USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume I > Part 19
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" the manners of the times did not admit of such female display." A serious drawback to the city's growth in good social material was the abominable practice of the transportation of criminals to which the mother country was addicted. There were bitter complaints in the Independent Reflector on this subject, the transportation of felons to the colonies being freely characterized as an outrage to the decent element there-relieving one part of the British dominions from the plagues of mankind, to cast them upon another. The climate of the city was so good that to this canse was attributed the fact that so few suicides occurred there. Nevertheless, the increasing population, without sanitary precautions on the basis of the best scientific knowl- edge, entailed upon New York, as upon cities in Europe, frequent visi- tations of the pestilence. It was lamented that there were such loose regulations abont physicians. " We have no law to protect the lives of the King's subjects," writes William Smith, Jr., about the year 1762, " from the malpractice of pretenders." Any man might set up for a physician, or apothecary, or surgeon. No candidates for these important professions were examined, licensed, or sworn. In 1733 New York had forty doctors, and the ludependent Reflector, taking up this question of public interest also, recommended earn- estly that regulations should be established to save the people from quacks. In 1760 rigid provisions of that kind were enacted by the Provincial Assembly.
The capital, with English gentlemen in it, officials, civil and mili- tary, and withal, plenty of the fair sex tinged with English notions of what was au fait-could hardly fail to have racing among its attrac- tions. A race track was laid out in 1742 on the Church property where the Astor House now stands, and eight years later it was still there, for Lewis Morris, Jr.'s horse won a prize from five entries. There was a racecourse also at Greenwich in 1753, on Admiral War- ren's estate, Oliver De Lancey being in charge of the " events." . third course was laid out at, Harlem. Meanwhile the track at Hemp- stead, Long Island, was still very popular. " Society " in chairs and chaises crossed the ferry ou the day before the races and spent the night in taverns conveniently near. In May, 1750, it was estimated that as many as a thousand horses had collected in the neighborhood. In 1756 there was a famons boat race ou the river. Sixteen whale- boats had gathered at New York, all from Cape Cod. These were manned by fishermen who had been engaged to do bateau-service ou the Canada waters, in the campaign then planning. One of these boats, maned by six men, was pitted against a boat manned by six of New York's best, varsmen. But it was hard to cope with such sturdy knights of the var as the men from Cape Cod, who were in con- stant and hard practice all their lives long. They easily beat the men of the city.
In the early mouths of 1756 our little colonial capital was thrown
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into a flutter of pleasant excitement by the arrival of a very impor- tant personage, who was worth more than all the royal Governors since Burnet put together, with a few generals like Loudoun and Abercrombie into the bargain. The fame of the hero of " Braddock's defeat " had gone through all the colonies, since that melancholy event on the banks of the Monongahela, July 9, 1755. " Your name," wrote some one from Philadelphia, " is more talked of in Philadelphia than that of any other person in the army." We refer of course to George Washington, now Colonel and Commander-in-Chief of all the Virginia militia. A captain of the regular army, with a company of thirty men under him, claimed to outrank the Militia-Colonel, making considerable trouble for Washington in conducting his operations
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BROAD STREET AND CITY HALL.
against hostile Indians on the borders. So he resolved to come North and have this vexations question of rank settled once for all. The successor of Braddock was Major-General Shirley, whose headquar- ters were at Boston, and Washington determined to visit this officer in person, and get his decision. On February 4, 1756, thus a few weeks before he completed his twenty-third year, he and two com- panions started from Mt. Vernon. They traveled on horseback, and each was attended by a mounted black servant. The party stopped at Philadelphia, and were received there with great enthusiasm. The next stop was at New York City. It must have created quite a sensa- tion in the town to behold three mounted officers and three servants behind them, clattering through the streets on their way to the Black Horse Tavern, on Garden Street near Broad, or to the Royal Oak on
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Broadway, below Exchange Place. Or perhaps Washington was en- tertained at the home of his friend Beverley Robinson, the son of Speaker John Robinson, of the Virginia House of Burgesses. There was a house on the corner of Park Place and Broadway at that time, and the street running to the river was not known by the modern name, but is called Robinson Street on a map of 1756. Possibly young Robinson was living there. He had married a wealthy New York lady, a daughter of Adolphus Philipse, the prominent merchant, landholder and councilor. The cavalcade must have excited con- siderable attention. Washington's figure was a splendid one, in size and proportion beyond ordinary men, and his horses were always of the finest breed and form. The three young officers were gorgeons in their colonial uniforms, sword knots of gold and scarlet, hats of the latest fashion, glittering with gold lace. Upon the housings of man and master was embroidered the Washington crest. They wore flow- ing military cloaks, adorned with gold lace. The servants too were richly attired: what in the masters' acconterment was gold-laced. was silver-laced for them, and Washington's was in complete livery corresponding to the color of the arms of his house.
