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 26
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1 " Documents relating to the Colonial History of New-York," Vols. IV and V, give his letters and complaints.
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decorated and various pieces of furniture, four negro men and four negro women, silver plate, and many other articles of value. The finest wines and liquors and a library of fourteen hundred books were also among Montgomerie's possessions. The governor drove out in state with servants in livery and fine coaches; his family were dressed in the latest London style, and his receptions and parties glittered with jewels and satins, and his table was loaded with plate and the costliest wines. Cosby was fond of these entertainments, and was always apparently in want of money. To his avarice or his neces- sities he was to owe all the future pains of his unquiet administration.
The members of the council at his arrival were Rip Van Dam, the president of the province after the death of Montgomerie, and Messrs. George Clarke, Francis Harrison, James Alexander, Cadwallader Colden, Abraham Van Horne, Daniel Horsmanden, Archibald Ken- nedy, James De Lancey, Philip Van Cortlandt, and Henry Lane.1 Van Dam was a successful merchant of Dutch descent, popular and highly respected; he had governed the province with discretion, and scarcely deserves the imputation Smith has thrown upon him of neglecting to oppose the inroads of the French on Lake Champlain. He seems to have been the first to give the alarm.2 His integrity was never doubted; he had descended to no ignoble means of increasing his fortune; his character offered a marked contrast to many of the active politicians of his age. Several of Rip Van Dam's descendants are found among us to-day; and the memory of his real worth is still preserved among them. As the president of the council he had wel- comed Cosby on his arrival, and had yielded up to him at once his official position. What was his surprise when he found that Cosby had prevailed upon the council in England to order him to pay one half the year's salary to himself. Van Dam, who had performed all the duties of the office, was to be deprived of its emoluments, and that by an order from a foreign court that had no authority to touch the finances of New-York! It was an indignity to himself and to the people. Van Dam refused the governor's demand, and refused to obey the orders of the council. He offered as a compromise to pay one half of the salary to Cosby if he would divide with him the large sums he had received in England. This enraged Cosby, and he de- clined. He resolved to prosecute Van Dam, the most honest and respected of the people-to begin a suit that was never to be decided. Cosby's intellect was narrow; his only expedient for insuring obe- dience was force. He was evidently wholly unacquainted with the feelings and wishes of the people he had been sent to govern. Not
1 The governor appointed Horsmanden and that Van Dam gave early notice of the danger Lane; the others were of the old council.
2 London Doc. V., Nov. 2, 1721, show clearly
and urged preparation to meet it.
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content with taking their money, he was prepared to offend their strongest prejudices, and to use his almost despotic power in enforcing his unreasonable demand. It was plain to every one that Van Dam was entitled to the salary of his office, but Cosby's anger was only the more inflamed when he found himself in the wrong. The means by which he hoped to attain his end was one that had always aroused the violent opposition of the people. He proposed to erect a chancery court to try the case against Van Dam. But an equity court, ruled by the governor, was a thing the assembly had always protested against since the evil days of Cornbury and Fletcher. The governor was by his office also chancellor. He held, the people said, all their property, by this provision, under his complete control. The best lawyers denied that any court of equity could be introduced in New- York except by the act of its own legislature or parliament. They refused to admit any authority in the court. Cosby and his advisers, on the other hand, persisted in their plan; and as the governor could not well sit as judge in his own cause, he appointed De Lancey, Philipse, and Chief Justice Morris to act as equity judges in the prosecution of Van Dam. It was an imprudent step, from which his least intelligent predecessors would have shrunk. Even Burnet had used his privilege as chancellor sparingly; Montgomerie had wisely declined the office altogether.
Cosby evidently relied on his powerful connections in England to sustain him in his imprudent course; and an event now occurred that filled the gay circles of New-York with an unusual excitement, and seemed to complete the successful opening of the governor's rule.1 This was the arrival of Lord Augustus Fitzroy, who was a suitor for the hand of his daughter. He was a son of the Duke of Grafton, the descendant of Charles II., so high in rank that even Cosby's daughter was thought a match too low for him. The whole town was stirred by the arrival of so great a personage. The mayor, aldermen, and assistants, attended by the chief officers of the city regiments, waited on him to thank him for the honor he did them by coming to New-York and consenting to accept the freedom of the city. Then the " worshipful mayor" handed him a gold box, inscribed with the city arms, in which was the certificate of citizenship. The young lord answered pleasantly, thanking the mayor and aldermen, and say- ing he should always remember their kind reception. The lawyers, too, with Chief Justice Morris at their head, came to welcome him. He was an ardent lover, and Cosby writes to the Duke of Newcastle, Oc- tober 26, 1732, with great satisfaction of his noble guest. He is evi- dently in a cheerful mood. "My Lord Augustus,"1 he says, " is with me;
1 Cosby to Newcastle, October 26, 1732. Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., 5: 936. 1 Cosby to Newcastle, October 26, 1732. Ibid.
