USA > New York > New York City > The Memorial History of the City of New York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892, Volume II > Part 13
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On March 28, 1708, Queen Anne's chief secretary of state, Lord Sunderland, wrote to inform the "Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations" that her Majesty had appointed John, Lord Love- lace, Governor of New- York and New Jersey. As was customary, with the commission were usually given also a new GON set of instructions, and the lords of trade were requested to draw these .F.P up. But it was not till the middle of October ST. BARTHOLOMEW MEDAL.2 that Lord Lovelace departed for New-York. It is easy to surmise what detained him thus for more than half a year. England was then in the midst of the "War of the Spanish Succession," and stood at the forefront in the coalition of European states against France and Spain. Her American colonies felt the effect of this conflict. Where they bordered on the Spanish settlements in the south, and the French at the north, hostilities were carried on briskly, and the period is known in our annals as "Queen Anne's War." The Duke of Marlborough was then conducting the armies of his nation and its allies upon a career of almost uninterrupted success; his every battle was a victory, and every siege meant the reduction of the beleaguered place. But the spring of 1708, when Lord Love- lace received his appointment, was an especially critical period in the history of the war. The battle of Ramillies, in 1706, had resulted in completely driving the French from Belgium, and the cities of Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges had declared for the allies, renouncing their allegiance to Spain, and had accepted garri-
1 Macaulay's "History of England " (London, 1849), 2 : 493, 494, 638.
" In honor of the St. Bartholomew massacre a medal was struck by order of the pope, Gregory XIII. It has on the obverse side a head of the pope, surrounded by lettering indicating his name VOL. II .- 7.
and office. The reverse exhibits a destroying angel, with a cross in one hand and a sword in the other, pursuing and slaying a flying and prostrate band of heretics. Thelegend is: "Vgonottorvm strages, 1572." (Slaughter of the Huguenots.)
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sons to prevent their being retaken by their ancient masters. But, early in 1708, the tide suddenly turned: fortune seemed to abandon the arms of England, and the star of France, now in league with Spain, was once again in the ascendant. The Prince of Vendôme penetrated as far as the province of Flanders, and Ghent and Bruges were quickly reduced. With these important strongholds in their possession, that of the whole of Flemish Belgium, reaching from the boundaries of France to those of the Dutch Republic, was assured. This would make the reduction of all Belgium but a question of time.
Now, therefore, if at any time, national pride as well as military duty called every Englishman of the age and rank of the Baron of Hurley around the standard of the great duke. With characteristic promptness a campaign of vigorous offensive operations was at once determined upon and instituted by Marlborough. Joining the troops stationed in Flanders, he concentrated them into one mass preparatory to withdrawing them from this province, intending to make Brussels his base of operations, as well as to prevent its being taken by the enemy. In effecting this manœuver he necessarily had to assume the appearance of a retreat, which served only to excite the French with the hope of certain victory, and sent them in eager and confident pur- suit. But at Oudenarde, a village on the southern confines of Flanders, and thirty-three miles directly west of Brussels, Marlborough made a sudden halt, and wheeling around he fell with well-directed and irre- sistible impetus upon the astonished foe (July 11). It was "a battle fought with muskets, bayonets, and sabers. Neither of the contend- ing parties had much artillery on the ground."1 The manner of bring- ing on the action, almost a ruse on the part of the invincible duke, would account for this peculiar circumstance. The superior numbers of the French availed nothing: they were utterly defeated. Again were they driven from the Low Countries, and before the year closed more than one city of France in proximity to the Belgian border had been secured by the allies. "The annals of war," writes Sir Archi- bald Alison, "can afford no parallel of the skill and resolution of that immortal campaign." Evidently Lord Lovelace, besides sharing in the active operations, and perhaps also in the battle of Oudenarde itself, needed to wait till the full glory of the campaign had been reaped, and the opposing forces had retired to winter quarters, before he could be released and allowed to proceed to his seat of government in North America.
