USA > New York > Westchester County > Origin and History of Manors in the Province of New York and in the County. > Part 11
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THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.
liked and feared the Dutch. When it was evident that Charles the 2d would be restored, he hastened to make his peace with him, and the Duke of York, before they left the Netherlands. Sharp, unprincipled, and determined to break down Dutch power, and Dutch commercial supremacy, if he could, he was the last man to give any assistance to effect such a solution of the Dutch and English difficulties as Stuyvesant desired. The Duke of York, though he should not have pos- sessed such feelings towards the people who had be- friended his brother and himselfin their exile, also was personally unfriendly to the Dutch Nation. Certain libels against him though punished by the Dutch courts, had not been punished as thoroughly, or as soon, as he wished. The Dutch West India Company in trading under their charter to the Guinea coast, in- terfered with the business of the Royal African Com- pany of which he was the Governor. He complained of the Dutch on this account before the English Parlia- ment, and, of his own authority as Lord High Admiral, sent a fleet to harass them on the coast of Africa. There- fore it was as a matter of revenge, as well as hoped for profit, that he obtained from Charles the 2d on the 12th of March, 1664, O. S.,1 only a year and eleven months after the date of the Connecticut Colony's Patent, a gift by patent of the whole of New Netherland, based on the sailing along its coast by the Cabots, in the reign of Henry VII., without proof of their having seen it, and though no actual possession of it was ever taken by them or anybody else, prior to the discovery, and actual settlement, by the Dutch, a hundred years and a little more afterwards. There was actual peace be- tween the Dutch and English nations at the date of the patent, and at the time of the seizure by the latter, though war broke out soon afterward; a fact which deepened the flagrancy of one of the most striking in- stances of the rapacity and wickedness of a strong people dealing with a weaker one, in all history.
Borrowing four vessels of the English navy, of which he was Lord High Admiral, the Duke of York sent an expedition under the command of Colonel Richard Nicolls, with Sir Robert Carr, George Cart- wright and Samuel Mavericke as co-commissioners with Mathias Nicolls, subsequently Secretary for New York, and a few other English officers, in com- mand of about 450 men, to visit the Plantations in New England, and to "reduce" the Dutch Province of New Netherland "to an entire obedience to our government " as their instructions from the King expressed it." These instructions, and the special communications from Charles 2d to Massachusetts and Connecticut in relation to the commission and its powers were dated the 23d of April, 1664, as well as his "Private Instructions" which were only to be considered by the commissioners between
themselves." The Royal Commission to Nicolls and the others, was dated two days later, on the 25th of April, 1664. The latter, strange to say, does not mention, or even refer to, New Netherland.' Why this remarkable omission was made is not now known, but such is the fact. On the second of April, 1664, three weeks previously, the Duke of York had given Colonel Richard Nicolls a com- mission from himself as his Deputy Governor. This document after reciting the King's Patent to him- self, and a brief description of the boundaries therein set forth, continues :- " And whereas I have con- ceived a good opinion of the integrity, prudence, ability, and fitness of Richard Nicolls, Esquire, to be employed as my Deputy there, I have thought fit to constitute and appoint, and I do hereby con- stitute and appoint him the said Richard Nicolls, Esquire, to be my Deputy Governor within the lands, Islands, and places aforesaid, To perform and execute all and every the powers which are by the said Let- ters Patent granted unto me to be executed by my Deputy Agent or Assign. To HAVE AND TO HOLD the said place of Deputy-Governor unto the said Richard Nicolls Esquire, during my will and pleasure only; Hereby willing, and requiring, all and every the Inhabitants of the said Lands, Islands, and places, to give obedience to him the said Richard Nicolls, in all things according to the tenor of his Majesty's said Letters Pattent."5
Under the King's Patent of the 12th March, 1664, and these Instructions and commissions from Charles 2d, and the Duke of York, the forcible seizure and annexation of the Province of New Netherland to the English Kingdom was effected.