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he is of all the young people that I have seen the most agreeable and unaffected, with the finest notions of honor." Cosby tells the duke he has just given his son "Billy " a lucrative post in New Jersey. " Grace [Lady Cosby, sister of the Earl of Halifax] and the little family join in humble service to your Grace and the Duchess." "I have sent my Lady Duchess a live beaver," he adds. Not long after Lord Au- gustus was mar- ried to the young lady privately ; it was an illicit marriage, and the clergyman who celebrated it was prosecut- ed.1 But the of- THE LOWER MARKET. fense was easily condoned, and the prosecution only a feigned one. Thus highly con- nected, supported by the favor of Newcastle and the ministry,2 Cosby thought he might easily subdue the feeble opposition in the colony, and reduce it to a proper obedience. He was determined, he said, to maintain the royal prerogative. He would establish the court of chancery, however unpopular, and drive from the council the un- lucky patriots who had merited his displeasure.
Elated by his apparent strength, Cosby now urged on the prosecu- tion of Van Dam. Of the three judges he was sure of the sympathy and support of two, De Lancey and Philipse, but of the chief justice, Morris, he was evidently in doubt. The Morrises had been noted for their independence and a certain tendency to liberal opinions. Rich- ard Morris, the founder of the family in America, of Welsh descent, had served as an officer in the Parliamentary army, and had fled, at the Restoration, to Barbados. There he married a lady of fortune, and emigrated to New-York, where he purchased from the Indian chiefs the wild lands in Westchester County now known as Morris- ania. Here he lived in a safe retirement, it is said, disguised as a Quaker, but was also a successful merchant in the city. His son
1 It is said the clergyman, Campbell, climbed over the wall of the fort, and performed the cere- mony without license, and that Lady Cosby man- aged the affair. From this marriage was born a son, afterward Duke of Grafton.
2 Newcastle was secretary of state from 1724 to 1754, and afterward prime minister. He was im- mensely wealthy, fond of office and power, and, though very ignorant, was a shrewd politician. He died in 1768.
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Lewis, born at Morrisania in 1671, became one of the most noted men of the day. At his father's death he was left in the charge of his uncle, Lewis Morris. He seems to have been an active boy, not easily controlled : he had, from some dispute with his uncle, fled from home and wandered away to Virginia, and even as far as the West Indies and Jamaica.1 He supported himself in his exile and pov- erty by writing as a scrivener or copyist. After some years of this vagrant life he came back to Morrisania, was reconciled to his uncle, who received him with great joy, and soon after married a daugh- ter of James Graham, a woman of rare good sense and refinement. They lived together fifty years, we are told, in perfect harmony. Morris passed much of his early life in New Jersey. He was one of the council, and a judge of its court. His intellect soon showed its rare activity : he was never weary of learning, and never so happy as in the society of men of letters and of thought. His temper was hasty, his decisions sometimes rash, but he was always a liberal, inelining to rational progress. Once, under Governor Hunter, he was expelled from the assembly "for some warm words"; but he soon rose again to power, was made chief justice, and was probably the most influential politician of the time, the intimate friend of Governor Burnet, and of every man of intelligence and worth. Few of his contemporaries have left a stronger impress upon the early history of New-York.
The suit against Van Dam was to be tried before the three judges as an exchequer court; it excited an intense interest among the people. All the old violence of party spirit was roused by this attempt, as it was thought, upon their liberties. The old men who may have seen Leisler and Milborne led out to execution, and who had never forgotten the dreadful scene; the young men who chafed under the haughty rule of the English officials; the Dutch citizens who had felt the scorn of their corrupt rulers and repaid it; the Presbyterians and other dissenters who had been persecuted and plundered by the Episcopalian governors, and probably the great majority of the people, looked upon Rip Van Dam as only the new victim of a foreign tyranny. For twenty years a member of the council, for several years its senior member, its recent president, and one of the most respected members of the community, he was now unjustly accused of improperly withholding moneys, and prose- cuted in an illegal court. Van Dam was not to be terrified by the frowns of the governor and his followers. He boldly resisted, and was not easily to be destroyed. At the trial two remarkable men defended Van Dam. One was William Smith, the son of an im- migrant from England. He was a good lawyer, a fine speaker, and
