USA > New York > Organization of the Revolutionary movement in New York State, 1775-77 > Part 2
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Adams, prior to receipt of the Lee letter, believed the assembly to be corrupt. Adams to Arthur Lee, 4 March 1775. Arthur Lee had warned Adams also that the North ministry was spending lavishly and offering concessions in order to maintain New York's allegiance to the crown, Arthur Lee to Adams, 2, 4 March 1775, Bancroft Transcripts: Samuel Adams Papers, NYPL.
On Skene see Gage Corr., I, 354, II, 158; Eist, Mas. Com., p. 269. $
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cussed the probable division of the assembly on the question of approv- ing the acts of the First Continental Congress. The leaders agreed that the administration could count on eleven votes against approval, but they calculated Whig strength at fourteen votes. When the January vote came, it went 11-10 in favor of the Delancey faction. Later votes on the colonial dispute ran 15-9, 15-10 and 17-9 for the govern- ment's position. The Delancey leaders' gross under-estimation of Tory strength suggests that the administration applied powerful pressure to change some votes. 1
Although nothing in the preceding material proves the Whig charges of bribery, it is true that some men did receive special in- ducements. The Colonial Department notified Drs. Myles Cooper and Thomas B. Chandler, able Tory pennen, that the Treasury would pay them 2
£200 per annum "from a consideration of your merit and services. " James Rivington, printer of Rivington's New-York Gazetteer, having won favor in the ministry's eyes, became the recipient of $100 per year and the title of His Majesty's Printer within the Province of New York. Rivington had earned his $100 salary. Although he had not begun publication of his newspaper until 1773, he had surpassed his
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1. Becker, op. cit., p. 176; Sabine, op. cit., p. 208.
2. Secretary Pownall to Drs. Cooper and Chandler, 5 April 1775, NYCD, VIII, 569.
3. Sidney I. Pomerantz, "The Patriot Newspaper and the American Revolu- tion, " Morris, Era, p. 316. That this was an unusual appointment may be seen from the source of the money. The Lords Commissioners of the Treasury were to pay him "out of such fund as their Lordships shall think proper. " NYCD, VIII. 568.
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competitors, Gaine and Holt, and circulated his Gazetteer through many 1
of the other colonies. As political differences multiplied, Riving- ton's paper emerged as the bulwark of established government. Equally 2 important, the printer functioned as a publisher of Tory tracts. It is not surprising that the Whigs detested him. Bitter denunciation
of his press spread through the colonies from South Carolina to Rhode 3 Island, taxing him with the publication of "glaring falsehoods."
One of his stories brought him a reprimand from the New York City Committee of Observation in March, 1775. Sponsoring the most debatable recommendation of the day, participation by the province of New York in the Second Continental Congress, the Whigs maneuvered to win popular approval of their proposal. On March 2, Rivington's Gazetteer carried the item below without any qualification:
Last Monday the committee of observation met; it was pro- posed that they should nominate delegates, to the conti- nental congress, for the approbation of the city and county, but being opposed, the final resolution of the committee was deferred until the next meeting.
To the reader the story bore the implication that those who advocated sending delegates to Congress comprised only a minority of the Com- mittee. Fearing an adverse reaction to the report, the Committee formally repudiated it as false and voted to have two members pay Rivington a call in order to learn its origin. The delegation apprised
1. Pomerantz, op. cit., p. 315.
2. In 1775 Rivington printed approximately twenty-aight political tracts, most of which were Tory. Charles R. Eildeburn, Sketches of Printers and Printing in Colonial New York, p. 117.
3. Quoted in Pomerantz, op. cit., p. 316.
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their colleagues that Rivington had stated the source of his news as "common report, " and under pressure, had agreed to print a retraction. Having heard the presentment, the Committee resolved then that Riving- 1 ton should not present "common report" to the public as news.
After the startling news of Lexington and Concord had aroused the city April 23, the Tory printer abruptly revised the tone of his paper. The numerous letters from Tories vanished, the partisan news reporting diminished; however, the reformation did not carry so far that the publisher printed the pseudonymous political letters of his antagonists. 2 Although Rivington in the issue of May 4 denied any intent to injure American liberty, six days later he had to flee from a group of angry Whigs to a British vessel in the harbor. By promis- ing to reform and promising not to violate the Association, Rivington 3 won the permission of the Provincial Congress to continue publishing. Shortly thereafter the Gazetteer showed signs of trimming
1. Rivington's New-York Gazetteer, 2 March 1775 (hereafter cited as Riv. Gaz. ); New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, 20 March 1775 (here- after cited as N.Y.G. ). Rivington challenged the accuracy of the delegation's summary of their interview; he asserted he told the con- mitteemen the news was "credited" not "common report. " Riv. Gaz., 16 March 1775.
