USA > New York > The Empire State: a compendious history of the commonwealth of New York > Part 10
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6
A COTTAGE AT NEW AMSTERDAM.
Every house was surrounded by a garden, in which the chief vegetable cultivated was cabbage, and the principal flowers were tulips. The houses were plainly but sometimes richly furnished. It is said that the first carpet-a Turkey rug-seen in the city belonged to Sarah Oort, wife of the famous Captain Kidd. The clean floors were strewn daily with white beach sand wrought into artistic forms by the skilful use of the broom. Huge oaken chests filled with household linen of domestic manufacture were seen in a corner in every room, and in another corner a triangular cupboard with a glass door, sometimes, in which were displayed shining pewter and other plates. The wealthier citizens sometimes had china tea-sets and solid silver tankards, punch bowls, porringers, ladles, and spoons. Tea had only lately found its way to New York. Good horses were rare until they began to import them from New England, but their swine and cows were generally of excellent quality. There were no carriages until after the revolution of 1688. The first hackney coach seen in the city of New York was imported in 1696.
Clocks and watches were almost unknown. Time was measured by snn-dials and hour-glasses. The habits of the people were so regular that they did not need clocks and watches. They arose at cock-crowing, breakfasted at sunrise, and dined at eleven o'clock. At nine o'clock in
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DOMESTIC CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.
the evening they all said their prayers and went to bed. Dinner-parties were unknown, but tea-parties were frequent. These parties began at three o'clock in the afternoon in winter, and ended at six o'clock, when the participants went home in time to attend to the milking of the cows.
In every house were spinning-wheels, large and small, for making threads of wool and flax ; and it was the pride of every family to have an ample supply of home-made linen and woollen cloth. The women knit, spun, and wove, and were steadily employed. Nobody was idle. Nobody was anxious to gain wealth. A man worth $1000 was regarded as riel. All practised thrift and frugality. Books were rare luxuries, and in most houses the Bible and prayer-book constituted the stock of literature. The weekly discourses of the clergymen satisfied their intel- lectual wants, while their own hands, industriously employed, satisfied all their physical necessities. Utility was as plainly stamped upon all their labors as is the maker's name upon silver spoons. Yet they were a cheerful people, and enjoyed rollicking fun during hours of leisure and social intercourse. These were the " good old days" in the city of New York- days of simplicity, comparative inno- cence and positive ignorance, when the commonalty no more suspected the earth of the caper of turning over like a ball of yarn every day than Stuyvesant did the Puritans of candor and honesty.
"The pioneers of New York," says Brodhead, "left their impress deeply upon the State. Far-reaching com- meree, which had made old Amsterdam THE FLAG OF HOLLAND. the Tyre of the seventeenth century, early provoked the envy of the colonial neighbors of New Amsterdam, and in the end made her the emporium of the Western world. . Cherished birthdays yet recall the memories of the genial anniversaries of the Fatherland ; and year by year the people are invited to render thanks to their God, as their fathers were invited, long before Man- hattan was known, and while New England was yet a desert. These forefathers humbly worshipped the King of kings, while they fearlessly rejected the kings of men.
" The emigrants who first explored the coasts and reclaimed the soil of New Netherland, and bore the flag of Holland to the wigwam of the Iroquois, were generally bluff, plain-spoken, earnest, yet unpresumptuous men, who spontaneously left their native land to better their condition
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
and bind another province to the United Netherlands. They brought over with them the liberal ideas and honest maxims and homely virtues of their country. They introduced their church and their schools, their dominies and their school-masters. They carried along with them their
huge clasped Bibles, and left them heirlooms in their families. . . . The Dutch province always had both popular freedom and public spirit enough to attract within its borders voluntary immigrants from the neighboring British colonies. If the Fatherland gave an asylum to self- exiled Puritans of England, New Netherland as liberally sheltered refugees from the intolerant governments on her eastern frontier. . Without underrating others, it may confidently be claimed that to no nation in the world is the Republic of the West more indebted than to the United Provinces for the idea of a confederation of States ; for noble principles of constitutional freedom ; for magnanimous sentiments of religious toleration ; for characteristic sympathy with the subjects of oppression ; for liberal doctrines in trade and commerce ; for illustrious patterns of private integrity and public virtue, and for generous and timely aid in the establishment of independence. Nowhere among the people of the United States can any be found excelling in honesty, industry, courtesy, or accomplishments the posterity of the carly Dutch settlers in New Netherland." *
Upon such a foundation-a people who made the hearth-stone the test of citizenship, and demanded residence and loyalty as the only guarantee of faithfulness as citizens-and a happy mixture, in time, of various nationalities and theological ideas, has been reared the grand superstruc- ture of the Empire State of New York.