About the middle of October, 1708, Lord John embarked on board her Majesty's ship Kingsale. He was accompanied by his wife, Lady Charlotte, daughter of Sir John Clayton, and his three sons, all lads of tender age, John, Wentworth, and Nevil; little dreaming as
1 Wilson's " Sketches of Illustrious Soldiers," p. 201.
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they set out on this voyage that the ravages of death would permit but two of this interesting household to return to their native coun- try. The Kingsale, well armed and strongly manned, was one of a fleet; for it was a time of war, and only the year before Colonel Robert Hunter, who was destined to succeed Lord Lovelace in New- York, had been captured by a French man-of-war on his way to Vir- ginia, of which province he had been appointed lieutenant-governor; but, by reason of this detention as prisoner in France, he never qualified for office in the southern colony.
The passage proved to be a stormy one, and so rough and un- pleasant was the experience to Lord Lovelace that he earnestly con- tended that at this season of the year not even sailors should be exposed to the terrors of the sea. "No ship ought to be sent hither from England after August at farthest," he wrote. The. idea, while doing credit to Lord Lovelace's considerateness, is somewhat amus- ing in the light of the development of ocean navigation, as witnessed within the past year, when even "records" made in the summer season were broken in the face of November storms of unusual violence. But Lovelace could not foresee the miracles of human achievement of almost two centuries after his date. And he certainly had some reason to complain of the elements. When approaching our "terrible coast," early in December, the squadron encountered a tempest which drove the Kingsale out of her course and separated her so completely from her consorts that no trace of any of them had been found even after the governor's arrival in the city, with the exception of the Unity, which grounded upon a point of land at Sandy Hook, but got off without loss of life.
The Kingsale was forced to seek refuge in Buzzard's Bay. Descend- ing thence, after the storm had abated, she pursued her course through the Long Island Sound. Either the masses of floating ice, or the in- tricacies and perils of the Hell Gate channel, determined her captain to land at the village of Flushing, on Long Island. It was an unfor- tunate circumstance for the new governor and his family. Instead of being carried in the comfortable ship directly to the city, they were now compelled to expose themselves, during a land journey of several miles, and the crossing of the East River by ferry, to the inclemency of an unusually severe winter, in a climate to which they were not accustomed, and where this season was ordinarily much colder than in England. The winter of 1708 and 1709 is noted in history as a par- ticularly severe one. In Europe it added to the horrors of war by destroying vineyards in sections where frost was scarcely ever known. In other parts the grain already in the ground for the next year's har- vest was frozen, and poverty and famine thus stared the people of the contending nations in the face. In America it set in early, and was
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exceedingly rigorous; the rivers and harbors which the Kingsale passed on her way along the Sound were full of ice. That of New- York, too, was made almost impassable by the masses of ice in blocks and large fields rushing up and down on either side of the city with the incoming and outflowing tides. When it is remembered what difficulty is experienced by the powerful ferry-boats of our day in Dan Horsmanten crossing from shore to shore under these circumstances, it may be imagined what it must have been to effect a pas- sage in a small open boat across the East River, from the "ferry at Breukelen " to the city, in 1708. As it was, Governor Lovelace and two of his children caught serious colds from which none of them recovered.
On the morning of December 18, 1708, nine weeks and a few days after his departure from England, Lord Lovelace finally set foot within the capital of his province. Preparations on a liberal scale had been made for his reception. Lord Cornbury himself was present to wel- come his successor, and to induct him with what grace he could into the office which, it was plain to him as to every one, he had forfeited by his misconduct and inefficiency. It is not likely that the new governor was subjected to the fatigues of these inaugural ceremonies on the day of his arrival. But in honor of this event Lord Cornbury and the council had made provision for a dinner or banquet, which was served on that day in the governor's mansion in the fort.1 When, on the next day, or a few days later, the new governor's commission was publicly announced and read from the gate at the fort, or from the City Hall in Wall street, it may well be believed, after their six years of Cornbury, that the people watched with eagerness for any signs that could give them reason for hoping that the change in gov- ernors would be an improvement. With this purpose, many a search- ing glance was doubtless directed toward him as he made his first public appearance. They would then have beheld a man not much more than forty years of age, prepossessing, if not too greatly harassed by the sufferings of his trying journey; for "nature had endowed him with a magistick and amiable countenance," as Rector Vesey informs us in the funeral sermon he was so soon called upon to preach. A man of refinement and education, too, having graduated at the university; and of military bearing, doubtless, fresh from the glorious campaign in Flanders. A man, once more, of a kindly heart and great consider-
1 It would appear as if even this last act of pro- viding a suitable reception for his successor gave the retiring governor an opportunity of display- ing his criminal disregard of financial obligations. At least as late as February, 1712, the honest caterer Henry Swift (perhaps the Delmonico of his day), who, by an order of governor and coun-
cil, dated November 17, 1708, had been engaged to furnish the "dinner," as he modestly calls it, was still petitioning for his compensation, which he placed at the not very exorbitant figure of £46 7s. 6d., say about $235. ("New-York Colonial MSS.," LVII. f. 80.)