2. Ibid., 27 April, 4, 11, 18, 25 May 1775.
3. Pomerantz, op. cit., pp. 317-18; Hugh Finlay to his brother, New York, 29 May 1775, Calendar of Home Office Papers of the Reign of George III, 1773-75, pp. 365-65 (hereafter cited as Cal, H.O. Papers); "Case of Mr. James Rivington, Printer at New York" by Coriolanus, Gentle- man's Magazine, November 1776, quoted in J. Shannon, Compiler, Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, 1868, p. 825 (hereafter cited ag Man, Corp. N.Y. 1868). Despite Rivington's absence from his shop. the paper continued to appear.
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even more closely to the prevailing wind but once more changed course with the arrival of Governor Tryon. In June it carried two install- 1 ments of Alexander Hamilton's pamphlet attacking the Quebec Act. At that point, however, Governor Tryon, returning from Britain, reached the city June 25 simultaneously with Washington who was traveling east- ward to take command of the Continental troops besieging Boston. The reappearance of the governor seems to have emboldened Rivington, and the Gazetteer took on a more pronounced Tory flavor. Even though the Rivington press had begun printing Hamilton's Remarks on the Quebec Bill, the newspaper not only discontinued further installments, but also ceased to advertise it. The June 29 number, furthermore, while containing a description of Tryon's reception by the town, had nothing to say about Washington's arrival in New York, and only a few words noting his departure for Boston. Having changed his publish- ing policy, Pivington persistently filled his columns with pro-Tory 2
news stories until the paper's demise in November, 1775.
The suppression of Rivington's Gazetteer is worthy of reezan- ination for two reasons. First, destruction of the press deprived the Tories of an influential voice in the province. Second, Isaac Sears, New York firebrand, played a leading role in this affair, but previous narratives did not adequately explain his leadership.
The most widely accepted interpretation is that Sears con-
ducted the foray to satisfy his personal animus against the printer.
1. Riv. Gaz., 15, 22 June 1775. Rivington had published previously two other Hamilton pamphlets, although not serializing them in the Gazetteer.
2. Ibid., 29 June - 23 November 1775.
On Washington and Tryon see be- lov, p. 34.
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The basis for this viewpoint is an acrimonious exchange of letters in 4
1774 between the two men. An examination of the letters, however. 1
does not reveal any threat, overt or implied, by Sears.
Early in January, 1775 Rivington and the Tories utilized a
minor incident to seek to discredit Sears. The Gazetteer carried a
statement by John Case which charged that Sears bad threatened and roughly handled him in a political dispute. "A Friend to Constitu- tional Liberty" rebutted the accusation in detail with supporting statements from witnesses and stated that Case was a dupe of the "anti-American club" that met at Rivington's. Although he might 2
have done so, Sears did not turn his anger on Rivington.
If the accusation of a personal feud is true, the radical leader certainly did not have a consuming desire to wreak vengeance on his adversary. He waited eight months to strike a blow. With the city in turmoil the week after the news of Lexington arrived, Sears could have very easily organized a mob to destroy Rivington's press. Moreover, when a band did visit Rivington's shop in May, apparently seizing the sheets of a Tory pamphlet in press, they did not molest the newspaper which was published regularly during the
1. Pomerantz, op. cit., p. 318; Henry B. Dawson, Westchester County, Few York, Turing the American Revolution, pp. 127-140; Thomas Jones, History of New York During the Revolutionary War, and of the Leading Events in the Other Colonies at that Period, ed. by Edward F. Delancey, I, 66; Becker, op. cit., pp. 245-46; Hildeburn, op. cit., p. 120; Victor F. Paltsits, "James Rivington" and Charles H. Vance, "Isaac Sears, " Diction- ary of American Biography. 15:638: 16:539; George H. Sargent, "James Rivington, the Tory Printer, " Americana Collector. II, 336-41. letters are in Jones, op. cit., I, 561-66. . The
2. Riv. Gaz., 12 January 1775; N.Y.J., 2 February 1775.
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printer's temporary exile. 1
Why then did Sears hold his grudge in abeyance another six months before putting an end to Rivington's printing activities? Governor Tryon did not mention personal feelings when he apprised Dartmouth of the incident. . . Tryon attritated the catastrophe to "the freedom of Mr. Rivington's publications, & especially in his last 2 paper. " Although the last number of the Gazetteer bore the date November 23, Sears could not have seen it before setting out from New Haven on the twentieth on his expedition. The governor, however, may Łave been partly correct.