The Dutch West India Company tried to shift the responsibility of the loss of New Netherland from their own shoulders to those of Stuy- vesant. They declared that he had not done his duty well, and asked the States-General to disapprove the " scandalous surrender" of New Amsterdam. The sturdy old Frieslander made serious counter-charges of remissness in duty against the company, and sustained them by sworn testimony taken at New York. He went to Holland in 1665 and urged the States-General to make a speedy decision of his case. There was. delay. The dispute was finally ended in 1667 by the peace between Holland and England, concluded at Breda. Then Stuyvesant returned to America, where he was cordially welcomed by his old friends, and kindly received by his political enemies, who had already learned from experience that he was not a worse governor than the duke had sent
* Brodhead's History of the State of New York, i. 747.
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CHARACTER OF PETER STUYVESANT.
them. He retired to his bouwerie or farm on the East River, where he enjoyed the respect of his fellow-citizens. There he died in 1682, at the age of eighty years. Under the venerable church of St. Mark his mortal remains repose. In the northern wall of that venerable fane may be seen a free-stone slab on which is engraved a memorial inscription.
With all his faults, Peter Stuyvesant was a grand man of the time in which he lived. Obedient to every behest of duty and conscience ; zealous in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his people and country ; lion-hearted in the maintenance of what he deemed to be right and just ; with unswerving loyalty to religious and political erceds, in his day, and viewing with supreme contempt the treachery of one of the most despicable of the British monarchs toward his unsuspecting ally, he felt it to be a degradation to yield an iota to the demands of the royal robber, who was incapable of exercising any truly noble aspiration or truly generous impulse.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
CHAPTER VII.
THE surrender of New Netherland to the English being accomplished, a new provincial government for New York was organized under Colonel Nicolls as chief magistrate. Matthias Nicolls was made secretary of the province. The governor chose for his Council, Robert Needham, Thomas Delavall, Secretary Nicolls, Thomas Topping, and William Wells. Mr. Delavall was made collector and receiver-general of New York. The Dutch municipal officers of New Amsterdam were retained. A few days after the surrender the burgomasters wrote to the Dutch West India Company giving an account of the event, and adding : "Since we are no longer to depend upon your honors' prom- ises or protection, we, with all the poor, sor- rowing, and abandoned commonalty, must fly for refuge to the Almighty God, not doubting but He will stand by us in this sorely afflicting conjunction."
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SEAL OF THE DUKE OF YORK .*
A harmonious arrangement was made for divine worship in New York. The Dutch church in the fort was the only fane in the city dedicated to Jehovah, and it was cor- dially agreed that after the Dutch morning service on the Sabbath the English chaplain should read the English Episcopal service to the governor and the garrison. Upon this footing the English Episcopal Church and the Dutch Church in New York remained for more than thirty years.
The dreams of freedom under British rule in New York were never realized by the Dutch. They soon found that a change of masters did not increase their prosperity or happiness. "Fresh names and laws did
* Burke says the Duke of York was directed, by a royal warrant issued in 1652, to use a seal, delineated above, which bore the royal arms of the Stuarts quartered with those of France and England. It was used as the first seal of the province of New York under the English. It was both pendant and incumbent. The engraving represents a pendant seal attached to the first charter of the city of Albany, 1686.
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UNDER THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS.
not secure fresh liberties. Amsterdam was changed to York, and Orange to Albany ; but these changes only commemorated the titles of a conqueror. It was nearly twenty years before that conqueror allowed for a brief period to the people of New York even that faint degree of representative government which they had enjoyed when the tri-colored ensign of Holland was hauled down from the flag-staff of Fort Amster- dam. New Netherland exchanged Stuyvesant and the Dutch West India Company and a republican sovereignty for Nicolls and a royal proprietor and a hereditary king. The province was not represented in Parliament ; nor could the voice of the people reach the chapel of St. Stephen at Westminster as readily as it had reached the chambers of the Binnenhof at the Hague." *
Governor Nicolls required the Dutch inhabitants, who numbered about two thirds of the population of New Netherland, to take an oath of allegiance to the British monarch. The king having authorized the duke to make laws for the colony, the latter empowered Governor Nicolls and his Council to do so withont the concurrence of representa- tives of the people. The code so prepared, and known as " The Duke's Laws," was promulgated in the spring of 1665.+
In order to gain the good-will of the Dutch, Nicolls allowed the munic- ipal government of the city to continue in the form in which he found it. When, in February, 1665, the terms of the municipal officers expired, they were allowed, as usual, to nominate their successors. They chose Oloff Stevens van Cortlandt, burgomaster ; Timothy Gabry, Johannes van Brugh, Johannes de Peyster, Jacob Kip, and Jacques Coosseau, aldermen ; and Allard Anthony, sheriff.
