USA > New York > New York : the planting and the growth of the Empire state, Vol. II > Part 3
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nor's subterfuge, showing that if the tea were landed at all, the duty must first be paid. The meeting unanimously rejected the proposal, and significantly adjourned "till the arrival of the tea-ship."
Before it arrived, Governor Tryon sailed for England, April 7, 1774, for consultation nomi- nally relative to difficulties over the boundaries in the vicinity of Lake Champlain, really doubt- less relative to the general situation of affairs. On his departure a public dinner, a ball, and addresses from many societies testified to his popularity, and. the degree of doctor of laws from King's College to esteem for his learning. The assembly of the colony joined in the gen- eral praises and courtesies, and eulogized the up- rightness of a " governor who had so eminently distinguished himself by his constant attention to the care and prosperity of a free and happy people." Governor Tryon had reason for bear- ing to London testimony that New York was a loyal colony, if the assembly, and not the meet- ings in the city, fairly represented it. He de- livered to the board of trade an elaborate report on its resources, industries, and trade, which remains as an instructive portraiture of the do- main and its people. He returned to his post June 28, 1775, Lieutenant Governor Colden meanwhile exercising the executive functions.
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While the New York assembly has been severely criticised for its lack of spirit in the years succeeding 1769, and for failing to keep pace with the political sentiments of its con- stituents, it added. January 20, 1774, another to the decisive steps which the colony had taken in the lead for continental union. The appoint- ment of the speaker, John Cruger, and twelve other members, including George Clinton, as a standing committee on correspondence, proved to be of vital importance in subsequent events. The committee was directed to obtain early in- formation of the proceedings of parliament and of action " which might affect the liberties and privileges of his Majesty's subjects in America," and to maintain correspondence with the sister colonies on these matters. The Palatine dis- trict of Tryon county showed the spirit of the rural people by a meeting held in July, 1774, at which eight resolutions were adopted on the state of the country, and a committee of cor- respondence was appointed.
In spite of some signs of apathy and of occa- sional hesitation. New York was at heart not only devoted to the union of the colonies against involuntary taxation, but was fertile in sugges- tions to that end, and prompt whenever the crisis arose for patriotic action. When the Nancy arrived, April 18, 1774, with its long
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delayed cargo of tea, pilots detained it in the lower bay, and the vigilance committee took possession, until the captain agreed to return to England with packages undisturbed. On his departure a public demonstration was given, so that " he might see with his own eyes the de- testation of the citizens of the measures pursued to enslave this country." The next day the London arrived with tea brought as a private venture by the captain. The vigilance com- mittee declared it confiscated ; and, while the Mohawks were getting ready to destroy it, the people seized the chests, eighteen in number, and cast their contents into the river. The captain was sent back to England.
The Sons of Liberty were greatly incensed at the severe measures adopted by parliament and ministry towards Massachusetts in particu- lar and the colonies generally. They sent to Boston, May 14, 1774, a recommendation signed by Sears and McDougall for a general con- gress. Some rivalry arose over the composition of the vigilance committee, and May 16 a com- mittee of fifty-one was nominated to conduct correspondence with the other colonies. Three days later the nominations were confirmed, and large powers delegated to a sub - committee, consisting of Alexander McDougall, Isaac Low, James Duane, and John Jay. This committee
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recommended a general congress, and McDou- gall, who wanted first a stoppage of all trade, withdrew.
In order to secure more decided action, a meeting was held, July 6, in " the Fields," where MeDougall presided over an immense assemblage ; the act of parliament closing the port of Boston was denounced by resolution, and the people of that city were commended, while total non-importation was pledged and the call for a congress was approved. At this meeting Alexander Hamilton, a boy of seven- teen, won applause for his first speech. The committee of fifty-one formally disavowed the proceedings of the meeting, and eleven of its members withdrew, and issued an address jus- tifying their position. They included Francis Lewis, Alexander McDougall, Isaac Sears, Leon- ard Lispenard, and Peter V. B. Livingston, men who were then and afterwards conspicuous for ardent patriotism. When deputies to the congress were to be chosen, the committee of fifty-one nominated Philip Livingston, John Alsop, Isaac Low, James Duane, and John Jay, who were chosen in spite of an attempt to sub- stitute MeDougall for Jay. Suffolk, Orange, and Kings also chose delegates to the congress, while the towns on the Hudson, including Al- bany, invited the New York delegates to act for them.