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ation for others placed in different and lowlier circumstances from himself; for even on that exciting day of his arrival his heart was op- pressed by the uncertainty of the fate of those in the other ships; and in the first official letter, written later on this same day to the lords of trade, bearing in mind the sufferings of the poor seamen, and rec- ommending a rule of navigation which should prevent their exposure to the rigors of a winter passage in the future.1
But personal amiability or tender-heartedness, while it might pre- vent a needlessly harsh or unjust interpretation of his instructions, did not leave the governor at liberty to depart from them in the per- formance of his functions. Largely by reason of the execrable behavior of Lord Cornbury, the people had come to rise up in arms (figuratively speaking as yet) against the royal prerogative, and with a unanimity as surprising as it was significant, considering the serious divisions that had arisen out of the Leisler troubles; for many of those who had stood out on the side of constituted authority, and whose adher- ence to conservative policy had caused the sharp line to be drawn be- tween the Leislerians and anti-Leislerians ever since, were forced into a position of antagonism to the royal claims as interpreted by the ex- travagant demands for money and the arbitrary exercise of his functions on the part of the ruined spendthrift and profligate who had just been superseded. It was a matter of importance to know, therefore, whether there were any modification or moderation in the royal claims in the instructions to the new governor. These, however, were in no sense different from the ones given to Cornbury. The instructions which the lords of trade, in reply to Lord Sunderland's request of March 28, reported on May 31, 1708, they declared to be "to the same pur- pose as those that have from time to time been given to the Lord Corn- bury."2 These were a few additional instructions prepared for Lord Lovelace in July, intending to correct some abuses which had arisen on account of certain "extravagant grants of land made by Colonel Benjamin Fletcher."3 A lengthy paper was likewise drawn up by the lords of trade, for the guidance of the governor in the affairs of the province of New Jersey, which it is needless for the purposes of this history to do more than mention here.
The council appointed to share the responsibilities and cares of gov- ernment with Lord Lovelace was composed of gentlemen some of whom were members of Cornbury's cabinet, and most of whose names have already become familiar to the reader of these pages. Colonel Peter Schuyler, the first mayor of Albany, the friend of the Indians on the Mohawk, and president of the convention at Albany which so long resisted Leisler's authority, was president of Lovelace's council.
1 " Documents relating to the Colonial History of New-York," 5: 67. 2 Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., 5 : 42. 3 Ibid., 5: 54.
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Next to him was Dr. Gerardus Beeckman, who had been a member of Leisler's council. Rip Van Dam and Thomas Wenham, associated with Colonel Nicholas Bayard in a measure of opposition to Lieutenant- Governor Nanfan, appear next on the list. These, with Chief Justice Mompesson, had been: members also of Lord Cornbury's council. Adolph Philipse, the son of Frederick Phil- ipse, prominent under previous administra- tions; John Barberie, a descendant of the Huguenots, and con- nected by marriage with the Van Cortlandt family; and William Peartree, a merchant, who had been mayor of the city in the years 1703 to 1706, were new accessions to the num- ber of royal councilors.