A little later the government of the city of New York was changed so as to make it more " conformable to the English." The governor selected Thomas Willett, Stuyvesant's wise counsellor in diplomacy, and then a resident of New Plymonth, to be the first Mayor of New York.
* Brodhead's History of the State of New York, ii. 44.
t There was only a pretence of consultation with representatives of the people in the construction of these laws. A meeting of thirty-four delegates was held at Hempstead, on the call of Governor Nicolls, who laid before them the laws he had caused to be com- piled from those of New England ; but when the delegates proposed any amendments they found that they had been assembled merely to accept laws which had been prepared for them. They had merely exchanged the despotism of Stuyvesant for English des- potism.
# Johannes de Peyster was the first of his name who came to New Netherland. He was a man of wealth, and became active in public affairs. He was chosen burgomaster in 1673, while the Dutch had temporary possession of the province, and afterward suffered much from the petty tyranny of Governor Andros. He was the ancestor of the De Peyster family in America, some of whom have been distinguished in the history of our country.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
One hundred and forty-two years afterward (1807) Marinus Willett, his great-great-grandson, was mayor of that city, then freed from British rule. It was in May, 1665, that the first Mayor and Board of Aldermen
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SIGNATURE AND ARMS OF JOHANNES DE PEYSTER.
for the city of New York were appointed. Three of them were English- men -- Willett, Delavall, and Lawrence-and four of them were Hol- landers -- Van Cortlandt, Van Brugh, Van Ruyven (former secretary of Stuyvesant), and Anthony.
War between Holland and Great Britain broke out again early in 1665. The Dutch had resolved no longer to submit to the domination of the English. The States-General authorized the Dutch West India Company to " attack, conquer, and ruin the English, both in and out of Europe, on land and water." The confliet raged chiefly on the ocean, and was terminated by a treaty at Breda at the close of June, 1667, when New Netherland was formally given up to Great Britain.
Meanwhile two royalist favorites-Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret-had per- suaded the duke to convey to them a part of the magnificent domain in America, which was not yet in his possession, for the expedi- tion sent to seize it was still (June, 1664) out upon the ocean. These favorites had been OFYO prompted to ask this grant by the " usurper" Scott-" born to work mischief "-for the purpose of injuring the duke, who had re- ARMS OF THE CARTERETS. fused to let him have Long Island. The duke conveyed the whole of the beautiful territory between the Hudson River and the Delaware to Berkeley and Carteret, and in memory of the gallant defence of the island of Jersey by the lat- ter, he named the domain in the charter Nova Caesarea, or New Jersey.
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BEGINNING OF ENGLISH RULE AT NEW YORK.
Richard Nicolls * governed New York judiciously and wisely for about four years, when he resigned the government into the hands of his appointed successor, Francis Lovelace. The latter had visited Long Island in 1652 under a pass from Cromwell's Conncil of State, and passed thence into Virginia. He was a phlegmatic, indolent, and good-natured man, and of a mild and generous disposition, his weakness cansing him oc- casionally to exercise petty tyranny. He was unfitted to encounter great storms, yet he showed considerable energy in dealing with the French and Indians on the northern frontier of New York during his ad- ministration.
One of Lovelace's wisest counsellors and the most influ- ential man in the province at that time was Cornelis Steen- wyck,t a wealthy citizen, and who held the office of mayor CORNELIS STEENWYCK. for three years during the ad- ministration of Lovelace. It was at his large storehouse that the corpo- ration gave a banquet to Governor Nicolls on his retirement from office.
