USA > New York > Military minutes of the Council of appointment of the state of New York, 1783-1821 > Part 3
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Colden was one of the best equipped, best informed, all around governors of colonial times. Since 1718, when he was appointed surveyor-general by Governor Hunter, he had enjoyed the unlim- ited confidence of each succeeding administration. When Clinton and De Lancey fell out Colden succeeded to the post of chief adviser of the governor, and common rumor gave him credit for writing all the former's state papers. He was a native of Scotland, a graduate in medicine of the University of Edinburgh, a scientist of high standing, an author of international reputation, a politician of the obsequious order, and a student who had made the needs, resources and possibilities of the province a specialty. Without the tact or the solidity of De Lancey, he brought to the position of governor, which he was called upon to fill five times between 1760 and the outbreak of the Revolution, certain commendable qualifi- cations never discovered in any of his predecessors.
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With the accession of the new King, a fresh conflict was threat- ened. All commissions expired with the sovereign. Bench and bar of the province were unanimous on the interpretation of law and the remedies necessary for the protection of the bench and of the people. In the defence of the liberties of the people they were also a unit. They resented the proposition now before them tliat judges should hold office only "during his Majesty's pleasure" instead of " during good behavior." The Court of Chancery had been the pet of Governor Burnet and had involved him in difficulties innum- erable, owing to his inconsiderate conduct while playing the rôle of Chancellor. He was no lawyer, but scattered decisions with a gusto and an abandon that swept the breath away from the people who watched his remarkable exhibitions in the dispensation of justice. A violent protest arose against "the extraordinary pro- ceedings " of this court, whose " violent measures," it was claimed, had ruined some persons and driven others out of the colony. Resolutions denouncing it were adopted and the Assembly intem- perately threatened to pass an act to nullify all its proceedings. New York had manfully protested against the interference of the executive power with the courts-a policy that was consistent and that was to be followed in the adoption of the first State Consti- tution; the courts were justified in attacking the power of the execu- tive, but the executive must keep hands off the courts. When Benjamin Pratt was imported from Boston and commissioned as Chief Justice, the Assembly flatly and indignantly refused to vote his salary. His colleagues on the bench presented a protest to Colden declining to serve unless their new commissions read as their old ones, "during good behavior." Pratt alone, of all the judges served, " during the pleasure of his Majesty" at the expense of his private means, until the lieutenant governor directed that
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his salary be provided for from the quitrents-receipts belonging to the King from the vast tracts of uncultivated lands which had been granted before 1708.
Despite the impositions that had been inflicted, New York was never parsimonious in providing for her governors. Considering the large sums annually appropriated and the extraordinary amounts supplied from time to time for war expenses, for the defence of the frontier and for the home government, the province was extremely liberal in maintaining her royal functionaries. Nor should the estimation in which the governor was held by the colonists be over- looked. In the governor all the dignity and majesty of the province and of the Crown were crystallized. His power was absolute, if not despotic. He not only made the laws, but interpreted and executed them and, when necessary, unmade them. He usurped the pre- rogatives of the Assembly and of the courts; the Council were mere automatons who danced when he pulled the string. No act of the Assembly was placed on the statute book without his signature, and no decision of the court was valid until he, as chief justice, passed judgment; and in this respect he exercised powers denied to the King, for his Majesty while permitted to sit on the King's bench was prohibited from expressing judgment. Time and again the governor was threatened with removal; now and then charges were preferred against him, and once the grand jury was urged to indict him for high treason. The governor who displayed an interest in his trust beyond the financial was an anomaly. None of them ever seemed to dream of the future possibilities of the colony. He found it a rich field io: plucking, and he took advantage of opportunities as he found them. If at times his methods of government were unduly severe. the motives which inspired him, the baneful influences behind him. and the circum-
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stances surrounding him, should in fairness be considered. Unfor- tunately, neither the governor or the colonist ever manifested a dis- position to put himself in the place of the other. The colonist regarded the governor as a tyrant, the governor looked upon the colonist as a yokel. The former was not in a position to under- stand the constant pressure under which the governor labored from the home office, and from the Lords of Trade, to raise money to meet the chronic financial embarrassments of government; for when England's exchequer ran low, her colonies, from India to America, felt the squeezing process to the limit.
