USA > New York > Organization of the Revolutionary movement in New York State, 1775-77 > Part 3
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Livingston and Francis Lewis, "What does that dam'd Rascal come up here again for? Why don't he quit the Port?" 1
And quit the port Captain Watson did, with cargo unbroken,
The very day, February 10, the DeLanceys strove to mollify public opinion, a grand jury drew up an address to the city Court of Quarter Sessions. The message expressed opposition to parliamentary taxation and termed Moppressive" those acts of Parliament which ex- tended the powers of the Admiralty and Vice Admiralty Courts. The ideas and terminology follow section 14 of the Continental Associa- 2 tion.
The government's position continued to deteriorate and suffered a further shock in the middle of April. Whereas in October, 1774 the Whig committee had disapproved interference with shipping supplies to Gage in Boston, in April, 1775 the Committee of Sixty resolved to for- bid the business. Although two merchants fell victim immediately to the ban, two others, Ralph Thurman and Robert Harding, set out to defy the Committee. Sears, John Lamb, and Marinus Willett rallied the people to compel the two merchants to abide by the Committee's resolu- tion. Alarmed by the threats of the British Barrack Master General
1. Quoted by William Smith. John Delancey vent about declaring to all and sundry that Colden had not solicited the captain to remain. Sabine, op. cit., pp. 209. 210.
2. N. Y. J., 16 February 1775 and Pa. Jour., 20 February 1775. A squib in the N. Y. G., 20 February 1775 stated that the jury foreman did not present the address to the court nor read it to the court. The Association text is in Schlesinger, op. cit., p. 612.
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to take himself and his contracts elsewhere, the mayor and petty merchants importuned the government to intervene . 1 Although the council voted to have Colden issue a proclamation against interfer- ence with commerce, William Smith prevailed upon his colleagues to launch an inquiry into the matter in order to "know the Truth, & have solid Grounds to act upon."
After hearing the testimony of Barrack Master General Briga- dier General Robertson, some members of the council implied to Mayor Hicks that the governor and council wished him to arrest Sears and Willett. The mayor obligingly had the two men brought before him. Willett gave bail, but Sears refused to do so on the ground that the arrest was "a violation of liberty." When the officers of justice arrived at the jail with their prisoner, they had to surrender him to a party of his friends who had gathered hurriedly to rescue him. The release became a triumphal procession, with colors flying, through the town to the Liberty Pole. According to prior notice, a multitude of people had assembled at the Pole to adopt a decision on the violation of the exportation interdict. Although Mayor Hicks and all the bailiff's had come to this meeting, Sears underscored their helplessness when he - asked the audience, "Whether a Son of Liberty ought to give bail or not?" Upon hearing the question carried in the negative, the assemblage gave three buzzas. Thus the intended show of authority ended in defeat for
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1. Ibid., p. 388; Becker, op. cit., pp. 162-63. General Robertson said he had spent ₺260,000 in his department, presumably since 1765. Sabine, op. cit., pp. 219-220.
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the government, exposing it to the contempt of the people. Although Anglican churchman Dr. Samuel Auchmuty could declare disgustedly that "our magistrates have not the spirit of a louse," there was little
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else they could do.
The British had reduced the garrison to slightly
more than 100 men in order to reinforce Gage in Boston and could not rely upon the city militia, as coming events would soon prove. In Tryon County the Tory Johnson family depended upon their highlander tenantry to intimidate and overawe the Whig farmers, but in the city 3 to whom could the administration look for aid? The Sears incident dramatically revealed how public opinion had shifted since the preceding December.
At the close of December, 1774 an incident occurred which ex- posed the Whigs' weakness. Andrew Elliot, Collector of the port, seized a shipment of British manufactured arms imported in the Lady Gage. As the customs officers carted the arms to the custom house, a small party of Whigs fell on the officials and carried off the wagons. Before they could secrete the weapons, however, a larger body of royal
1. Ibid .; "Anti-Licentiousness" to the Printer, Riv. Gaz., 20 April 1775; To the Inhabitants of the City and County of New York, 13 April 1775. Broadsides, NYPL; "Calendar of Council Minutes," New York State Library Bulletin 58, ed. by B. Fernow, p. 505 (hereafter cited as Cal. Council Min.).
2. Auchmuty to Captain Montresor, 19 April 1775 in Pa. Jour., 31 May 1775. Auchmuty hopefully predicted "That it will not be long before he [Sears] is handled by authority."
3. Becker, op. cit., p. 202; Flick, Hist. N. Y., III, 335: Samuel L. Frey, ed., The Minute Book of the Committee of Safety of Tryon County, pp. 7, 11.