After a brief stay the party sped along ont of town by the Bowery Road, through Harlem and so on to Kingsbridge on their way to Bos- ton. But off a little from the road, standing high on the bluffs be- vond the Village of Harlem and commanding a wide view of the country beyond the river, stood a handsome country house. We will come across it later as the Morris House, again later as the Jumel Mansion, and as such we can go and look at it as it stands in its origi- nal position on 161st Street, near St. Nicholas Avenue. This was the country seat of Beverley Robinson, and, of course. the party must halt here. Washington's mission at Boston was accomplished after a stay of ten days, the commander of thirty men being put into his proper place. Ho and his friends then started back for home. A second time they stopped at New York ; but we read of no second sojourn at Phila- delphia. Was it then true that the impressionable Washington, al- ready hit hard by the arrows of Cupid on more than one previons occasion, was smitten by one of the New York belles? Mary Philipse. stately, beautiful, and wealthy, was the sister of Mrs. Beverley Robin- son, and Washington must have been thrown familiarly into her so- ciety. Hence tradition has it that he fell in love with her, but that she declined his addresses. She must have been obdurate indeed. Washington had all the graces of person to attract the female eve. and his fame for unparalleled bravery in the field was in the month of all the colony. His character too was of the finest and loftiest qual- ity. It seems as if he must have been irresistible. Perhaps he made no advances: the Philipse blood was not inclined to pulsate vigor- onsly on the side of the people against the crown, and even then inti- mations of that lovalism which bade her finally marry Captain Roger
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Morris, an English officer, and prefer exile to England to independ- ence in America, may have cropped ont. Such was her reputation for strength of mind, that some one ventured to say that if Washington had married her he would never have fought on the side of the pa- triots. This is all conjecture, of course, and very doubtful at that. It may have been this very attitude of mind which prevented cordi- ality and affinity between two young people otherwise so hand- somely matched. In March, 1756, he was back in Virginia over- whelmed with work, and though rallied about Miss Philipse, and warned that Captain Morris was abont to capture her, he serenely kept on in the line of duty, with no evidences of a broken heart.
It may be stated here that in the autumn of 1752 an important change in the calendar was made by the English anthorities for Eng- land and her colonies. The ten days dropped out of the calendar by Pope Gregory in 1584,-the accunmilations of a slight error in the cal- culation of the length of the year,-had not heretofore been recog- nized by England as it had been on the Continent, and they had ac- cordingly grown to eleven days. They were now ordered dropped between September 2 and 14, so as to advance England's dates of record and harmonize them with those of other civilized nations. At the same time the year was decreed to begin on January 1, instead of on March 25 or 27, as before, which had always necessitated a double marking of the year-number during those nearly three months. One wonders whether Washington celebrated his birthday on the 22d or on the 11th of February, during his visit to New York and Boston.
CHAPTER VII.
PREPARING FOR INDEPENDENCE.
ELL might the corporation of the " ancient city " of New York pay compliments to General Amherst and present him with the freedom of the city. Prosperity was bound to visit her citizens at the restoration of peace. the threat of the North removed and the seas cleared of the preying enemy. The progress of the war, however, had only made the people of New York better acquainted with their own importance in the guidance of legis- lation. They had not lost sight for a moment of the fact that the peo- ple had a voice in the administration of government, because they, through their representatives in the Assembly, held the purse-strings. Cornbury's rascality had taught them this useful lesson. They had assumed the right to vote appropriations in order to save the treas- ury : to keep it up now was to save the State.