The first meeting of the council, after Lord in THE VAN CORTLANDT MANOR-HOUSE. Lovelace's assumption of his office, was held on January 5, 1709.1 The action that was then taken was one usual at the accession of a new governor. It was ordered that a procla- mation be published declaring the present provincial assembly dis- solved. At the same time writs for the election of a new assembly were issued, which was to take place on March 10. The assembly then elected met on April 6, their only business that day being the choosing of a speaker. This honor was conferred, or rather con- firmed, upon William Nicoll, who had held the office during the six preceding years, and who was consecutively reelected for ten years thereafter, when failing health compelled him to decline. Having been duly organized for legislative action, the assembly was ushered into the presence of Lord Lovelace and his council on the next day. He administered to them the oaths of allegiance, they subscribed their names to the inevitable "Test Act," and he then addressed them in the following speech:
1 To be perfectly correct this date should be written January 5, 1708, because by Englishmen the New Year was considered as beginning at that period on March 25; and on the minutes of the council 1708, appears for dates in January and
February, and part of March. But it will be less confusing to the modern mind, after this explana- tory note, to use the number of the year accord- ing to our present calculations.
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Gentlemen : I have called you together as early as you could well meet with conve- niency to yourselves to consult of those things which are necessary to be done at this time for her Majesty's services and the good of the province. The large supplies of soldiers and stores of war for your support and defense, together with those necessary presents for your Indian neighbors, which her Majesty has now sent you at a time when the charge of the war is so great at home, are evident proofs of her particular care of you, and I assure myself they will be received with those testimonies of loyalty and gratitude which such royal favors deserve from an obliged and grateful people. I am sorry to find that the public debt of the province is so great as it is, and that the gov- ernment here hath so little credit, if any at all, left; a government under a queen as famous for her prudent and frugal management at home as for her warlike and glorious actions abroad. I can not in the least doubt, gentlemen, but that you will raise the same revenue for the same term of years, for the support of the government, as was raised by Act of Assembly in the eleventh year of the reign of the late King William of glorious memory; and I hope you will also find out ways and means to discharge the debt that hath been contracted, and allow to the persons concerned a reasonable interest till the principal is discharged. To that end I desire you to examine and state the public ac- counts, that it may be known what this debt is, and that it may appear hereafter that it was not contracted in my time. I must in particular desire you to provide for the necessary repairs of the fortifications of the province. The barracks are so small and so much out of repair, that I have been necessiated [sic] to billet the recruits that came over with me upon this city, which I am sensible hath been a burthen to the inhabitants, but I hope you will soon ease them of that burthen. The fitting out a good sloop to attend her Majesty's men-of-war in their cruisings on this coast, I take to be so neces- sary for the preserving of your navigation that I expect you will find out a proper method to defray that charge. I am willing my salary should be taxed, that I may pay my quota to so useful a service. I think myself obliged further to recommend to your consideration how to prevent the exportation of gold and silver coin out of the province, least in a short time your trade should suffer for want thereof. The queen hath nothing more at heart than the prosperity of her subjects. I shall approve myself to her Maj- esty in pursuing those methods that will best conduce to that end. It shall be my con- stant care to promote peace and union amongst you, to encourage you in your trade, and to protect you in the possession of your just rights and privileges.1
Here then was a clear and candid presentment of the condition of affairs in the province, and of the more pressing necessities that con- fronted the assembly. It was put before them in the best of tempers, and with a transparent honesty. What a contrast between that vol- untary proposition of a tax on his salary to carry out the scheme of the armed sloop, and Lord Cornbury's demand for an exorbitant sum from the assemblies of both provinces ! Remembering his predecessor's exceedingly loose principles in money matters, it was only natural that Lord Lovelace should wish to have it definitely understood that "the burthen of public debt " was not contracted in his time. The main question at issue, however, turned upon the raising of a revenue for a term of years. That had been done by act of assembly in 1702, for a term of seven years. It was now about to expire. But Cornbury's conduct had taught the colonists a lesson, and they saw the advan-
1 "Journal of the Legislative Council of New-York," 1: 276, 277.