The expedition, consisting of the Guinea of 86 guns, Capt. Hugh Hyde, the Elias of 30 guns, Capt. William Hill, the Martin of 16 guns, Capt. Edward Grove, and the William and Nicholas, Capt. Morley, of 10 guns, carrying the commissioners and a body of troops, about 450 in number, sailed from Portsmouth .on the 15th of May, 1664. Nicolls the commander-in-chief and Cartwright embarked in the Guinea, and Carr and Mavericke in the Martin. Their orders were to rendezvous in Gardiner's Bay, at the east end of Long Island. The voyage was long, the vessels got sepa- rated, and the Martin, and Nicholas and William, were obliged to run into Piscataway (Portsmouth) New Hampshire on the 20th of July, 1664, whence Mavericke the same day wrote the following brief ac- count of the voyage to Capt. Breedon of Boston ;- " It hath pleased God (after a tedious voyage of neare ten weeks time) That two of our ships arrived here this afternoon at Pascataway where wee hourly ex- pect our other two; the Guiney comanded by Capt. Hyde wee lost sight of this day se' night, and Capt.
1 The original, a beautiful MS. is in the State Library at Albany. It is printed in II. Col. Hist. 295 ; Brod. II. 661.
" III. Col. Hist., 52.
3 Ibid., 51-63. + Ibid., 64.
5 Book of Patenta, Albany, II. 116-118 ; II. Brod., 153; Leaming and Spicer's Jersey Laws, 665.
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
Hill with the Elyas on Sunday last. * * * * our stay here being only for a little water and our other shipps, which if they come not in time, we must go to our appointed port in Long Island." Three days later, on the 23d of July, the Guinea and Elias arrived at Boston. Nicolls wrote at once to Thomas Willet at Plymouth, and Gov. Winthrop at Hartford, and ap- plied for assistance. On the 29th of July the vessels from "Pascataway " arrived at Boston. Further letters from Nicolls were sent to Winthrop asking for aid, and to Thomas Willets at Plymouth, and direct- ing them to meet the expedition at the west, instead of the east, end of Long Island. A few days later the ships sailed, and piloted by New Englanders, came direct to New Utrecht, or Nayack, Bay, now called Gravesend Bay, between the west end of Coney Island and the main, the Guinea arriving on the 25th of August, and the other three vessels three days later, on the 28th.
Winthrop with other Connecticut officials, and armed men, from that colony and the east end of Long Island, met them there, as well as Thomas Clarke and John Pynchon, of Boston, with offers of military aid from Massachusetts. On the 8th of the preceding July Thomas Willett had heard, from a young man of the name of Lord, a rumor from Boston, that an expedition had Railed from England to attack New Netherland, and immediately informed Governor Stuyvesant, but subsequently, for some reason, alleged that the troops had disembarked, that Commissioners to settle the boundaries were appointed, and that there was no danger. This put an end to Stuyvesant's anxiety, and he went to Albany to settle a quarrel among the Indians in that neighborhood. He was also lulled into security by the receipt of a despatch from the Directors at Amsterdam that no danger from England need be entertained as the King only wanted to reduce his own colonies to uniformity in church and State.1 The truth was, that the Directors of the Company, intently engaged in the public affairs of Holland (it was the period of John de Witt's ascen- dancy and the efforts of the Prince of Orange's party to destroy it) really neglected New Netherland, and their own interests there, giving both such slight at- tention, as not only disappointed its people, and their own officials, but facilitated, the treacherous action of the English King, and inclined its inhabitants to yield with less resistance and feeling to his military power, than they otherwise would.