A comparison of the Gazetteer for November 2, 9 and 16 points to the issue of the ninth as likely to have offended the Whigs most. The volume of pro-Tery news in that paper far overshadows the other numbers; indeed, the final issue of the twenty-third is quite mild in contrast. Rivington devoted three and a half columns of the front page of the Gazetteer of the ninth to the August 8 proclamation of Governor Martin of North Carolina which labeled that colony's provin- cial convention as treasonable and its members traitors, ordered the arrest of its leaders, placed prices on the leaders' heads, And held ~ out pardon to those who would ask for it. Page two presented the
1. hildeburn, loc. cit. See p.12, n.l. The pamphlet, The Republican Dissected, was A. W. Farmer's reply to Hamilton's The Farmer Refuted. Advertisement, Riv. Gaz., 13 April 1775.
2. Tryon to Dartmouth, 6 December 1775, NYCD, VIII, 646. -
3. Rivington copied the text from the Pennsylvania Journal, 1 November 1775, but the latter also printed the North Carolina Convention's indig- nant reply to Martin which the New Yorker omitted.
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Boston Tories' address to Gage on his departure and the latter's reply. Page three contained more Boston items, three proclamations of General Eowe, and a proposal to form an association of Boston Tories. Pago four reproduced the Quaker address to the Pennsylvania Assembly, an 1 address which was strongly Tory in tone.
Radical Whigs seem to have maintained a sharp eye on the press and reacted strongly. "An Occasional Remarker" attacked the Gazetteer in the New York Journal on the sixteenth, exhorting the Committee of Safety and other "friends of liberty" to make Rivington reveal the names of the persons who contributed the offensive pieces. Alarmed by the quantity of Tory news, "Remarker" also pressed for the creation of a special committee which would write replies to these stories. Thus it may be that "Remarker" reflected the growing alarm among the more radical rebels at the increasing boldness of Rivington.
There is still another aspect of this picture which deserves notice. Governor Dunmore of Virginia may have unwittingly played a part in Rivington's ruin. On the seventh of October he directed the seizure of John H. Folt's Norfolk press and two of his workmen which 2 provoked the Tory mayor and town council to protest unavailingly. It is highly probable that Sears read of this event, since the story 3
4.
appeared in both the New Haven and New York papers. There is,
1. Of the other New York newspapers, the ardent Whig Journal did not carry any of the North Carolina, Boston and Philadelphia items, but the Gazette did publish the Boston stories November 6 and 13.
2. John H. Holt was the nephew of printer John Holt of New York.
3. Connecticut Journal, 25 October 1775; Riv. Gaz., 26 October, 2 November 1775.
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furthermore, a more direct link between the Virginia and New York proceedings. According to the contemporary account of the Rivington incident, es Sears and his men carried out the types, "they offered 1 to give an order on Lord Danmore [for them]. " Thus the combination of the Gazetteer's content and Dunmore's confiscation of Holt's print- ing equipment led to the drastic action against the former.
Sears' foray from New Haven reflected careful planning which involved two other Yorkers, Samuel Broome and John Woodward. The . leaders had two major objectives: the seizure of three Westchester Tories and the destruction of Rivington's press. Sears suspected the Westchester victims of planning to waylay him and put him aboard the British warship Ania. Assembling about 97 mounted men, Sears departed
for New York on November 20. In Westchester the troop secured Samuel Seabury, Judge Jonathan Fowler and Mayor Nathaniel Underhill of West- chester Borough without incident and dispatched them to New Haven under strong guard. At Mamaroneck they burnt a small sloop which the British had purchased to supply the Acia. They paraded down Manhattan's
"main street" at noon November 23 and drew up in front of Rivington's shop. It took a small detachment about three-quarters of an hour to smash the printing press and package the type. As they rode off with the type the "vast concourse" of spectators, estimated at 1.500, "gave them three very hearty cheers. " On their eastward journey the raiders disarmed all the Tories whom they encountered. The last leg of the trip through Connecticut assumed the proportions of a triumphal pro-
1. Connecticut Journal, 6 December 1775.
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cession and New Haven welcomed them with a salute from two cannon. The loss of Rivington's Gazetteer deprived the British of a major channel of communication with the people of the province in this criti- cal period and contributed to the diminution of the government's influ- 1 ence.