The war against the French and Indians of Canada had had a glori- ous issue, but it had caused a vast increase of England's public debt, which now attained the alarming figure of one hundred and forty millions of pounds. To meet this heavy obligation England had need of drawing upon her resources in every quarter of the empire. Cor- tainly she might confidently look to America for support in this par- ticular. Her colonies there were perhaps more directly and largely benefited by the defeat of the French and the conquest of Canada than any other part of the English dominions. They had borne a noble part in the conflict, having furnished no less than twenty-five thousand men. No one appreciated more keenly than Pitt, the states- man to whose sagacity the present results were mainly dne, how im- portant was the share contributed by the colonial forces to those re- sults and the benefits accruing therefrom. Yet it was but reasonable that they should now also bear a part in the burden of debt. No valid objection could have been brought against this proposition : no lawful complaint would have been made against the carrying into effect of any such purpose. It all depended upon the manner in which it was done.
It was not apt to be well or wisely done under the King now upon the throne. George III. had begun to reign only a year or so before this. It was his aim not only to reign, but also to govern. " Be a king, George," had been the constant admonition of his mother, from
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his boyhood up. He had hardly intelligence enough to comprehend that personal goverument had become out of date since James II.'s flight, and the " Bill of Rights " under which William III. consented to sit upon the throne. Yet by a peculiar combination of circum- stauces he was actually enabled to reproduce something of the state of things he desired. Men had their price in that day, and parties were ready to split up after standing nearly a century. Nevertheless it seemed as if the region where the most distinct assertion of the King's personal will could be most safely made, would be England's colonies on the American continent. Ilere certain crown preroga- tives had been clearly usurped, without Bills of Rights or anything of that sort, seized in moments of exigency, and held on to only upon the practical but yet rather unconstitutional basis that possession is nine points in law. " It is historically correct," says Prof. John Fiske. speaking of George 111., " to regard him as the person chiefly respon- sible " in bringing on the American Revolution. "For him, as well as for the colonies it was a desperate struggle for political existence. He was glad to force on the issue in America rather than in England, because it would be comparatively easy to enlist British local feeling against the Americans as a remote set of rebels, with whom English- men had no interests in common, and thus obscure the real nature of the issue. The victory of the Americans put an end to the personal government of the King."
The English statesmen had quickly seen what it meant when the Assembly of New York, under Corubury, had taken upon themselves to vote government supplies only from year to year, to vote no sala- ries to officers except by name, as well as to elect their own Treasurer. It rained instructions to every Royal Governor since, insisting npon the abandonment of such practices. Lord Lovelace had to meet the first brunt of the refusal which grew only the more determined as the demands were repeated, and as the urgency of the rulers at home con- vinced the colonists more thoroughly of the value of the prerogative they had seized. Hunter and Burnet, men of liberal sentiments, struggled with more or less grace to be loyal to their instructions. Cosby trampled upon the most clearly established colonial rights, but could do nothing with this, and so the Assembly was neither called nor dissolved, and legislation and appropriation were paralyzed to- gether. Gov. Clinton, imagining he was still the commander of a ship, was kept in a continual turmoil by vain efforts to make his in- junctions tell. Poor Osborn was driven to despair and snicide, but the Assembly could not be moved from their position, and thereby commit political suicide. George III. thought it was high time to put an end to this persistent, high-handed disregard of the instructions given to Royal Governors. Neither he nor his ministers did or would see the unwisdom of coercion. They did not appreciate that this prac- tice, whatever might have been its origin, after being the vogue for
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more than half a century, had better be recognized as a right. After all, the colonists were British subjects, and, respecting these preroga- tives of legislation, they stood upon the precise grond of subjects at home. If money had to be raised in the colonies to maintain the em- pire as now extended, or to meet the obligations of the great debt, it would have been wiser to have done so along the lines hitherto fol- lowed in the administration of the colonial funds. There can be no doubt there would have been a generons and cheerful response. Such had been made to every appeal for the frequent and usually abortive Canadian campaigns, from that of 1710 to the last. There was the warmest feeling of affection, even of deference and devotion, toward the home country. Benjamin Franklin truly informed the House of Commons that the feeling of the colonists everywhere was " the best in the world. They were led by a thread. They had not only a respect but an affection for Great Britain, for its laws, its customs and manners."