* Nicolls was born in Bedfordshire in 1624, the son of a London barrister. He was a descendant of the Earl of Elgin. At the breaking out of the civil war he joined the royal forces, leaving college for the purpose, and soon obtained command of a troop of horse. As an attaché of the Duke of York, after the death of Charles, he served in France, first under Marshal Turenne, and then under the Prince of Condé. After the Restoration he returned to England, found employment at court, became a favorite, and was made the duke's deputy governor of New York. He returned to England in 1668.
+ Cornelis Steenwyck emigrated to New Netherland from Haarlem, Holland. He was a merchant, who arrived at New Amsterdam about 1652, and engaged in trade, principally in tobacco for the European market. He was rated among the most wealthy citizens in 1655. In 1658 he married Margaretta de Riemer, daughter of a widow who conducted a small mercantile establishment in New Amsterdam. The widow was married the next year to Dominie Drissius, the Dutch clergyman of New Amsterdam. Steenwyck had a fine residence on the south-west corner of (present) Whitehall and Bridge streets. He was a very active man in public affairs as burgomaster, delegate to the General Assembly, and colleague of De Ruyven in carrying Stuyvesant's letters to Nicolls, and in the busi- ness of surrender.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
Lovelace held friendly intercourse with the people of New England, and when, in 1673, there was war again between Holland and Great Britain, and a Dutch squadron appeared before his capital in August, he was on a friendly visit to Governor Winthrop, of Connecticut. With disaffection to his government he was always impatient ; and when the inhabitants in the territory of "New Sweden," on the Delaware, and also on Long Island, showed a rebellious spirit, he, at the suggestion of a Swede, levied heavy taxes upon them, and told them that they should have no liberty for any other thought than how they should pay their assessments.
At the close of July, 1673, a Dutch squadron, commanded by Admirals Evertsen and Binekes, twenty-three vessels in all, including numerous prizes, and bearing six hundred land troops, arrived off Sandy Hook, and soon anchored above the Narrows in sight of New York. The admirals sent a summons to the commander of the fort there to sur- render. The English were taken by surprise. Captain John Manning, who was in command of the fort, sent a messenger to Governor Lovelace in Connecticut, ordered the drums to beat for volunteers, and sent to the nearest towns on Long Island for re-enforcements. None came. The Dutch in the city showed signs of serious disaffection. The call for volunteers was little heeded. Few appeared, and those who did re- spond came as enemies instead of friends, and spiked the cannon parked in front of the City Hall. In this extremity Manning sent a deputation to the Dutch commander to inquire why he had come "in such a hostile manner to disturb His Majesty's subjects."
ADMIRAL CORNELIS EVERTSEN.
" We have come," he replied, "to take what is our own, and our own we will have."
Manning tried to gain time by procrastination. The war - ships floated up with the tide within musket-shot of the fort without firing a gun. At the end of half an hour the ships fired broadsides and killed and wounded some of the garrison. The fort returned the fire, and shot the flag-ship " through and through." Then six hundred men were landed, when about four hundred armed burghers encouraged their countrymen to storm the fort.
89
RECONQUEST BY THE DUTCH.
Perceiving resistance under the circumstances to be useless, a white flag was displayed over the fort, and a deputation was sent out to meet the advaneing storming party at near sunset. A capitulation was soon effected, when the fort and garrison were surrendered with the honors of war. The Dutch soldiers marched into the fort and the English soldiers marched out of it with colors flying and drums beating, and grounded their arms. Then the English garrison was ordered back, and were made prisoners of war in the church within the fort. The tri- colored banner of the Dutch Republic took its old place on the flag-staff of the fort, and the heart of Stuyvesant, who was a witness of the event, was filled with joy. New Amsterdam had been snatched from the Dutch by an English robber, who came stealthily while Holland and Great Britain were at peace. New York had been honorably taken by a Dutch squadron-an open enemy-engaged in war with Great Britain. The name of New Netherland was now restored to the reconquered territory. It then had three chief towns, thirty villages, and between six and seven thousand Dutch inhabitants. Fort James was renamed Fort William Henry in honor of the Prince of Orange. Captain Anthony Colve* was chosen to be governor-general of the province, his commission defining it as extending from " fifteen miles south of Cape Hinlopen to the east end of Long Island and Shelter Island ;" on the main north from Greenwich as defined in 1650, and including " Dela- ware Bay and all intermediate territory possessed by the Duke of York."