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tage of voting a revenue only from year to year, and of accompanying the grant with specific appropriations to the purposes it should be used for. This issue prepared a battle-ground for years to come, result- ing finally in victory and independence for the colonies. "The history of the English continental colonies during the first half of the eigh- teenth century was largely made up of petty bickerings between the popular assemblies and the royal governors. The principle at stake was important; a fixed salary-grant would have been in the nature of a tax imposed by the crown. The acrimonious contention was greatly disturbing to all material interests, but it served as a most valuable constitutional training-school for the Revolution."1 The as- sembly of New-York were not a whit behind their brethren of the other colonies in standing by their colors. Lord Lovelace, however kindly of heart, and described by one of their own officials as "a Gentleman of those Qualifications, Excell' temper, and goodness, that, had he lived longer with us, he wou'd have reviv'd the country from its former calamity,"2 yet was the representative of the crown, and the representatives of the people were now abnormally sensi- tive to any possible encroachments on their rights, and correspond- ingly suspicious of the exercise of any governor's functions. They resolved not to accede to his request for the repetition of the grant for a number of years; and for this reason Bancroft exalts this peace- able and pleasant conference, the first and last session of his provin- Fornizes Napon cial legislature which the new governor was permitted to attend, into a distinctive and pivotal episode in the great contest which created our Republic of the United States. He does not hesitate to say of it: "The assembly which in April, 1709, met Lord Lovelace, began the contest that was never to cease but with independence.""
We turn aside, however, from these more general considerations affecting the being of the commonwealth, to note what of interest may be discovered in the history of the city during Lord Lovelace's very brief administration. At this time the office of mayor was occupied by Ebenezer Wilson, he having received his appointment in 1707, and serving until 1710. He was the son of Samuel Wilson, who had emi- grated from England and had settled in New-York shortly after the final cession of the province to the English in 1674. The elder Wilson had succeeded in amassing a considerable fortune, and lived in a comfortable mansion on the south side of Wall street, near what is now Pearl street. He died in the eventful year 1689, leaving a widow and two sons. One of these followed the sea, and became captain of a merchant vessel. The other, Ebenezer Wilson, like his father,
1 " The Colonies from 1492-1750," by Reuben G. Thwaites (New-York and London, 1891), p. 271. 2 Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., 5: 80. 3 " History of the United States " (ed. 1883), 2 : 43.
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attained prominence in business circles and in political life. A cen- sus of the city made in 1703 represents his household as composed of himself and wife and four children, with two male and two female white servants, beside a negro man and woman. As he lived in the paternal mansion, he was within but a few steps of the City Hall, on the corner of Wall street and the present Nassau street, where now stands the United States Subtreasury building. The simple fact of its location affords an instructive commentary in itself on the
FRESH-WATER POND, CENTRE STREET.
change of conditions in the city within a period of less than fifty years. In 1656 there had been an Indian massacre, and for years thereafter there was still apprehension of Indian attacks; so that the citizens who lived outside the line of the palisades running along Wall street had need for special watchfulness. Now the chief muni- cipal building stood on ground to the north, and thus outside of that line of necessary defense. The division of the city into six wards, adopted in the days of Governor Dongan, still prevailed, and each of these returned one alderman and one assistant alderman, so that the common council was composed of twelve men besides the chief ma- gistrate. Cornbury's objectionable conduct, which has been noticed
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as having caused the fusion of opposing parties in provincial affairs, had doubtless had the same effect upon local politics, for there was no repetition of the troubles which had attended the induction of Mayor Noell into office in 1702.
Mayor Wilson's municipal responsibilities were limited to a very small fraction of territory as compared with that over which extends the sway of a mayor of New-York in our day. The City Hall in Wall street must have been built on somewhat the same principle as the one erected over a century later in the Park or Commons, the rear of which, it is said, was constructed of a less expensive material be- cause it was not supposed that a majority of the residents would ever be called upon to view it from that side. But a few scattered houses were to be found above John or Fulton street; and all the region north and west of Park Row and Vesey street was mostly un- occupied and uncultivated. In the city proper much was done in the time of Mayor Wilson in the way of improvements. The price of lots was about thirty pounds ($150); Caleb Kcaleste and farms bordering on the city line, or within it above Wall street, were being diligently laid out and sold for dwelling purposes. In 1703 a point of land jutting out into the Fresh-Water Pond or Creek, and called the Kalck Hoeck, was sold for about one hundred pounds. There seemed to have been no thought in the mind of the purchaser of building houses or of laying out streets. Indeed the depth of the pond there was con- sidered unfathomable, and thus quite incapable of being filled: a theory which the sight of Centre and adjoining streets, and of the solid Egyptian walls of the Tombs, effectually disproves to the citizen of to-day. The tongue of land remained for many a day a
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