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British patronage and the hesitant policy of the New York Pro- vincial Congress inspired ugly suspicions in the other colonies. Holt's Journal published a warning to its readers on how New York looked to the outside world when it printed part of a letter from the familiar "gentleman in London to his friend":
The duplicity of New York will ever render them suspected. The many, repeated assurances given to the Ministry by their quondam leaders, will justify a suspicion, which the conduct of some of the merchants and traders confirms, that they would adopt any means to break through or elude the association.
Closer to home, General Wooster of Connecticut was protesting to Gov- ernor Trumbull his subordination to the control of the New York Pro-
1. The Connecticut Journal, 29 November 1775, has a narrative of the raid. The same version also appears in the Connecticut Courant, 29 November 1775 and Pa. Jour., 6 December 1775. Briefer stories were published in the Constitutional Gazette, 25 November 1775, Connecticut Gazette, 1 December 1775 and Pennsylvania Gazette, 29 December 1775. Jones, op. cit., I, 66; Proceedings of the General Committee of New York 23 November 1775, Man, Corp. N. Y. , 1868, p. 815.
2. N.Y.J., 31 August 1775, letter from London to his friend in Philadel- phia, 4 June 1775. Pa. Jour., 19 April 1775 had printed an extract which stated that the ministry expected New York to desert the continen- tal union. For similar sentiments see the broadside, To the Inhabitants of New York and ... America, New York, 20 April 1775, NYPL which contains extracts of several letters from London. Franklin said the ministry ex- pected the 4,000 troops being dispatched to New York would be received with cordiality. Extract of a Letter from Philadelphia to a Gentleman in this City, Dated the 6th Inst., New York, 8 May 1775, Broadsides, NIPL.
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vincial Congress as a "disgrace" to himself and a "dishonour" to his own colony. "Your Honour well knows," he wrote, "the suspicions light in which the New-York Congress are viewed by the rest of the 1
Continent .... I have no faith in their honesty in the cause." After having encountered New York reluctance at first hand, General Charles 2 Lee had much the same opinion of the rebel leadership. Although
Jay confessed anxiety for the "Honour of our calumniated Colony, " he hastened to add, "I can assure you the Province stands well with the [ Continental] Congress . " Jay to the contrary notwithstanding, ^
3 committee of Congress that had visited New York in February, 1776 4 privately voiced skepticism of New York's loyalty to the cause. These misgivings persisted until the colony accepted the Declaration of Independence. 5
Prior to 1776 royal government in New York exerted its infla- ence through a variety of means. The colony's governmental machinery operated as the primary medium for this purpose. Indirect ties be- tween government and people developed out of the city's position as British military headquarters. Control of the disposal of the colony's unsettled lands gave to the administration another device which it
1. Wooster to Trumbull, 24 August 1775, Force, op. cit., 4th Ser., III, 263.
2. Curtis P. Nettels, George Washington and American Independence, pp. 207, 211-12 (hereafter citod as Washington).
3. Jay to McDougall, 27 March 1776, McDougall Papers, NYHS. £ "it would give me Pleasure to see them [New York] distinguished by vigorous Exertion. "
Jay said,
4. Nettels, Washington, p. 212.
5. Becker, op. cit., p. 272.
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manipulated effectively. Mercantile ties promoted an affinity be- tween the government and some merchants, especially among those who had British correspondents or were factors for British houses. Com- mercial relationships often led to social ones and a significant num- ber of marriages between officials and merchant families occurred. Lastly, royal government found supporters in the press and among the pamphleteers. So highly did the British value such aid that they rewarded able men like James Rivington, Thomas B. Chandler and Myles Cooper.
Notwithstanding the far-reaching authority of the government, a rising opposition to royal policies gradually broke down the govern- ment's supremacy. The province divided into two major groupings, Tory and Whig, that cut across social and class lines.
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CHAPTER II
DIVISION INTO TORY AND WHIG
The slow growth of the New York revolutionary party and the tortuous course of the Whigs lend a deceptive appearance to political developments in the colony. From this combination of facts the unwary observer might conclude that the Whigs lacked majority support, but this conclusion would be erroneous. The succeeding pages will be devoted to the proof that by the eve of the war those favoring inde- pendence constituted a majority of the population.
It is impossible to determine with exactitude the division of the people into Tory and Whig. British rule in the province enjoyed its most loyal support among the DeLancey faction who composed the core of Toryism. The faction drew its leading personages from the landed aristocracy and the principal merchants of the province who largely
supported the administration. 1 Beyond these privileged classes, more- over, the Tories possessed a numerous following among the middle land- holders and tenantry, the professional classes, the smaller merchants.