The name of the city of New York was changed to New Orange, and Albany to Willemstadt. The municipal government was re-estab- lished after the Dutch pattern. Anthony de Milt was appointed schout, Johannes van Brugh, Johannes de Peyster, and Egidius Luyek were chosen burgomasters, and William Beeckman, Jeronimus Ebbing, Jacob Kip, Laurens van der Spiegel, and Gelyn Ver Planck were made schepens. + Evertsen and Binckes issued a proclamation ordering
Colve was " a man of resolute spirit, and passionate," whose arbitrary nature had not been improved by military training. When made governor, he sought to magnify the office by setting up a coach drawn by three horses. He ruled with energy and some- times with severity. When an English force demanded the surrender of the province to English rule, provided by treaty, and Edmond Andros claimed the right to take the seat of CoIve, the latter yielded to the inevitable with grace. He even went so far as to present to Andros his coach and three horses. After the formal surrender Colve returned to Holland.
+ After the recovery of New York by the English Captain Manning was tried by a court-martial on a charge of cowardice and treachery, found guilty, and sentenced to have his sword broken over his head by the executioner in front of the City Hall, and forever incapacitated to hold any office, civil or military, in the gift of the crown. Gov- ernor Lovelace was severely reprimanded, and his estates were confiscated and given to
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
the seizure of all property and debts belonging to the kings of France and England, or their subjects, and urging every person to report such property to the Secretary of the Province, Nicholas Bayard. De Ruyven, who had been made the receiver of the duke's revenue, although an old Dutchman, was required to give a strict account.
The swift reconquest of New York startled the other English colonies in America, and some of them prepared for war. Connecticut foolishly talked of an offensive war. Colve was wide awake, and watched current events around him with great vigilance. He kept his eye on the move- ments of the Frenchmen and barbarians on the north ; watched every hostile indication on the east, and compelled hesitating boroughs on Long Island and in Westchester to take the oath of allegiance to the Prince of Orange. He made strong the fortifications of New York, planting no less than one hundred and ninety cannons around the city and on the fort.
The triumph of the Dutch was of short duration. The reconquest was an accident, not the result of a preconceived plan. The happy dreams of a Belgic empire in America were, in a few months, suddenly dispelled, for a treaty negotiated at Westminster (London) early in 1674 ended the war, and upon the principle of reciprocal restitution, New Netherland was restored to the British crown, and remained thereafter a British province until the war for independence in 1775-83. Doubts having arisen respecting the effects of these political changes upon the duke's title to his American possessions, the king confirmed it by issuing a new charter in June, 1674.
Meanwhile France had been endeavoring to establish and extend her dominion on the borders of the great lakes, especially Ontario. The strong right arm of her power in this work was composed of Jesuit mis- sionaries, who carried the lilies of France wherever they displayed the emblems of Christianity. French soldiers followed in the path of these missionaries. Wars between the French and barbarians within the domain of the State of New York, as well as alliances, had taken place. In the hearing of the barbaric tribes the imposing ritual service of the Church of Rome had been read and chanted for more than a score of years.
At the period of the political changes in New York here mentioned, the Jesuits were active among the Iroquois. They had established a sort
the Duke of York. Admiral Evertsen, the commander of the Dutch forces that retook New Netherland, assisted in conveying the forces of William, Prince of Orange, to England in 1688.
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FRONTENAC AND THE IROQUOIS.
of metropolitan station among the Mohawks at Caughnawaga, on the north side of the Mohawk River, in (present) Fulton County, and were successful in making converts among the Mohawks and Oneidas.
Working in concert with the missionaries, for State purposes, was the able Governor-General of Canada, Count Louis Frontenac. Learning from the Jesuits early in 1673 that the Iroquois were not well disposed toward the French, he made a pompous visit to the eastern end of Lake Ontario and there held a conference with delegates from the Five Nations, whom he had invited to meet him. The object of the conference was to impress the barbarians with a sense of the power of Canada. With two bateaux gaudily painted, each carrying sixteen men and a small cannon mounted, accompanied by one hundred and twenty canoes and four hundred men, he ascended the St. Lawrence. The conference was held on the site of Kingston. It was exceedingly friendly. The count tried to persuade the Iroquois sachems and chiefs to consent to allow their youths to learn the French language. He called the Five Nations his "children," and in every way tried to win their supreme affection for the French. But he was unsuccessful ; he only won their friendly feel- ings, and a safeguard for the missionaries among them. He did not weaken in the least degree their attachnient to the Dutch.
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