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This local contest was a sign of the divis- ions which existed in the colony. McDougall, Sears, Lamb, and John Morin Scott, and their organization, the Sons of Liberty, represented the most ardent patriotism, but not the mer- chants and the wealth. They were really for independence, and insisted on total non-impor- tation, and on prompt cooperation with Boston in resistance to the measures of parliament. The tories, on the other hand, were disposed to submit to Great Britain on the best terms practicable. Between these wings stood most of the merchants, the landed proprietors, and the so-called gentry, who insisted strongly on the rights of the colonists, and protested against involuntary taxation, but looked confidently for reconciliation with the home government. They lost faith, some rapidly, some by slower degrees, in the prospect of adjustment. They furnished their full share of the leaders in the events which were to create the new republic. They moved more deliberately than the Sons of Liberty, but in the same direction, as the declaration of the candidates for congress, ex- cept Duane, in favor of the stoppage of trade, proved. On one side John Jay, Huguenot by blood, a son-in-law of William Livingston, be- gan that career which bore him to the very highest diplomatie and judicial rank ; while on
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the other Alexander Hamilton, by the impetu- osity of boyhood and West-Indian birth, took the radical position, devoting himself to the union for which he labored so ably and de- votedly, in such eminent stations, with a wis- dom and a foresight unsurpassed. They were to take their place among the foremost architects of the new republic ; and it is no disparagement to others to allege that as jurists and statesmen they were not second to any men of their time.
In the congress suggested by New York, and assembled in Philadelphia, September 5, 1774, the colony exercised its full weight. Jay took active and influential part in the debates, and placed himself on the doctrine of natural rights, but held that " the measure of arbitrary power was not full, and it must run over before we undertake to form a constitution." Duane was willing to recognize the acts of navigation, and on motion of John Adams the suggestion was adopted. On the sub-committee on the Declara- tion of Rights, Jay and Livingston acted with Richard Henry Lee, and the authorship of that bold and stirring document is attributed to Jay. He wrote and reported the address of congress to the people of Great Britain, which remains a model of patriotic argument and appeal. " If you are determined," the address said, "that your ministers shall wantonly sport with the
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rights of mankind ; if neither the voice of jus- tice, the dictates of law, the principles of the constitution, nor the suggestions of humanity can restrain your hands from shedding human blood in such an impious cause, we must then tell you that we will never submit to be hewers of wood or drawers of water for any ministry or nation in the world." The American asso- ciation recommended by this congress agreed upon a pledge to import no goods from Great Britain or the West Indies, until the offensive acts of parliament were repealed, and thus car- ried out the suggestions of the Sons of Liberty and New York's great meeting in "the Fields."
The New York assembly became the scene of a sharp and prolonged contest between the patriots and the tories. By a vote of eleven to twelve, the assembly refused to consider the proceedings of the congress. Philip Schuyler failed to secure an order to publish the corre- spondence of the New York committees with Connecticut and with Edmund Burke, now agent of the colony in London. Nathaniel Woodhull proposed to give thanks to the pro- vincial delegates in the congress, but the ma- jority refused ; and Philip Livingston met with a like rebuff on a motion to thank the mer- chants for adhering to the non-importation agreement. The tories also secured a majority
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to refuse to consider the propriety of electing delegates to the session of the general congress appointed for May, although Schuyler and Clinton pressed the proposition with all their zeal and energy. On several divisions between the tories and patriots, the vote was fifteen in the negative and ten in the affirmative. The latter were Ten Broeck, Thomas, Dewitt, Van Cortlandt, Boerum, Seaman, and their leaders, Schuyler, Clinton, Woodhull, and Philip Liv- ingston.