For the times the governor's salary was munificent. As far back as 1700 his compensation was fixed at £1,500 with perquisites amounting to £1,000 or £1,200 additional-consisting of funds for maintaining a garrison at the fort and for the defence of the frontier. Governor Cosby, who first suggested the stamp act and was sup- pressed by Robert Walpole, who was responsible for the firing of the first gun for the liberty of the press in America, and whose flagitious greediness and wastefulness led Lewis Morris to demand his removal, was handsomely provided for. He received as a salary £1,560, with emoluments of £150 to pay his expenses to Albany, £400 out of supplies for the fort, with another stipend to purchase presents for the Indians and a present of £750 as a lobbyist, against the sugar bill before Parliament-a measure that was regarded as inimical to the prosperity of the colony. Every governor who came to New York poor returned to England with a fortune. The shrewdest of all was Clarke, who first appears as secretary of the province under Cosby; then as a member of the Council. He dis- parages New York and discourages candidates for governor from crossing the ocean because of the wretched prospects he pictures to them, while he industriously gathers in affluent fees, and at the end
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of seven years carries home to England the snug fortune of one hundred thousand pounds sterling. Better educated than Clarke, but with less natural ability, Clinton acquired the comfortable com- petency of £80,000 during his sojourn in New York. Even persons so puritanically disposed as De Lancey and Colden were not be- neath dividing the emoluments of the governor, when their chiefs left them in charge of affairs, De Lancey with Sir Charles Hardy, who preferred to command the naval expedition against Louisburg, and Colden with General Robert Monckton, when the latter took command of the Martinique expedition. Up to the time of Dun- more, the Assembly faithfully voted the governor's annual salary of eighteen hundred pounds sterling, with the usual garnishings for Indians, visits to Indians, supplies for the fort, visit to Albany, always the occasion for great formality and solemnity, as a sloop was especially fitted up for the accommodation of " his Excellency " and suite, for the "long and perilous voyage." But when the taxes of the province were swelled beyond all reason for the burdens demanded in maintaining Indian, French and border wars and for the protection of the frontier, the King considerately forbade Dun- more, and his successor Tryon, from accepting any gift above their salary, which was fixed at two thousand pounds. The French and Indian war left a public debt of £300,000, and the colonies uncom- plainingly paid the £40,000 annual tax exacted from them in addi- tion to the oppressive disbursements that were laid upon them for supplies and troops.
In spite of the dragging demands imposed upon them, and the exorbitant sums that were wrung from them, the colonies continued to bound forward toward prosperity and imperial ascendency, with an impetus that excited in the covetous mind of the master and his myrmidons, a cupidity that evolved fresh schemes for taxation which
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were to bring upon England consequences analogous to those which Samson brought upon the Philistines when he pulled the pillars from the temple.
By the nature of the impositions, extortions and tyranny that were practised upon the colonists, by the contempt with which they regarded and in return were regarded by, the rapacious and uncon- scionable governors, by the ignominy with which their petitions and addresses were treated by the Crown authorities at home and abroad, by their impotence in deriving any encouragement in their efforts for reform or improvement, it is not to be wondered at that submission should give way to protest, protest to opposition, oppo- sition to resistance, resistance to revolution and revolution to inde- pendence.
CHAPTER II. THE FIRST CONSTITUTION OF NEW YORK STATE.