Of course no real resistance,2 greatly as he desired to make it, could be offered, by Director-General Stuyvesant, and his people; and after several days negotiations, Articles of Capitulation were definitely settled by a commission, composed of John De Decker, Nicholas Varleth, Samuel Megapolensis, Cornelis Steenwyck, Jacques Cousseau, and Oloff Stevens
van Cortlandt, on the part of Director Stuyvesant, and Robert Carr, George Carteret, John Win- throp, Samuel Willys, John Pynchon, (the latter three of Connecticut), and Thomas Clarke (of Mas- sachusetts) on the part of Governor Nicolls, and con- sented to by both. The negotiations took place, and the terms were finally agreed upon, on Saturday, September 6th, 1664, at Gov. Stuyvesant's house in the Bowery. This house, as I have been told by the Hon. Hamilton Fish, now. the oldest living descend- ant of Stuyvesant, stood on what is now the block between 12th and 13th Streets facing the Third Avenue, as that part of the Bowery road is now called, and on the east side of that avenue. The old Stuy- vesant pear tree which stood till within a few years at the north east corner of 13th St. and Third Avenue was one the Governor planted in his garden. Nicolls ratified the articles the same day. The next day was Sunday, during which the Director-General and his Council considered them, and early on the morning of the succeeding day, Mon- day, September 8th, 1664, ratified them. About eleven o'clock of the same morning Stuyvesant marched out of the fort with the honors of war, at the head ofthe Dutch regulars, about 150 in number, and through Beaver street to the ship "Gideon," in which they were at once embarked for Holland, though she did not sail till some days later. A corporal's guard of the Eng- lish took possession of the fort as the Dutch marched out. "Col. Nicolls's and Sir Robert Carr's compan- ies one hundred and sixty-eight strong, formed into six columns of about thirty men each, next entered New Amsterdam; whilst Sir George Cartwright oc- cupied with his men the city gates and Town Hall." The volunteers from Connecticut and Long Island, were detained at the ferry at "Brenkelen," "as the citizens dreaded most being plundered by them." Finally the Burgomasters having proclaimed Nicolls Governor, he called Fort Amsterdam "Fort James," and the name of the city and Province he changed to "New York."" Thus ended the Dutch dominion in America, and thus forever passed away the great Batavian Province of New Netherland from the Re- public of the United Netherlands.
The Articles of Capitulation were twenty-three in number, and never were more favorable terms granted by a superior power. Great prudence on one side was met by great liberality on the other, and Nicolls proved that he was all that his commission as Dep- uty-Governor described him, honest, prudent, able, and fit. It would be foreign to our purpose to discuss these Articles of Capitulation, or as usually termed "Surrender," at length." Those only which bear upon our subject will be mentioned, viz-the third, eighth, eleventh, twelfth, sixteenth, and twenty-first. They are as follows :-
1 II. O'Call., 517.
" The details of Stuyvesant's action at this crisis are too numerous to be given in an essay of this kind, and are so generally known, at least in their outlines, as not to need further mention.
II. O'Call., 536.
" They are to be found in II. Col., Hist., 250; I. Brod., 762, and in many other historical works.
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THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.
"III. All people shall still continue free denizens, and shall enjoy their lands, houses, goods, wheresoever they are within this country, and dispose of them as they please.
"VIII. The Dutch here shall enjoy the liberty of their consciences in divine worship and church dis- cipline.
"XI. The Dutch here shall enjoy their own customs concerning their inheritances.
"XII. All publique writings and records, which concern the inheritances of any people, or the regle- ment [regulation] of the church, or poor, or orphans shall be carefully kept by those in whose hands now they are, and such writings as particularly concern the States-General may at any time be sent to them.
"XVI. All inferior civil officers and magistrates 'shall continue as now they are (if they please) till the customary time of new elections, and then new ones to be chosen by themselves, provided that such new chosen magistrates shall take the oath of allegiance to his majesty of England before they enter upon their office.
"XXI. That the town of Manhattans shall choose Deputyes, and those Deputyes shall have free voyces in all publique affaires as much as any other Depu- tyes."
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By the third, eighth, eleventh, and twelfth, all Dutch grants of land under the former laws and or- dinances, of the Province, and under the Roman- 'Dutch law, were acknowledged as valid, and the possession of them confirmed to their owners, as well 'as their former power of disposing of them by will, and all legal incidents thereto appertaining. This settled the question of the holding of the lands by their owners, at once, and proved that there would be no confiscation, or other interference with them, and no imposing of any English law of inheritance.
The sixteenth article confirmed and continued in their offices all the civil magistrates and officers of every grade in the country, from the highest to the lowest, and provided for the election of their success- ors, under the existing Dutch laws, conditioned only that the new officers, should take the oath of alle- giance to their new English King. No such oath was wisely demanded of the old ones, and the administra- tion of justice, not only in regard to lands, but in all its forms, went on precisely as if no change of govern- ment had taken place.
