing wherely can befridge what may be Expected from fre for his Interest alfo me Evidence from how he deflores to have
0 ha J' Copy of his mage do podthis province Litter was he Could not have had De cept I had been broken up By Confrenger ? Lunghione is f: person to whome mister ved it is given of w. whome (mites is Conducted in your Barks Concerning of Albany Expeditions there is good Govind to Suspend Brin ton Blyn. That forme Private Institution is given to f (apre outon, app? Griffures offrent: Ifouto find you what we had agot W. cflyn of w? we have Complained to your authority But not regarded food & am if to be of Cause of Desow - in your Backs there fore forbear is if out four where not departed for your to faithfull, howst & neighbourly - offering your Confund therefore blamed would have willing by Griffon ated You . you Defering a Bellen haus I Shall Certainly Himch on you of any Ocofuer fers yfu from I hace fee albany Proceeding Shall for You all what may be Surged Creed full for you T have with ? Governo? in Golfaurid of acquainted Rom Shoda wat Senest: off about you received therein ferony respect 9 Cumain Jacob Lester
AUTOGRAPH LETTER OF LEISLER.
92
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
various colonies to urge them to unite in an attempt to end French and Indian attacks by a concerted movement against Canada. A congress of deputies to consult on this question met in May, 1690. Not much was accomplished in the end, for the colonies were hardly ripe as yet for a policy so advanced. But by means of it the authori- ties of New England and a few other colonies officially recognized the validity of Leisler's position as temporary Lientenant-Governor of New York.
In the mean time the deposed and scattered members of Nicholson's Council had not been idle. Van Cortlandt had remained in town to fight it out; Philipse saw no good reason for staying away from New York, and even Bayard, who had most strenuously set himself against the new régime, came back from Albany. These men were able to rally quite a following. No sooner was Leisler raised to power above the other captains than their jealousy was awakened, and for slight reasons one after another detached himself from his cause. As early as November Captains Stuyvesant, De Peyster, and Minvielle had resigned their commands. De Peyster, however, ac- cepted an important office later and remained friendly to Leisler to the last. Bayard's party constantly represented Leisler's following as composed entirely of " the rabble." A paper purporting to have been signed by several citizens, and two ministers among them, com- plained that Leisler gathered about him and put into office men of low and criminal antecedents. This was certainly not true of the orig- inal movement. The train-band captains, men of eminent respecta- bility, stood with him as one man in the opposition to James's officials. The militia and the people back of them may have been plain artisans and tradespeople of lowly rank in the community, but while these people did not belong to the office-holding or patrician class, to char- acterize them as low and criminal, was slanderously unjust. It was hoped that many would be shamed out of their connection with Leis- ler, and doubtless this policy met with more success than it deserved. There can be no doubt that toward the last Leisler was driven, partly by the taste of power and partly by the excessive annoyances of the opposition, to measures of a somewhat arbitrary nature. He perhaps used his power of imprisoning his opponents rather too freely. Domine Varick, pastor of several Long Island churches, had indulged in strong language against Leisler. His freedom of speech soon led to the restraint of his person at the fort, where he describes the state of things during six months in a letter still extant, which, however, is not to be regarded strictly as a model of exactitude. He had com- fortable quarters enough himself, but others were kept in rooms with the windows boarded up, and some had chains on their legs. In Jan- uary. 1690. Bayard was arrested. a fate which van Cortlandt escaped by hasty flight. A court was summoned, and Leisler's most deter- mined foe was condemned to death for treason on the ground of his
93
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
opposition to the reigning King's representative. Bayard sued for pardon in a very humble fashion, even recognizing Leisler as Lieu- tenant-Governor by addressing him as such. As the intention was to frighten him, the sentence of death was readily commuted; but he remained in prison during the remainder of Leisler's term, or for the space of about fourteen months.