The assembly had ceased to be in any sense a representative of the sentiments of the colony, and, April 3, 1775, it adjourned to May 3; but it was prorogued from time to time, and never met again. One of its last acts, however, was to adopt, March 25, memorials to parliament recit- ing the grievances and asking for redress, with obvious desire for reconciliation. Even from a body which had showed such anxiety to be loyal, parliament refused to receive such a memorial, when offered by Edmund Burke. Such evi- dences were, perhaps, required to prove that only one path lay open to America, - the path through war to independence.
Alexander Hamilton in December, 1774, put forth perhaps the first of his series of essays in behalf of American liberty, at the same time expressing the "most ardent wish for a speedy
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reconciliation, a perpetual and mutually bene- ficial union." The press was enlisted actively on both sides. Rivington's "Gazetteer " was so violent in its toryism that Captain Sears. December 4, 1775, led a party which destroyed its office. If the tories had been as bold or felt as secure of popular support, they might have made like answer to the arguments of Holt's " Journal," which spoke on the patriot side.
The Philadelphia congress had recommended the formation of committees to " carry into exe- cution the association" to prevent importations. In New York a committee of sixty was organ- ized for that purpose. When the assembly re- fused to provide for the election of delegates to the next general congress, this committee sent out calls to the several counties to elect mem- bers to a provincial convention, to sit in New York April 20. Only nine counties responded ; but the convention met, and elected delegates for the province to the continental congress, adding George Clinton, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris, Robert R. Livingston, and Philip Schuy- ler to the previous list.
The force of public opinion was set in motion by the local committee by requiring signatures to a declaration in favor of colonial rights. The lines were thus sharply drawn, the timid
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were enlisted, and the doubtful made to choose sides. Other colonies soon adopted the same policy. Albany responded to the suggestion to form local committees. In April, after the battle of Lexington was known, a committee of safety, protection, and correspondence was organized, and an address was sent to Boston pledging cooperation " in this arduous struggle for liberty." May 4, four companies of volun- teers were formed in the city, and the inhabi- tants of other parts of the colony were urged to follow the example.
In New York city a committee of one hun- dred was organized. This committee issued a call for a provincial congress, to assemble May 22, " to direct such measures as may be expe- dient for our common safety.' ", Afterwards, April 19 was officially determined as the day on which royal rule ceased in New York, and on which the new government began. The provincial convention took the first action for the independent colonv.
This was the beginning of actual political rev- olution. The provincial convention, and after it the provincial congress, thrust aside the gen- eral assembly, and assumed the authority of a representative body, exercising the functions of government. The committee of one hundred took charge of municipal affairs, and sent ad-
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dresses to the corporation of London and to Lieutenant Governor Colden in tones of courtesy and loyalty. To London the committee said : " We cheerfully submit to a regulation of com- merce by the parent state, excluding in its na- ture every idea of taxation. This city is as one man in the cause of liberty ; our inhabitants are resolutely bent on supporting their commit- tee and the intended provincial and continental congresses. All the horrors of civil war will never compel America to submit to taxation by authority of parliament."
This formal, deliberate action of New York was a surer sign of positive. unswerving de- cision than popular outbreaks ; and vet both failed to awaken the British ministers from the delusion that the colony would submit to the crown and parliament. The Sons of Liberty prevented the shipment of lumber or provisions for the British troops in Boston. - Isaac Sears at a public meeting urged the people to get twenty-four rounds of ammunition for each man, and when arrested and sent to prison was rescued by the crowd. April 24, when the battle of Lexington was first reported, the Sons of Liberty closed the custom house, and forbade the departure of vessels for ports held by the royal authority. A party under John Lamb seized a lot of military stores at Turtle Bay, and
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devoted them to the use of the colonial forces. The committee of one hundred took control of all arms and ammunition, and forbade the sale to any persons not of the patriot party.