The twenty-first article confirmed to the City of New York, all the civil rights and powers it had un- der its former organization, and under the Assem- blies which had been called, and in which it had been represented, during Stuyvesant's administration. Its lands were preserved to it, and all rights in rela- tion thereto, by the same articles, which preserved the other lands of the province to their respective owners, as well as all the municipal rights, powers, and privileges the city possessed under the Dutch rule.
The Eighth article, in connexion with the twelfth, preserved, maintained, and continued, to the Estab- lished Dutch Church all its rights, privileges, and im- munities of creed and worship, and guaranteed to it freedom of conscience and church discipline, as well as the continuance of its regulations, as to its own concerns, and to the poor and to orphans, in the same hands, and under the same control, that they had ever been. But these articles did not continue it as the Established Church of the Province, or provide for its maintenance and control as such, by the government, or rather, through the government, as had been the case under the West India Company, and all the Charters of Freedoms and exemptions from the first to the last. They did however continue and guaran- tee to it everything else. Its lands and all its rights of property were guaranteed and continued to it by the same third, eighth, eleventh and twelfth articles, which guaranteed and maintained all the other land- holders of the Province in their rights of possession and property in their realty. In short the Dutch Church was acknowledged in its existence, confirmed in its creed, discipline, and worship, maintained in the possession of its property, and guaranteed in its rights in every respect and in every way. Nothing was altered, nothing abrogated, except its position as the Established Church of New Netherland. That was determined by the fall of the Dutch Province. Both were ended by the surrender to England. The new Province of New York had during its whole ex- istence no connexion officially, with the Dutch Church, or any other church, except "the Church of England as by law established."
When the Province was recaptured by the Dutch on the 8th of August 1673 the Dutch Church was re- established in all her rights, privileges, and powers, as she originally possessed them. And when the sec- ond surrender to the English was made pursuant to the treaty of Westminster in September 1674, all were guaranteed to her again precisely as in 1664, except, of course, her position as an establishment; and she was also permitted to keep up her ecclesiastical con- nexion with, and subjection to, the ecclesiastical bodies of the Established Church of Holland, a con- nexion and dependence which continued unimpaired until the close of the American Revolution more than a century later. The position of the Dutch Church as an Established Church, was the reason why it was 80 particularly guarded, and provided for, in the Articles of Capitulation of 1664, and again in the special articles of surrender formulated by Governor Colve, and carried into effect by the English Governor Andross, in 1674, no other church being mentioned or referred to in either. And to this circumstance is owing the fact, that it was in consequence of these provisions in both sets of articles, that during the en- tire existence of New York as an English Province, the Dutch Church was ever treated with greater favor than any other church dissenting from the Church of
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
England; and that between these two churches a cor- dial relation ever existed, and one which has been maintained down to this day, when both churches are flourishing, each with a name slightly changed, under a new political dominion, to a degree which was im- possible under either of the dominions of old.
The change from the Dutch system of government and laws to that of the English, was very gradual in- deed. It was no part of the policy of the Duke of York to make changes other than what might be ab- solutely necessary. All that he insisted upon, at first, was, that he should be acknowledged as Lord Propri- etor of the Province under the Patent from his brother King Charles the 2d, of 1652. The prudence, skill and wisdom of Richard Nicolls, his Deputy Governor, after much objection and opposition, which he completely and gently overcame, effected this; and between the 20th and 25th of October, 1664, hardly five weeks after the surrender, all the former Dutch officials, and nearly three hundred of the male inhabitants of New York, including Stuyvesant, van Cortlandt, van Ruyven, van Rensselaer and Beekman, took the oath of alle- giance to Charles the 2d and the Duke of York, as the lawful Sovereign, and the lawful Lord Proprietor of New York.
8.
The English System in the Province of New York under the Duke of York as Lord Proprietor.
From the eighth day of September, 1664, when the Surrender of New Netherland to the English took 'place, the right of soil, the right of domain, the right of jurisdiction, and the source of power, in the Prov- ince of New York, was vested, and acknowledged to be vested, in the Duke of York under the Patent to him from King Charles the Second of the 12th of March, 1664. In this Patent, perhaps the strongest, most sweeping, and most comprehensive in its terms, of any granted in America by an English Monarch, the King gave to the Duke the entire territory of New Netherland therein described, (though of course that name was not used) upon this tenure, namely ;- "To be holden of us our Heirs and Successors, as of our Manor of East Greenwich and our County of Kent, in free and common soccage and not in Capite, nor by Knight Service, yielding and rendering * * * * of and for the same, yearly and every year, forty beaver skins when they shall be demanded, or within Ninety days after."