A year very quickly passed, the events up the river, and the at- tempt to organize a colonial union against the savages and French, filling up most of the interval. At last, in January, 1691, began to arrive a part of the fleet accompanying the Governor appointed by William III. to supersede Andros and Nicholson. A storm having separated the vessels, the first to arrive was Major Richard In- goldsby, Lieutenant-Governor, with a party of soldiers. On landing he peremptorily demanded the surrender of the fort. Nicholson's representations had naturally enough put him in anything but an impartial frame of mind, and the patrician party found him heartily committed to their side. Unfortunately he had no papers to sustain his demand. They were on board the Governor's ship, and that had not yet arrived. Hence Leisler, considering himself the King's rep- resentative on the strength of the letter received in December, 1689, firmly but courteously declined to comply, unless the proper papers showing his authority were in evidence. This refusal sent Ingoldsby back into the arms of the opposing party a more determined friend than ever, as furious a hater as they of Leisler and his " rabble." For several weeks matters thus stood. The common people seeing the old favorites re-enforced by the King's appointees, were driven to desper- ation. Crowding once more in Leisler's rear, as they had done be- fore, they committed an act of rashness of which he could not ap- prove. They swarmed into the fort, and some of the more violent ones mounting the walls fired its guns at His Majesty's troops, result- ing in the death of one man and injuries to others. Leisler disavowed the act, but it could not be recalled. At last the strain was relieved on March 19, 1691, by the arrival of Colonel Henry Sloughter, the Royal Governor. Now exchanges are swiftly made: the new Gov- ernor to the fort, the new Council into power, the old Council to prison, and Leisler with them. The Governor's Council consisted of Philipse, van Cortlandt, Bayard, Minvielle, and a few others, an ominous combination for the friends of the people, whose strife seemed now to have been all in vain.
No time was lost in bringing charges of high treason against Leis- ler and all his council. A special court of eight judges was appointed by the Governor, of whom Richard Ingoldsby was one. Leisler denied the right of the court to try him, and appealed to the letter of December, 1689. The judges evaded a decision as to the legitimacy of the status this gave to Leisler as the acting Governor in Nichol- son's place. They referred the decision of this point to the Governor
1
94
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
and his Council, whereby the very men who were Leisler's bitterest enemies, thirsting for revenge for personal injuries, became the real court to judge him. The verdict might have been anticipated. On April 13, 1691, Leisler and Milborne and six more of the Council were convicted of high treason and condemned to death. The six had their sentence commuted to imprisonment, or at least their death war- rants were never signed. But the bitterness of personal hatred would not thus allow the two principal actors in the late upheaval of the people, or populace, to escape.
It is difficult to maintain an attitude of impartiality in treating of an episode which so powerfully stirred the feelings on both sides, and thus has elicited accounts so strongly conflicting. Yet it would seem as if the sentence of death against Leisler were unjust, and its execution the result of a deliberate and implacable thirst for revenge on the part of his chief opponents. A court or council disposed to be fair, and not too eager to proceed to extremities, would have given Leisler the benefit of the doubt regarding the letter of December, 1689, and not thrown it out of court altogether. Indeed, from some accounts it would appear that the trial proceeded only upon Leisler's condnet after the arrival of Ingoldsby. Occupying the position he did de facto, at the instance of a representative body of his fellow-citi- zens, his course then was not blameworthy at all in view of the ab- sence of the proper papers to aceredit the authority of the new comer. Indeed, this most convincing consideration was made the ground upon which the reversal of the attainder against Leisler was granted by Parliament in 1695. At that time an impartial and dispassionate review of the situation compelled the conclusion " that Leisler had been appointed Commander-in-Chief until their Majesties' pleasure should be further known; that he was afterward confirmed in his an- thority by their Majesties' letter dated July 30, 1689 [received in New York December, 1689]; that while he held this power by virtue of said authority, Major Ingoldsby had arrived in Jannary and do- manded the surrender of the fort without producing any legal an- thority." He having, upon the arrival of Governor Sloughter, turned over the fort into his hands, all that could have been expected from _ a loyal subject was done by the deceased, and he was declared free from the stain of high treason for which he had been put to death.
It is sad to observe, therefore, the desperately murderous enmity which had sprung up between fellow townsmen in so small a com- munity, and among persons actually related by marriage. Leisler and Milborne must die. The death-warrants for the other condemned men might remain untouched; theirs must be signed. It is charged by some historians that an appeal to the King was held back. It is difficult to believe that Bayard or van Cortlandt could have been so fiendishly cruel as that. Sloughter, however, declared that he would not sign their death-warrant until the King conld be heard from.