New York was thus ranged unequivocally with its sister colonies. The tories, though nu- merous, were stunned. by the popular demon- strations. The party divisions tended to array the Episcopal Church, under President Cooper of King's College, with many of the large land- proprietors, and the later English immigrants, on the side of the crown. Governor Tryon and Lieutenant Governor Colden had used their power adroitly to win support. The headquarters of the army gathered, by contracts and social influence, a peculiar following. The Dutch population and the Huguenots, the Scotch, the Irish, and the Welsh had no par- tiality for Great Britain, and were intense ina their love for liberty. Englishmen from New England, the dissenters from the Established Church, the artisans, the young men generally, fell naturally into the patriotic party. The Sons of Liberty furnished an organization al- ways ready for adventure. for bold and decisive action, with leaders whose courage never wa- vered, whose place was always in advance of public sentiment, who were from the outset fertile in suggestion, looking to union, and at
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an early day to independence. The British ministry and the representatives of the crown counted on the influences which controlled the assembly, and failed to see the popular move- ment which overwhelmed governor and legis- lators.
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CHAPTER XXIV.
.THE CONFLICT. - NEW YORK BEARS THE BRUNT.
1775-1780.
TICONDEROGA was already a historic point on the soil of New York; it held more than a hundred cannon, with stores, small arms, and a thirteen-inch mortar, guarded by a British gar- rison of about fifty. Its value as protecting the route to Quebec prompted the bold attempt to seize it, and, May 9, 1775, a party of eighty- three Green Mountain boys and men from Massachusetts crossed Lake Champlain, and under Ethan Allen the next day presented themselves at the stronghold. T They rushed into the fort with the Indian war-whoop, and met with hardly a show of resistance. The adventure is one of the most striking of the war. " Deliver to me the fort instantly !" de- manded Allen. " By what authority ? " asked Delaplace, the commander, aroused from bed, and, as a report by Allen says, "with his breeches in his hand." "In the name of the
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great Jehovah and the Continental Congress," was the startling response of Allen; and the first of the few forts captured from British sol- diers in the struggle was surrendered, with its garrison and contents, to the improvised troops of the republic yet unborn. Crown Point was given up, with its garrison of twelve men, as soon as Seth Warner led a detachment against it. Benedict Arnold, afterwards notorious, made a dash on Lake Champlain, and May 18 captured a garrison of twelve, with its artillery, at St. John's. The first forts were taken, the first British garrisons were made prisoners, on the soil of New York, by the forces of the united colonies.
In addition to the quarrel with the Brit- ish government, the controversy over the so- called New Hampshire grants culminated in the spring of this year. Land on both sides of Lake Champlain was claimed under title from New York and from New Hampshire, and Lieutenant Governor Colden called out the militia to en- force the title of the former. Resistance was organized, and the Green Mountain boys set up for themselves. For Allen and Warner, the heroes of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, with six others, the governor of New York had of- fered a reward of £50 for insurrection. The larger conflict postponed the decision of the
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strife, which was finally adjusted by the crea- tion of the State of Vermont. A popular con- vention framed a separate government, January 16, 1777 ; but owing to opposition from New York, the new State was not recognized by congress until March, 1791.
When the continental congress met again, May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, its members were not aware of the capture made the same morning in its name. Other affairs in New York, however, called for a large share of its attention. Among the delegates from this col- ony and their accepted leaders were George Clinton, Robert R. Livingston, and John Jay. British troops had presented themselves in the harbor of New York, and advice was asked from congress how to treat them. Congress gave instructions that the landing of the troops should not be opposed, but that they should not be allowed to erect fortifications, and that the inhabitants should protect their persons and property and repel force by force. At the same time a Connecticut regiment under General Wooster was invited to encamp at Harlem for the defense of the city. The British troops came in, but were soon ordered to Boston, and were forbidden by the committee of one hun- dred to take any arms or stores with them other than their own weapons and accoutrements.
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In spite of this order, an attempt was made to carry away all the arms that could be reached. Marinus Willett, afterwards a colonel in the patriot army, headed a small party of Sons of Liberty that stopped five loaded carts ; and, en- couraged by John Morin Scott, seized the arms, which were afterwards used by the first troops raised in New York for the continental army.