M ARCH 31, 1774, the Boston port bill became a law. May 16th the citizens, friends and enemies of England in New York held a meeting at Samuel Fraunce's tavern at Broad and Dock streets, a favorite assembling place for the people of the town. A committee of fifty-one was appointed, with Isaac Low as chairman, to discuss the proper policy to be pursued and to correspond with the other colonies " upon all matters of moment." Three days later these proceedings were ratified at Fraunce's tavern by a vast assem- blage of the inhabitants. May 23d, in the forenoon, the committee again met and appointed from its number a subcommittee of repre- sentative men, consisting of Alexander McDougall, Isaac Low, James Duane and John Jay, to draft an answer to a communication from the Boston Committee of Correspondence, with instructions to report at " 8 P. M." In this communication which has been credited to Jay occurs the first practical proposition for "a Con- gress of deputies from the colonies in general; " " that it ought to be assembled without delay and some unanimous resolutions formed in this fatal emergency, not only respecting your deplorable circum- stances, but for the security of our common rights."
The first Continental Congress which convened in Philadelphia September, 1774, resulted from this suggestion, united to the resentment of the colonists against the obstinate and tyrannical aggressions of the Crown. New York was represented by five dele- gates, who were unanimously elected July 28th by the freeholders,
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freemen and other taxpayers upon the platform of a "non-importa- tion " agreement. Jay's usefulness and ability were given ample scope, for, in addition to serving on several active committees, he drafted the famous " address to the People of Great Britain," which contained these memorable words: "that we consider ourselves, and do insist that we are and ought to be, as free as our fellow subjects in Britain, and that no power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent. That we hold it essential to English liberty that no man be condemned un- heard or punished for supposed offences without having an oppor- tunity of making his defence. You have been told that we are seditious, impatient of government and desirous of inde- pendence. Be assured that these are not facts but calumnies. Per- mit us to be as free as yourselves and we shall ever esteem a union with you to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness; we shall ever be ready to contribute all in our power to the welfare of the empire; we shall consider your enemies as our enemies and your interest as our own. Place us in the same situation that we were at the close of the last war and our former harmony will be restored."
This address, written in the seclusion of a small room in a tavern, whence Jay retired for greater privacy, was warmly commended by Thomas Jefferson, before its author was known, as a production " of the finest pen in America."
The Congress itself was a conservative, unique body. It pos- sessed no powers to speak of; certainly none to create legislation or to enact laws. It was a convention more for the propagation of harmony between the colonies and the Crown, or to seek redress for recognized grievances, or of protest against what was properly regarded as impositions and persecutions; and for recommend- 3
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ing a better and more ameliorating condition of things. It entertained no thought of revolution, or of independence, or of sepa- ration from the mother country. Its members were strangers to one another; it was cohesive in that it had in view one common end, and it was patriotic in that it assembled for the common good, for the security and happiness of all.
Its principal efforts recommended the non-importation and non- consumption of British goods, with suitable town and county com- mittees to carry its recommendations into effect. Then after a six weeks' session, the Congress having made provision for the meeting of its successor, the following May, adjourned sine die.
Jay and his colleagues returned to New York with flying colors. They had gone to Philadelphia under suspicion, if not discredited, by a large fraction of the people. The radicals, Plebeians, Repub- licans or Mechanics, as they have been variously called, regarded their representatives not as Whigs or Democrats, but as Aristocrats or Patricians, who were susceptible of surrendering their convictions and their trust to the Crown. But now the Mechanics presented a cordial address that removed all prejudice. The representatives in turn responded with a counter document, which was written by Jay, which closed with these words, and which intensified the good feeling already engendered: "To soften the rigour of the calamities to which in this tempestuous season we may be exposed, let us all with one heart and voice endeavour to cultivate and cherish a spirit of una- nimity and mutual benevolence and to promote that internal tran- quillity which can alone give weight to our laudable efforts for the preservation of our freedom and crown them with success."
Following the recommendation of Congress, the New York Com- mittee of Correspondence, November 22, 1774, dissolved and was succeeded by the Committee on Inspection, consisting of sixty
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members. This in turn proved to be inadequate to the pressing needs of the hour and in turn, May 1, 1775, gave way to the com- mittee of one hundred -- the constitutional government having prac- tically gone out of existence-the Committee on Observation, or, in other words, the Revolutionary Committee of Safety. Since the adjournment of Congress, Jay had served on the Committee of Cor- respondence and of Inspection, on the Committee for the Relief of Boston, been elected to the Provincial Convention, which remained in session only a few days, and appointed a delegate to the second Continental Congress. His time and abilities, therefore, were in constant demand in maintaining correspondence, drafting reports and addresses, and in rendering advice.