95
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
But he signed it on May 15, a month and two days after the verdict, and there were neither telegraph nor ocean greyhounds in those days. Sloughter was a habitual drunkard, it is stated, or at least easily in- duced to go too deeply into his cups. And there was a banquet with its customary deep potations on or near the day of the fatal signature. Some tell of a message to Bayard from Albany that the Mohawks could only be conciliated by the removal of Leisler, or else the French would get the benefit of a treaty with them. How shall we estimate the value or truth of all these accounts or suspicions? All we can say is there need have been no sentence of death if the trial had been dispassionate. But if this we could hardly expect under the circumstances, then at least the utmost punishment that the heat of party spirit need have inflicted on Leisler and Milborne was to have commuted the sentence to imprisonment, as in the case of the other prisoners. On no theory can we exonerate from deliberate homicidal intentions the leaders of the faction against Leisler.
On Thursday, May 15. 1691, the death-warrant against Leisler and Milborne was signed by the Governor. On Saturday, May 17, at an early hour they were led forth to execution. It was a dreary, rainy, cold spring morning, yet it is said that a great crowd of people had assembled to witness the sad spectacle. It seems strange that a spot so distant from the town was chosen for erecting the gallows. Where the Printing House square now is, about opposite the building of the New York Sun, and in later days the site of the original and then re- spectable Tammany Hall, Leisler and Milborne paid the penalty for their brief elevation above their fel- lowmen. The elder victim, we are told, was in a forgiving mood; to the last averred that he would have given up the fort to Ingoldsby had he pre- sented proper credentials; confessed such errors as all flesh is liable to com- mit, and wished to die at peace with all, even his enemies. Milborne per- ceived in the crowd Robert Livingston, who had defied his authority when he acted as Leisler's deputy at Albany. LEISLER'S TOMB. Aware how much he had had to do with bringing about this fatal moment, he challenged him to appear before the bar of God. Thus fell the first victims of political hatred in New York. They were buried in a lot hard by the scaffold, be- longing to Leisler's wife, and once the property of Govert Loocker- mans, her father. But seven years later, when all that tardy justice could do to wipe out the injury inflicted that day had been done, the remains were removed from their place of dishonor, and buried with honors, under the supervision of the then Royal Governor, the Earl
96
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
of Bellomont, near the Reformed Dutch Church on Garden street. now Exchange Place.
A change of Governors was soon necessary. Two months after Leisler's execution, Sloughter died suddenly. Was it poison? That is the supposition of the party of the government. Was it remorse? So say those affected by the prejudice of the popular party. Cer- tainly if Sloughter had signed the warrant against his better convic- tions while stupefied by drink, his awakening after the fatal event cannot have been to a comfortable state of mind. It is told that he spurned the supplications of Leisler's wife and daughter for the lives of their husbands. They had begged him to give these men but half an hour's, but one minnte's, hearing, to offset the exclusively one- sided accounts which he had alone permitted to come to his ears. But in vain was even so reasonable a request. The recollection of such an incident must also have contributed to disturb his sober moments. But as these were all too few, it may have been after all nothing but a vulgar delirium tremens which deprived New York of its first Gov- ernor under its Dutch King. He died on July 23, 1691, and was buried by the courtesy of the Stuyvesant family in their vault next to the remains of the Director.
The agitations produced by the clash of parties which had just ended so fatally for the leaders of the popular side, were not subdued for several decades, and kept troubling the administrations of many royal governors. These usnally came to their post committed openly to one party or the other, which neither conduced to their own com- fort or success, nor served to allay the passions of the contending cit- izens. Governor Fletcher, who arrived in August, 1692, was the first to encounter this hitherto unusual state of things, and it was his cne to favor the aristocratic or anti-Leisler party. Yet his instructions compelled him, among his first acts, to pardon the six members of Leisler's Conneil who had received sentence of death, and were wait- ing in prison for its execution. He managed, however, to spoil some of the effects of this clemency by demanding their word of honor not to leave the Province without his permission. It was to the interest of the party Fletcher wished to favor to keep Leisler's adherents from pleading their canse in England, where a mere recital of events. or the report of the ontrageons trial would be certain to canse tron- ble for the men in power now. Abraham Gouverneur, therefore, fled from the city. Escaping from surveillance by assuming a dis- guise, he took passage in a fishing boat and went to Boston. Gov- ernor Phipps received him cordially and encouraged him to go to England to plead his cause. Accordingly he and yonng Jacob Leisler crossed the ocean and laid their case before Parliament and the King, with the result already noted that the attainder for high treason was reversed, and the estates of all the condemned wore restored. This was in 1695, and thus a second time Fletcher was compelled to do a favorable turn to the Leislerians.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.