Instead. then, of going to work in the proper way, depending upon this almost devont loyalty, and recognizing the methods that had grown to be rights,-quite the contrary was done. To reach the rea- sonable and commendable object of subsidies or appropriations or a revenne, all former concessions were withdrawn, and all the ae- enstomed practices of legislation upon the model of the Parliament at home, were swept away. This was sowing the wind, and the whirl- wind was soon ready for the reaping. It was announced by the King's ministers that disobedience to the instructions would no longer be tolerated. The Assemblies could not be allowed to limit the supplies in amount or fime, nor even to disenss them at all, but were simply to vote them as demanded. The colonies would be taxed directly by Parliament. A civil list must be voted first of all, thus making utterly independent of the will or criticism of the people's representatives, the governors, judges, and all other royal officers. Moreover, after this, tenure of these offices was to depend solely upon the King's pleasure without regard to behavior. To make this scheme most steadily effective, the disturbing element of possible ap- peals to earlier grants and instruments was to be removed : that is, all the colonial charters were to be annulled at one fell sweep. The old navigation laws, so rigorous and galling that they had been regularly evaded under every governor. were to be put into rigid execution. Fi- nally, in order to secure obedience to these various measures, a stand- ing army was to be stationed and maintained in America.
It can easily be imagined what an effect such a program of adminis- tration would have upon a people accustomed to all the essential parts of self-government for over fifty years. It is an exceedingly superficial view of the situation that the historian Lecky displays when he says that all that Pitt wanted to do was to establish an army of ten thousand men for the protection of the colonists, and that he
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asked them to contribute to its support only about £100,000, or a third of the cost of its maintenance. Pitt in the first place had nothing to do with the measures just mentioned. It required men of other and less caliber to propose such outrages upon free subjects. While to such measures as described above .- however mildly administered. however materially beneficial to themselves, and however lightly bearing upon their pockets,-the colonists could not consent and re- main worthy of freedom. The whole case was well put by John Morin Seott, whom we met as one of those young friends who founded the Society Library in 1754, and of whom we shall frequently hear amid the agitations soon to be recorded. In an article in one of the journals of the day he wrote: " If the interest of the mother country and her colonies cannot be made to coincide: if the same constitution cannot take place in both; if the welfare of the mother country necessarily requires a sacrifice of the most valuable natural rights of the colonies, their right of mak- ing their own laws and disposing of their own property by represen- tatives of their own choosing .- then the connection between them onght N to cease, and sooner or later it must inevitably cease."
The doubtful honor of having suggested to the English Govern- ment the idea of taxing the colo- nies by compelling the use of stamped paper in all legal and mer- cantile transactions, as well as for marriage licenses, - belongs to Lientenant-Governor Clarke. It was not acted upon at his sugges- PROVINCIAL SEAL. tion, but the times were ripe for it now. On March 9, 1764, notice was given in Parliament by Lord Grenville, the Prime Minister, that a bill would be introduced shortly providing for the raising of a revenne from America by stamped paper. The New York Assembly led the other Colonial Assemblies in petitions to King and Parliament, beg- ging that such a direct infringement upon their liberties be not per- petrated. The King's Privy Council advised him to place these peti- tions before Parliament. But in his effort " to be King." he acted on his own counsel, and did not present them. Nearly a year after Gren-
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ville's notice the Stamp Act was introduced. It passed the Commons on February 7, 1765, went sailing through the Lords without debate. and on March 22, 1765, received the King's signature and became law. In April the news of passage and signature reached New York City.