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officials recovered them and put the cargo aboard a man-of-war. A broadside appeared over the pseudonym "Plain English," arraigning Elliot for acting arbitrarily and exhorting the people to assemble and demand the arms. The Collector denied the charge and challenged
"Plain English" to come to the Coffee House to present a bill of par- ticulars. The Tories rallied a considerable number of people, in- cluding merchants, shipmasters, seamen and citizenry, to Elliot's de- fense. When the Collector demanded that the broadside's author step forward, there was no response and the crowd gave three cheers for 1 Elliot. The Whigs could not win enough support to regain the arms. To a thoughtful Tory observer the contrast in public sentiment between December and April might have stimulated forebodings about the future. Any further inflammatory act or news night precipitate a crisis.
The crisis immediately followed the Sears affair. The grim tidings of Lexington reached New York around 2 P. M. Sunday, April 23, by an express rider from Connecticut and two ships from Newport. Bast- ily convening in response to the emergency, the Committee of Sixty met at 4 P. M. and took important preliminary steps. They dispatched the express to Philadelphia with the news, ordered the unloading of two sloops with provisions for the British troops in Boston, sent after a ship that was in motion down the harbor for the same destination, pre- pared a broadside containing the advices from Boston, and notified the citizenry of a public meeting in the fields at 2 P. M., Monday, the
1. Isaac Q. Leake, Memoir of the Life and Times of General Lamb, pp. 95-96; Riv. Gaz .. 5 January 1775.
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twenty-fourth. 1
From the outset the Committee of Sixty seems to have firmly controlled the situation, but the tremendous upsurge of hostility to the British ministry caused the conservative wing of the Committee to reassess its position.
The outpouring of the people on April 24 played a part in the shift of the Committee's conservatives. An estimated 8,000 of the city's population responded to the call for a meeting. . The rally approved proposals to organize a militia, to draw up a new Defense Association (a draft of which the Committee read), and to authorize the Committee "with full & unlimited Power to consult upon and deter- mine & direct the means" for the city's preservation. By voting unanimously for the last of these proposals the meeting hed in fact 2 created a revolutionary government for the city. The size and enthusiasm of the crowd and the policies approved may have aroused the conservatives to a realization of the need for a new approach. If the conservatives strove openly to block any action, the veters might cast them aside in favor of the radical leaders. They had to move with the current in order to retain their status. Therefore,
1. Radical leaders had broken into the city's arsenal to secure arms, but McDougall persuaded them to cease their distribution for a day. McDougall's notations, D. d., The Following interesting Advicea were this Day received here, by two Vessels from Newport, and by an Express by Land, New York, 23 April 1775, Broadsides, NYPL. For a contrary view of these and the subsequent events, see Becker, op. cit., pp. 193-99.
2. Pa. Jour., 26 April 1775; Mcdougall's notations, Following inter- esting Advices. . . by Land. 23 April 1775, Broadsides, NYPL. Mc Douga11 opposed the appointment of officers for the militia.
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the conservatives, working through the Committee of Sixty, published a broadside on the twenty-sixth advocating the expansion of the Com- mittee to one hundred and the election of a provincial congress. The congress idea would certainly be popular and linking it to the former would reflect some of that popularity on the committee revision plan. The slate of one hundred circulated the next day antagonized the radi- cals and may have made clear to the latter the motivation of the con- servatives in seeking these changes.
The conservatives' maneuvers put the radicals in a difficult position. By enlarging the membership of the Committee the conserva- tives hoped to add enough moderates and conservatives to ensure fira control of the Committee. The proposed ticket carried over fifty-five of the Sixty, of whom the moderates and conservatives numbered forty. Four radicals won places among the forty-five new men. The radicals
found themselves at a disadvantage. On the one hand they objected to many of the candidates, but on the other hand the slate bore the of- ficial imprimatur of the Sixty who had popular backing. If the radi- cals offered opposition nominations, in whose name could they be put up? The radicals resolved their dilemma by sponsoring a meeting Thursday afternoon, April 27, in the name of the Sons of Liberty at which they obtained approval of their own nominees for the Hundred and the pro- 1
vincial congress.
1. Becker, op. cit., pp. 197-98; Sons of Liberty, New York, 28 April 1775, Broadsides, NYPL. An earlier broadside implied the continued existence of the Sons: The Following Anonymous Letter was some Nights ago thrown in among the Sons of Liberty, 1775, ibid.