The Patent was drawn by Lord Chancellor Claren- don, the Duke's father-in-law, and practically vested in him all the powers of an absolute Sovereign, sub- ject only in the execution of them to the laws of Eng- land. But in all matters not covered by those laws, his own rule in person, or by his Deputy-Governor, was supreme. The only power that was reserved to the King was the hearing and determining of Appeals from Judgments and Sentences.
The theory of the Patent was, that the King had
resumed control of a territory originally belonging to the Crown by the right of its discovery by the Cabots. That all people therein, Indians excepted, were tres- passers without legal right, that the territory was without lawful government, that the Sovereign of Great Britain, of his own right, therefore established there- in such government as he saw fit. That he chose to give, and did give, in the exercise of such right, the entire territory, and his own powers and rights there- in, and thereover, to his brother the Duke of York, with full authority to establish, and carry them into effect, as he should see fit. The only proviso, as to all " Laws, Orders, Ordinances, Directions and Instru- ments" that the Duke or his Deputy might make or execute, was, that they should " be not contrary to, but, as near as conveniently may be, agreeable to the Laws, Statutes and Government of this our Realm of England." 1
The principle the English acted on, was, that as regards the territory of New Netherland, the right of conquest governed, and the King could institute therein such form of government, system of laws and other in- stitutions, as he pleased. This view was not at all satis- factory to the owners and holders of land under Con- necticut titles in Suffolk County, Long Island, who were the very earliest to obtain new grants and patents from the Duke of York. The towns there took out patents from the Duke, with extreme reluctance, but they did it, nevertheless. Among these patents were that of Smithtown to Richard Smith of the 3d of March, 1665, that for Gardiner's Island in the same year, and that for Shelter Island to the Sylvesters of June 1st, 1666.
The principle just mentioned was essentially modi- fied in its application by two things. It was limited by the terms of the Articles of Surrender, which bound the conqueror as well as the conquered. And it was also limited by that rule of the law of nations, which provides that the ancient laws of a conquered people remain in force till changed by the conqueror.
Under these instruments and principles the rule of England, and the Lord Proprietorship of the Duke of York had its beginning in the "Province of New York in America." That Proprietorship lasted twen- ty-one years, (excepting only the fifteen months of the Dutch reconquest), ending on the 6th of February, 1685, on which day, by the death of his brother, King Charles, the Duke became James the Second, King of England. His Proprietary rights merging in those of the Crown on his accession to the throne, New York became thenceforward a Royal Province under a Royal Government, uncontrolled by any charter. From that time till the close of the Amer- ican Revolution by the Peace of 1783, she so remained, the freest and most flourishing of all the British American Provinces, ruled by her own people, enact- ing her own laws, supporting her own government
1 See Patent.
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THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.
and local institutions by taxation imposed by her own elected Legislature, and by her own parish, town, and county authorities.
The slight interruption, by the Dutch reconquest from the 9th of August, 1673, to the 10th of Novem- ber, 1674, did not, except for the time being, change the character of the Proprietorship of the Duke of Yurk in point of fact. But as the Province was re- stored by the Dutch to England as a conquest under a treaty and a formal surrender of it pursuant to such treaty, the crown lawyers in England held that the Dutch reconquest in 1673 terminated the Duke's Proprietorship; and that the renamed Province of New Netherland was vested anew in Charles the Second as King solely by the treaty of Westminster in 1674. Therefore a new Patent was granted by the King to the Duke on the 29th of June, 1674. It was almost in the same words as the first, vesting him again with the same sweeping and absolute rights and powers, but not mentioning the first Patent nor referring to it in any way. The object of this second Patent was to cure the defect in the first, that it was signed, sealed, and delivered, while the Dutch were in actual possession of the territory it described, and therefore it was, by the law of England, void; and was not subsequently confirmed by Charles the Sec- ond after the title was really vested in him in 1677, by the treaty of Breda. Had Charles made such a confirmation, no second Patent would have been re- quired.
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