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When the second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia, May 10, 1775, the country had plunged into the horrors of war. Many members, of optimistic tendencies, still hoped for redress of grievances; many others discussed the question of separation, de- liberately and cold bloodedly. An army was raised-an army of defence rather than of offence. Jay's peaceable propensities regarded the thought of war with dismay; he had believed in negotiation, or what modern statesmen call arbitration, up to the hour the second Continental Congress met; he had had more faith in the pen than in the sword, but he now entered with determination and spirit into the policy that dictated defence for the country and resistance to her enemies.
Eleven days after the third Provincial Congress of New York convened at the City Hall, New York City, Jay, on May 25th, took his seat as a delegate. A grave proposition confronted this body: should New York establish its own constitutional form of govern- ment? For over a year Jay had been sitting as a delegate in the Continental Congress and now his own province demanded his ser-
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vices, exclusively. Accordingly, the Provincial Congress passed a resolution requesting his presence in New York and directing him not to leave without further orders. He promptly left Philadelphia on receipt of the notification and repaired to New York. He had for some time seen the necessity for a change in the system of government, but as yet had formulated no plan. At his suggestion a series of resolutions were adopted calling upon the people to elect . delegates to a new Convention. Jay was one of the delegates chosen from New York City.
New York at this time was one of the most beautiful cities in America. The city was well governed and well groomed. The streets were harrow, generally paved with brick and shaded by beautiful trees. The houses were plain, substantial and commodious. The merchants were thrifty, conservative and prosperous. Imports, exports and domestic trade were increasing in a steady and healthy manner. The markets were renowned for delicacies, and nowhere could be procured such varieties in game, fish and vegetables. The lawyers ranked with those of any of the other colonies in erudition, ability and cultivation. Ship-building had developed to proportions to excite the envy of other cities. Up to March, 1775, the temper of the people had been well restrained. The great bulk, the tax-paying class, were unquestion- ably loyalists. But the frequent elections and the attendant agita- tions had produced a feeling of unrest that strengthened and inten- sified as day succeeded day and as the Crown continued its policy of oppression and repression. Back of the manifest fidelity to the Crown lay an inherent sentiment, undeveloped, intangible, cha- otic, that only awaited provocation to burst into revolution and independence. The sympathies of the people were about evenly divided: the older and conservative men favored submission; the
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younger element, which included the hot heads, clamored for the Congress, for Liberty and Equality. The press attained national prominence and exerted no little influence in fomenting dis- order by ill-advised utterances antagonistic to the Sons of Liberty and favoritism for England. Handbills and pamphlets were scat- tered over the land to influence public sentiment in behalf of liberty on one hand or of royalty on the other. At weeks for a time the air was charged with conflicting rumors that kept the nerves and the minds of the people on a constant and wearing tension. Nor was the situation at all benefited by the slow methods of trans- portation by sea and by land. The arrival of every ship and of every post found the coffee houses and the exchanges filled to over- flowing with expectant citizens, assembled to discuss the latest news from abroad or from the other colonies. South Carolina's general committee had already declared "the present struggle seems to us most glorious and critical " and considered " this season as big with American glory." England had denounced the citizens of Massa- chusetts and many other patriots in the respective colonies as rebels, and had marked Samuel and John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, John Hancock, John Dickinson and Peyton Randolph for execution. This puissant nation had determined to crush the rebellious American spirit with all the power she controlled. Three great generals had been ordered to accompany the next assignment of troops to America-Sir John Burgoyne, Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Howe. New York's conservatism and her unwillingness to declare her choice induced a writer in Holt's Journal from Wethersfield, Conn., to assert that the ministry had been promised by leading New Yorkers that the province would desert the cause of liberty. "It is no time now to dally or be merely neutral. He that is not for us is against us," he continued. " If you desert, our men will as
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cheerfully attack New York as Boston; for we can but perish, and that we are determined upon or be free."