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Striving to broaden the appeal of their ticket, the radicals revived the Sons of Liberty. Since the suffrage extended only to the freemen and freeholders, a slate offered by the Mechanics would have a more limited attraction than the Sons who had included merchants in their membership. On the hundred, only twenty-four differed from the Committee of Sixty's ticket, but of these, twenty-two were substitutes for the latter's forty-five new men. On the provincial congress list, the radicals backed only nine of the Committee's choice, substituting 1 eleven of their own choosing.
Confronted with an opposing slate, the conservatives took to the press to justify their selection. Thus on Friday, the twenty- eighth, New Yorkers were reading the handbills of the Sons of Liberty and the Committee of Sixty which drew the lines of political strife. The Sixty had set Friday for the election, but apparently as a conse- quence of the opposition, their Friday broadside postponed the voting to Monday, May 1.
These political debates became even more complicated after the arrival of the Pennsylvania Journal on Friday. The newspaper contained an extract of a letter from London which stated that Oliver DeLancey. John Watts, Myles Cooper, Henry White and Colden had requested the North government to dispatch troops to New York to regain control of the colony. A furious crowd gathered which threatened "to proceed to execute them immediately." White and Delancey did their utmost to assure the gathering of the falsity of the letter, but without notable success. So high did
1. Sons of Liberty, New York, 28 April 1775, ibid ., NYPL.
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tempers rise that the Committee of Sixty summoned a meeting that day in the Fields with two of the accused in attendance. Denials from White and DelAncey and a pledge to swear out affidavits attesting their innocence satisfied the crowd and averted the threat of vio- lence. The next day the Sixty promulgated the new form of Associa- tion, and Delancey, White and Watts produced the promised affidavits. The excitement over the Association eased the tension, and the Tories 1 heard no more threats.
Publication of the new Association by the Committee of Sixty dealt the radicals a shrewd political stroke. The firm tone of the oath not only reassured the Whigs of the Committee's steadfastness but also demonstrated to the moderates the adroitness of the conserva- tives. The latter's slates carried the election. The caution with which the new committee moved can be attributed to the natural prudence of the conservatives. While the committee contained a diversity of political views, to assert that it represented an instrument of party rather than a large proportion of the people is to ignore the foregoing events.
Impressive testimony of the minority position of the Tories in the city comes from the Tories themselves. 2 The governor's council,
1. Pa. Jour., 26 April 1775; Sabine, op. cit., p. 222. White went to the trouble of having his statement and affidavit printed as a broad- side and distributed. To the Public by Henry White, New York, 29 April 1775, Broadsides, NYPL.
2. However, McDougall has quite accurately predicted how the people would react in a crisis: "from the Knowledge I have of the State of this Colony, I am morally certain, they will not fly to Arms as a Colony; but by the Influence of one of these Contingencies Vist: The Attack of the Troops on your People [i.e., Massachusetts] .... " McDougall to W. Cooper, 9 February 1775, McDougall Papers, NYHS.
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meeting Monday, April 24, to assess the situation, called in various officials to inform them on specific points. The councillors first considered turning to the militia, but Leonard Lispenard, commander of the city's regiment, said no aid would come from that quarter, since they counted themselves as Liberty Boys. The mayor then re- marked that the authority of the magistrates had vanished. Councillor Thomas Jones, nevertheless, advocated calling out the militia, reading
the riot act and imprisoning the ringleaders. William Smith, in op- posing Jones, argued that the government would have to deal with the general population and not just a few rioters. To this, Jones had no rebuttal. "We were thus unanimously of Opinion, " Smith recorded in his Memoirs, "that we had no power to do anything & the best mode of proceeding for private Safety and general Peace was to use Diewasion 1 from Violence."
Colden also confessed to the complete collapse of the govern- ment's authority. In his report to the Colonial Secretary, Colden attributed the lack of popular support for the government to the magis- trates' timidity and the depletion of the garrison. A month later, however, be declared that government authority would have withstood the 2 storm if the garrison had been at its normal strength. Captain Montague of the Kings Fisher wrote with something akin to astonishment that "the
1. Sabine, op. cit., p. 221; Jones, op. cit., I, 41; Cal, Council Min., p. 505.
2. Colden to Dartmouth, 3 May, 7 June 1775, NYCD, VIII, 571, 582; Colden to Captain Vandeput, 27 May 1775, New York Historical Society Collections. x, 413 (hereafter cited as NYHS Coll.).