1. Alexander C. Flick, Loyalism in New York during the American Revolu- tion, p. 33 (hereafter cited as Loyalism) ; Harrington, op. cit., pp. 74, 349; E. Wilder Spaulding, New York in the Critical Period, 1783-89, p. 121; Harry B. Toshpe, The Disposition of Loyalist Estates in the Southern District of the State of New York, pp. 121-53; Samuel Adams to Arthur Lee, 4 March 1775, Bancroft Transcripts: Samuel Adams Papers, NYPL.
Among the leading Tory landholders and merchants were the DeLanceys, Johnsons, Philipses, Beverly Robinson, Bayards, Rhinelanders, Roger Morris, Wallaced, James Jauncey, Henry White, John Watte, Issac Low, William Axtell, Cruge :s, Colcens, Rapalies, George Folliot, Lloyds, Pells, Ludlows, Banyers.
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mechanics and tradesmen, and among the urban laborers. The colony was indeed "a house divided. " As for the revolutionary opposition, it at- tracted a minority of the great landed families and rich merchants but enlisted strong popular support among the middle class farmers and ten- antry, the lesser merchants, mechanics and laborers. Beyond this general description it is possible to obtain an approximate idea of the relative strength of the contending parties through an examination of some of the events of these days and of the opinions of contemporaries. The problem will be treated in two parts: (1) the situation in New York City, and (2) in the province as a whole.
The "Friends of Government" challenged the "Liberty Boys" to a test of their popularity in February, 1775, when they sought to break the Continental Association against imports from Britain. When the James, Captain Watson commanding, arrived from Glasgow the morning of February 2, she became the occasion for a contest between the defenders of the established order and the government's critics. A few members of the Committee of Sixty leaned toward granting watson permission to unload, but at a meeting that same night only three or four members out of some forty present voted for it. The Committee, therefore, ordered
1. Flick, Loyaliam, pp. 32-33; Alexander C. Flick, ed., A History of the State of New York, IV, 151 (hereafter cited as Hist. N. Y. ); Fark, Op. cit., pp. 91, 201; Paul M. Hamlin, Legal Education in Colonial New York, pp. 135-55; Spaulding, op. cit .. p. 127; Dawson, op. cit., p. 83; Yoshpe, op. cit., pp. 187-209. In June, 1775 ca. one-third of the Livingston
manor tenants were Tory. Judge Robert R. Livingston to Robert R. Living- ston, Jr., 17 June 1775, Revolutionary Letters of Importance: the Unpub- lighed Correspondence of Robert R. Livingston, no. 46 (hereafter cited as Unpublished Corr. R. R. Livingston).
Among the Tory middle landholders and tenantry were Alpheus Avery, John Bates, James Beyea, farmers of Westchester; John Brown, William Brown, Abraham, Henry and John Bulyea, James Crawford, tenants of Westchester. Among the professional classes and merchants, for example, were Samuel Clossy of Kings College and Isaac Bennet, merchant of New Rochelle. Among mechanics, tradesmen and laborers were Thomas Austin, blacksmith, John Bennett, ship's carpenter, Frederick Brantigan, baker.
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the James to depart without registering at customs or breaking cargo, although it granted the captain time to obtain supplies and necessary papers. At the special request of Buchanan, consignee of the cargo, the Committee conferred again the evening of the third to reconsider, but adhered to its original decision. Although the consignee de- clined to invoke governmental aid, the Friends of Government, with Watson's approval, planned to organize a posse to protect the unloading of the goods, a species of tea party in reverse. Learning of these intentions, the radicals spread the alarm and mobilized so many people to oppose the landing that it could not be carried through; the crowd 1 dispersed the posso.
Checknated, but not willing to concede defeat, the Tories now turned to official measures. Lieutenant Governor Colden convened his council to determine on a course of action, and after a three hour de- bate with Colden excluded, the councillors ordered the man-of-war Kings Fisher to provide an armed escort for the James. When the James re- appeared at the wharves with a naval complement aboard, a large, Whig crowd stood ready to prevent the ship's unloading. Deterred by this show of popular sentiment, the Tories yielded. So great was the hos- tility of the people that when Captain Watson came ashore the next day. even Tory leaders denounced him. Oliver DeLancey exclaimed to Philip
1. Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Colonial Merchants and the American Revo- lution, 1763-75, p. 490; N. Y. J., 9, 16 February 1775; To the Free- holders, Freemen, and Inhabitants of the City and County of New York, 6 February 1775, Broadsides, NYPL.
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