Guy Johnson was busy stirring up the Six Nations, according to the king's orders, " to take up the hatchet against his Majesty's rebellious subjects." Philip Schuyler was at the head of a committee to prevent their alliance with the king. Both sides used their best efforts, and protection was offered to Johnson if he would keep the red men neutral.
In the provincial congress which assembled May 22, 1775, and approved the " American association," Gouverneur Morris, only twenty- three years old, gave token of the eminent ability which he inherited, and which he was to exhibit in a long and illustrious career. He carried against Sears and McDougall a recom- mendation for a plan of conciliation, admitting the right of the mother country to regulate trade, and the duty of the colonies to contribute to the royal treasury by grants made by the separate assemblies or by a general congress. Mr. Morris in this body also proposed the issue
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of paper money, of which each colony should be responsible for its share, and the whole should be guaranteed by the general congress. This was the beginning of the continental cur- rency. The provincial congress showed its temper when on the third day of its session it condemned the prosecution of hostilities against the people of Canada as " infamous."
Preparations for war, however, were going on, although Jay in the continental congress moved for a second petition to the king, and Duane moved the "opening of negotiations to accommodate the unhappy disputes," as a part of the petition, and both were sustained by a majority. Congress forbade movements initi- ated in New York for the invasion of Canada, while an address written by Jay to the peo- ple of that province invited their cooperation with the other colonies. With these efforts for peace, congress. May 25, directed New York to fortify the upper end of Manhattan Island and both sides of the Hudson, with a post near Lake George. Events moved rapidly. When George Washington passed through New York, June 25, to take command of the continental army at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he was ten- dered an address by the provincial congress. not altogether warlike in tone. Governor Tryon returned to his post June 30, 1775, and three
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days later received the congratulations of the mayor and aldermen. Lieutenant Governor Colden's last acts were efforts at conciliation and the transmission of a request to General Gage not to send soldiers into the city. He retired to a farm on Long Island, and there died, September 28, 1776. Governor Tryon re- mained to represent the king in his schemes for crushing the liberties of the colony.
The patriot leaders were in training for the large events at hand. Isaac Sears, now cap- tain, was sent, August 22, to remove the guns on the Battery. A broadside from the war vessel Asia in the bay killed three of his party, in which Alexander Hamilton was active and efficient. When soon afterward the populace threatened personal injury to President Cooper of King's College, young Hamilton checked the violence to the surprise of his tory instructor.
On the call of the continental congress, the colony soon raised its quota of three thousand men, and they were divided into four regiments, with Alexander McDougall as the first colonel. Philip Schuyler was the third of four major generals appointed by the general congress, and Richard Montgomery, a brother-in-law of Robert R. Livingston, was the second in a list of eight brigadier generals. Schuyler was placed in command of the northern department,
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and an expedition against Quebec was planned. On account of his serious illness the command fell on Montgomery, who chowed great zeal and courage. His force of eight hundred men was too small for the capture of the city, and his death, December 31, from a cannon shot added to the disasters of the campaign.
This expedition against Canada took from New York city its continental troops, and con- gress ordered a force from Connecticut under General Charles Lee, and from New Jersey un- der Lord Sterling, to assert its power in that vicinity. The tories on Long Island were dis- armed, and efforts were put forth to prevent British ships in the bay from control on land. Sir William Johnson had died July 11, 1774, and his son, Sir John, and his nephew and son- in-law, Guy Johnson, who were staunch sup- porters of the crown, were arming the Scotch Highlanders. To the committee of Tryon county who called upon Sir John to avow him- self, he declared himself for the king, and signs were many that he did not mean to act alone. General Schuyler, in May, 1776, directed a regiment returning from Canada, under Colonel Dayton, to arrest him on the charge of violating his parole to abstain from hostile acts; but both Johnsons escaped into Canada with many followers, and entered into the military ser-
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