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major part of the people here are almost in a state of rebellion z One of the numerous letters from New York printed in a London newspaper commented that "ir this city it is astonishing to find the most violent 2 proposals meeting with universal approbation." Merchant James Richardson explained the latest developments to his business correspondent in London with these words;
Friends of government in this city in danger and business suspended; port now re-opened and the whole city entered into an association to abide the measures recommended by the next Congress. All unanimous for the American cause .3
Even a fully-manned garrison might have had difficulty in main- taining the government, particularly in view of the revolutionaries' relations with the soldiers. The Whigs effectively utilized the press to appeal to the soldier, to desert and join the cause of liberty. Al- though only four men deserted from May 1 - 23, in the next three days four more went over to the rebels. Major Isaac Hamilton expressed to Colden his apprehension of losing the whole garrison. Ten days later Hamilton confessed to Colden that his position was untenable :
1. Montague to Admiral Graves, 26 April 1775, Cal. H. O. Papers, p. 358. See also the comment of a post office official, Hugh Finlay to his brother, 29 May 1775, ibid., p. 366.
2. Letter from New York, 4 May 1775, Margaret W. Willard, ed., Letters on the American Revolution, 1774-75, p. 101. See also similar letters, 1, 4 May 1775, ibid., pp. 97. 99-100.
3. Richardson to Alexander Gordon, 4 May 1775, Hist. Mas. Com., p. 299. For a similar comment see Smith Ramadge to Johnston and Canning, 3 May 1775, 1bid., p. 298.
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The Loss of our Men by Desertion is so great, and [due to] the Apprehension of losing more, I therefore think it necessary for the good of the Service to retreat on Board his Majesty's Ship the Asia ....
The British withdrew the troops, about 100 in all, to the Asia on June 6. The retreat, therefore, did not constitute a peaceful 1
gesture to avoid an armed clash between the soldiers and citizenry.
The same month, June, which saw the garrison's evacuation, also witnessed another incident of some significance. As noted above, Tryon returned from England on the same day Washington reached the city on his way to Massachusetts. Not wishing to offend either party, the Pro-
vincial Congress detailed militia escorts for both. Ostensibly, the same people who greeted the General enthusiastically in the afternoon. "huzzaed for Tryon in the evening." Smith clarified this apparently contradictory action, when he put it down as a personal tribute to the Governor rather than a manifestation of attachment to the crown. The citizens "hate his commission," Smith recorded in his notes, "& would 2 certainly have insulted any other in that station."
Demographic statistics contribute a final bit of evidence to the completion of this examination of the city's political sympathies. Although population statistics for 1776 are only estimates, they do givs some clue to the political temper of the people. Driven by fear of the
1. Becker, op. cit., pp. 218-19; Gage to Barrington, 13 May 1775, Gage Corr., II, 678-79; Major Isaac Hamilton to Colden, 26 May, 5 June 1775. NIAS Coll., 56: 297, 299-300; Colden to Dartmouth, 7 June 1775, NYCD, VIII, 582; To the Regular Soldiery of Great Britain, New York, 1 May 1775. Broadsides, NYFL.
2. Becker, op. cit., p. 218; Smith, Memoirs, V, 25 June 1775, Smith Papers, NYPL.
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cannon's thunder, thousands of the inhabitants streamed out of the city. Some of them returned after the danger had seemed to abate, 1 but by February, 1776, perhaps 7,000 had settled elsewhere. When news of the impending descent of the Pritish Apread through the streets, a wholesale evacuation of the populace got under way, leaving approx !- mately 5,000 behind. After the fighting had halted in the environs, the tide of migration reversed itself. Of the estimated 18,000 who
had fled, some 4,000 made their way back through the British lines into the city. 2 General Robertson calculated the city's inhabitants in February, 1777 at 11,000, but this figure probably included loyalists from upstate and other states as well as a number of slaves who thought 3 to find freedom with the British. Far from remaining overwhelmingly loyal, considerably more than half of New York City's residents opposed the crown.
1. William Axtel, council member, placed the population at 16,000. Ibid., V, 11 February 1776, Smith Papers, MYPL. Calculation of the city's size is based upon the known rate of increase from 1756 to 1771. Since the port maintained a fairly constant ratio of the colony's total, ca. 12 percent, in 1776 it had some 22,937 inhabitants. Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population before the Federal Census of 1222, p. 91.
2. Oscar T. Parck, Jr., New York City During the War for Independence, p. 75. On the basis of the number who signed the loyalist welcome to Eove, Barck estimated the loyalist following in the city at 3,000. Ibid., p. 77, n. 10. See also Flick, Bist, N. Y., 17, 261; Edward P. Alexander, A Revolutionary Conservative: James Duane of New York, p. 156; Thomas J. Wertenbaker, Father Knickerbocker Rebela; New York City During the Revo- InBlon, p. 99.