But the sentiment in New York had already begun to crystallize toward the inevitable. The New York association had been formed " under all the ties of religion, honor and love to our country, to adopt and endeavor to carry- into execution whatever measures may be recommended by the Continental Congress or resolved upon by our provincial convention for the purpose of preserving our con- stitution and opposing the execution of several arbitrary and oppressive acts of the British Parliament, until a reconciliation between Great Britain and America, on constitutional principles (which we most ardently desire), can be obtained." This associa- tion brought to the front the earnest patriots of New York. The loyalists were spellbound by the consequences. The most active participants were Isaac Low, a Church of England man, of marked ability, ambitious, with clear cut and advanced ideas on the neces- sity of separation of the colonies from England; James Duane, John Jay, Alexander McDougall, Robert R. Livingston, Thomas, John and Joshua Hett Smith, brothers of William Smith, Peter R. Liv- ingston, and Peter Van Brugh Livingston. Washington had been appointed Commander-in-chief of the American army by the Con- tinental Congress, and the day he arrived in New York, June 25, 1775, on his way to Boston, was a memorable one. The same day Governor Tryon had returned from England, where he had been for some time on leave of absence. With Washington came Gen- erals Lee and Schuyler, the latter bound for Albany to com- mand the Canadian expedition then fitting out. The American generals were conducted to the residence of Leonard Lispenard, a mile and a half north of the city, escorted by several patriotic volunteer companies, the members of the Provincial Congress, the
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rebel parsons and hundreds of patriots, who gave vent to their feel- ings by loud acclamations, repeated shouts and vociferous huzzas. At nine o'clock the same night Governor Tryon sailed up from Sandy Hook and received almost as noisy a demonstration as the three American generals. In the meantime the law courts of Eng- land had been abandoned in the province, except in the county of Westchester, where the final term ended at White Plains, in April, 1776, the judge, Thomas Jones, having been placed on the act of attainder of New York, because he had released from custody several persons who had been arrested by the committee of West- chester for expressing sentiments of loyalty to the crown, the court holding they were guiltless of any crime against the law of the land.
Under date of June 29, 1776, Edward Rutledge from Philadelphia wrote to Jay: " I write this for the express purpose of requesting that if possible you will give your attendance in Congress on Mon- day next. I know full well that your presence must be useful at New York, but I am sincerely convinced that it will be absolutely necessary in this city during the whole of the ensuing week. A declaration of independence, the form of a confederation of these colonies and a scheme for a treaty with foreign powers will be laid before the House on Monday. I trust you will contribute in a considerable degree to effect the business, and, therefore, I wish you to be with us. Recollect the manner in which your colony is at this time represented. Clinton has abilities, but is silent in general and wants (when he does speak) that influence to which he is intitled. Floyd, Wisner, Lewis and Alsop, though good men, never quit their chairs."
July 6th, from New York, Jay replied to Rutledge: "Your friendly letter found me so engaged by plots, conspiracies and chimeras dire, that though I thanked you for it in my head I had
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no time to tell you so either in person or by letter. * * How long I may be detained here is uncertain, but I see little prospect of returning to you for a month or two to come. We have a gov- ernment you know to form-and God only knows what it will resemble."
Two distinguished New Yorkers, delegates to the Continental Congress, failed to subscribe to the Declaration of Independ- ence, because at this juncture their own State demanded their services-and in those days, states rights was all potent-one the soldier and statesman, George Clinton, subsequently the first gov- ernor of New York and fourth vice-president of the United States, who was hurried by order of General Washington from Philadel- phia to the banks of the Hudson to assist in repelling the enemy in the invasion of his State; the other, the jurist and statesman, John Jay, afterward the first chief justice of the State of New York, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, min- ister to England and second governor of New York, whose state assembly in the exercise of its prerogative of states rights over con- tinental authority restrained him from attending the sessions of Congress for the reason that his state claimed original jurisdiction over his official actions. Both Clinton and Jay, after the adoption of the . Federal Constitution, were honored on several occasions with votes for the office of President of the United States.
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