It was unfortunate that at this juncture the Chief Magistracy should have been held by one so entirely ont of sympathy with his own people. Colden's career as Lieutenant-Governor presents a re- markable record. The post was advocated as a permanent one by Clinton with the idea of bestowing it on him. But it did not come to him until a year after the death of James De Lancey, or in 1761. Three months later General Monckton arrived to assume the Gover- norship. But he soon left, and Colden was in power again for a few months, or till JJune, 1762. Monckton came back and ruled for a year, when Colden assumed the duties of administration from June 28, 1763, to November 13, 1765. Ou that day Sir Henry Moore became Governor. He died in September, 1769, when Colden again officiated for thirteen months, or until October 19, 1770. Earl Dunmore, ap- pointed to succeed Moore, remained only about nine months, when he became Governor of Virginia, and was succeeded in turn by William Tryon, in July, 1771. Tryon went to England in 1774, on a leave of absence, when once more Colden took up the reins of government until his return, or from April, 1774, to June, 1775. He then finally retired to his country-seat near Flushing. 1. I., and died in 1776 at the age of eighty-eight. Colden was a thorough Tory to the end. Al- thongh opposed to some of Clinton's most despotic tactics, he himself, in the conflict between the people and the royal prerogative, became a stanch, nucompromising upholder of the latter. thereby making himself thoroughly npopular. He went so far as to propose a meas- ure which struck at the most cherished and vital rights of freeborn Englishmen, advising that appeals be allowed from the verdicts of juries, to be decided in England. The most conservative of the colo- nists were justly alarmed at such an innovation. From all sides po- titions were addressed to the Ministers against the proposition, and so oppressive was the scheme that even the King and his Conncilors in their present temper dared not impose it on the colonies. They decided that there could be no appeal from the verdict of a jury. The attitude of Colden was all the more discouraging from the fact that he was so closely identified with the colony and all its interests.
No wonder then that he entirely misrepresented the attitude or spirit of his fellow countrymen. " I am fully persuaded," he wrote a mouth after the news of the passage of the Stamp Act had come to New York, " the People of this Province will quietly submit to the King's determination, whatever it be." What he learned of disaffer- tion he ascribed to a more faction. But it was more than that, as he had canse soon to know. The burst of indignation and resentment was universal throughont the colonies. And New York was not be-
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hind. As some one says, she did not wait for inspiration or leader- ship from elsewhere. Colden also saw this, and wrote to the British government: " Whatever happens in this place has the greatest in- finence in the other colonies." The united sentiment that resistance must be made to the attempt now pending to tax the colonies in de- tiance of their rights and against their custom, bore fruit in a sng- gestion that went from one legislative body to the other. It was to the effect that a Congress of delegates from all the colonies be called to disenss the Stamp Act, and take measures to prevent its execution. In June and July, 1765, news came of the appointment of Agents for the distribution of stamped paper, and also that on November 1, 1765, the Act itself would go into effect. This ouly stimulated the scheme of a Congress, and it was appointed for October 7, so as to give ample time for the discussion of methods for opposing the Act before it went. into force. The place appointed for the meeting was New York City, as the most central in location.
Much of this determined opposition and aroused sentiment as well as organized movement was due to a body of agitators known as the " Sons of Liberty." The term originated, as historians uniformly tell ns, with Col. Barre, the companion of Wolfe in the Quebec campaign. He had been favorably impressed with the conduct of the Americans in that undertaking, and always remained their friend and defender. Townshend in the course of a speech on the colonies in Parliament had made the remark that the Americans were " children planted by the care of Great Britain." At the close of the speech Barré leaped to his feet, and in an impassioned defense repudiated that statement, and retorted that the Americans were " Sons of Liberty." This phrase struck a sympathetic cord in the colonies, and the agitators for resistance to proposed oppressions selected that name as a term of honor. This is the account of the origin of the name nsnally given; vet some writers make mention of " Sons of Liberty " as active in the defense of Zenger in his famous trial, the proenring of Andrew Hamil- ton being due to them. They were also called " Liberty Boys " at times. There are no clear evidences of their organization into socio- ties until they had been operating for some time, because their pro- ceedings were in a measure kept secret, and their earlier exploits mostly conducted under cover of night. Many of them maintained a discussion of public questions in the journals of the day, the articles being signed, as was then the custom, by pseudonyms. The Sons of Liberty represented perhaps the rather more violent or radical wing of the popular party, and it needed at times the restraining hand of the more moderate patriots to keep them within the bonds of pro- priety or wisdom. Societies seem to have sprung up spontaneously in every colony, who established communication among themselves for the purpose of concerted action. In Jannary, 1766, these plans for an association on an intercolonial basis had assumed definite
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