3. Parck, 25, cit., p. ??; Wertenbaker, op. cit., p. 103; Flick, Hist. N. Y. III. 346 ..
4. Bea Flick, Loyaliam, p. 181.
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To argue that the capital was a center of revolutionary activity is not to conclude that a majority of the province chose independence rather than British dominion. As in the case of the city there are no election returns to demonstrate how many supported the revolutionary cause and how many opposed it throughout the colony. Expressions of Tory opinion and indirect evidence, however, corroborate the existence of a Whig majority.
As the year 1774 drew to a close the government faced the un- pleasant fact that the Whigs would move to have the colony nominate representatives to attend the Second Continental Congress. If the provincial assembly met, it would take into consideration the resolu- tions of the First Congress and the choice of a delegation to the Second. If the governor prorogued the assembly, the Whigs would win by default. The government, therefore, had no alternative but to permit the assembly to meet and to seek to win through parliamentary maneuver. Although the issue hung in the balance, the Delancey party leaders regarded the prospect with foreboding, while the Whigs adopted an optimistic outlook. At a private conference summoned to devise strategy, leading Tories first discussed whether they should block assembly approval of the acts of the Congress. Tactics of this sort, however, would lay the govern-
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ment open to & charge of arbitrary conduct. Convinced that they could muster only eleven votes to the Whigs' fourteen on the question of con- gressional endorsement, the Tories prepared to concede to the Whigs on
1. For a differing interpretation, see Becker, op. cit., pp. 174-75. The radicals did have a keen interest in the assembly's action. Sabine, op. sit., p. 208; McDougall to Samuel Adams, 29 January 1775, same to W. . Cooper, 9 February 1775, McDougall Papers, NYHS.
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another question in order to detach votes from the opposition. They would move for a petition to the king for a redress of grievances. "The Generality [was] for this Measure as the only Scheme to prevent 1 voting in Favor of the Congress." If the government could win this test, they could go on to defeat a motion to choose delegates to the Second Congress. 2 It is an instructive comment on the state of opinion in the colony that a conservative assembly, elected by a limited suffrage, should be expected to take a stand in opposition to the crown.
At this critical juncture of affairs Colden determined to take an aggressive tone in his message to the legislature and drev up a strong, provocative address, condemning the Continental Congress and insisting upon the supremacy of the royal prerogative. After persist- ent criticism from the council, Colden modified the draft, but Smith said it shocked the assembly nevertheless. This incident points up Colden's willingness to act boldly, but Smith's Memoirs make clear the complexity of the inter-play between council and governor. The latter could not cavalierly disregard the council's advice. Colden's and the
1. It is curious that party leader James Delancey opposed the proposal to make the petition to the king the first order of business, although he approved the petition. Moving the petition immediately would pre- pare the ground for defeating the Whigs. Sabine, op. cit. Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation, p. 76 (hereafter cited as Articles), cites the assembly's disapproval of the Congress as evidence of strong opposition to the Congress.
2. Even though the Tories moved the petitions to king and Parliament, the drafts produced in committee proved to be too forceful for their taste. The Whigs charged the Tories with withholding emasculating amendments until some Whig members had left the session to return home. The subsequent addresses, they asserted, differed materially from the drafts approved in committee. McDougall to Josiah Quincy, 16 April 1775, McDougall Papers, NYHS; Becker, op. cit., p. 177.
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council's failure to act decisively on various occasions reflected more an acknowledgment of their lack of force with which to execute firm policies than personal timidity. 1
In the middle of March, 1775 instructions from Dartmouth came to hand, directing Colden to prohibit the province from sending dele- gates to the Second Continental Congress. Since the assembly had voted against doing so, the Whigs set out to call a provincial con- vention to choose the deputies. In fact the Whigs had scheduled an election for March 15 to approve the convening of the convention. Two days prior to this election, Colden met with the council to consider the Colonial Secretary's orders. Although normal procedure entailed the issuance of a proclamation conveying the Secretary's instructions, neither Colden nor the council relished the idea. "All agreed that it would excite the People to be more zealous for Delegates." At Smith's suggestion they determined to have Colden show the letter to the assembly and to inform others that a congress displeased the king and that Dartmouth had forbidden it. 2 Although the Friends of Govern- ment had exulted only recently over their victory in the assembly, they . watched it turn into a paper triumph. So little effect did Dartmouth's letter have on colonial opinion that the government did not dare to take the next logical step and forbid the assumed minority to select repre- sentatives for the Congress.
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