1 Smith, "History of New-York," 1: 209 (edition of 1830).
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had risen to eminence by his rare talents, industry, and unflinching courage. The other was James Alexander, an exile from Scotland, who, like Smith, had made his way to distinction in the colony, and was now a member of the council. It would be useless to repeat here the technical argument of the two lawyers. They boldly de- nied the authority of the royal council, or even of the king himself, without the consent of parliament, to legislate for New-York. They made, in fact, an appeal for independence. The opposing counsel were about to enter into the merits of the case, when, to the surprise of Cosby and his adherents, the chief justice, Morris, interposed and delivered a decision in favor of the plea of Van Dam. He held with Smith and Alexander that the governor had no power to create an equity court. His two colleagues, De Lancey and Philipse, astonished at his boldness, gave opposing opinions defending the governor ; they overruled even the chief justice. But no final decision was ever reached in this eventful case. The Court of Exchequer, as constituted by Cosby, never met again. The public opinion set too strongly against it; Van Dam was the victor in the contest against the court party, and his bold resistance led to a new sense of colonial rights - perhaps to final independence.
Like most men of narrow intellect, Cosby was a good hater; he scarcely knew how to forgive. His education had plainly been im- perfect : his spelling and his grammar were often at fault; and his letters show a plain want of prudence and intelligence and the inten- sity of his dislike for his political opponents. He writes to the Duke of Newcastle and the lords of trade the most violent invectives against them, and he probably spoke as freely as he wrote. James Alexander was the first to feel his enmity. As early as December, 1732, he complains to the lords of trade of " one James Alexander " as "unfit to sit in the council." "He is the only man who has given me any uneasiness," he says. "In short his known very bad character would be long to trouble you with,"1 and he urges his removal from the council. He would have a certain Captain Dick appointed in his place. He pursued Alexander with constant calumnies, and at last refused to summon him to the council. Yet James Alexander was one of the most cultivated, active, and valuable men of his time. In his youth he had been a Jacobite, it is said, but owed much to the friendship of the good Duke of Argyle. He came to New-York, was employed in various offices, and showed a rare talent for mathematics and engineering. Governor Burnet, fond of intellect and a Scot, raised him, with his friend Colden, to the council, and they, with Chief Justice Morris, shared the governor's closest friendship. Alexander was surveyor-general of New Jersey and also a distinguished mem-
1 Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., 5 : 939.
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ber of the New-York bar. His literary and scientific attainments have left their influence upon the mental progress of the country. He was a member, with Franklin, Colden, Hopkinson, and others, of the "American Philosophical Society." He married a granddaughter of Johannes De Peyster, and when he died, in 1756, held large estates in New-York and New Jersey. His son was the Lord Stirling of the Revolution ; his daughters intermarried with the various noted families of the time. Such was the " one Alexander" who to Cosby was a person of "known very bad character."
Against Chief Justice Morris the governor now turned all his rage.1 His decision in the Van Dam case seemed to the angry official treason against England and the crown. But especially was it a personal in- sult to himself. In his resent- ment he sent a message to Morris requesting a copy of FIRST NEW-YORK POORHOUSE, 1734. his opinion in terms that were plainly designed to provoke him and that were a gross imputation upon his honor and good faith. Mor- ris at once printed the opinion in a pamphlet, and sent a copy to Cosby with a memorable letter that marks the violent feeling of the time. "This, sir, is a copy of a paper I read in Court," he writes. "I have no reason to expect that it or anything that I can say will be at all grateful or have any weight with your Excellency, after the answer I received to a message I did myself the honour to send you concerning an ordinance you were about to make for establishing a court of equity in the supreme court as being in my opinion con- trary to law which I begged might be delayed till I could be heard on that head. I thought myself well in the duty of my office in sending this message, and hope I do not flatter myself in thinking I shall be justified in it by your superiors as well as mine. The answer your Excellency was pleased to send me was that I need not give myself any trouble about that affair, that you would neither receive a visit nor any message from me, that you would neither rely upon my integrity nor depend on my judgment, that you thought me a person not at all fit to be trusted with any concerns relating to the King, that ever since your coming to the government I had treated you both as to your person and as the King's representative with slight, rude- ness and impertinence, that you did not desire to hear or see anything
1 Cosby to Newcastle, May 3, 1733. Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., 5 : 942.
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further of me." Morris goes on to defend himself against these charges and suggests that they arose from his decision in a recent case unfavorable to the governor. He allows that he may have been mistaken, but still thinks he is right. "But if judges," he continues, "can be so intimidated as not to dare to give any opinion but what is pleasing to a governor and agreeable to his private views," the people of the province must suffer in fortune or even life. To the charge of inattention and want of politeness, he replies: "I never had the honor to be alone six times in your company in my life, and all the words I ever spoke to you except at the first time might be contained in a quarto side of paper." "I might possibly have been impertinent, for old men are too often so," but he never meant to be disrespectful. The close of the letter is an admirable defense of his own character; it reminds one at times of Johnson's famous reply. "If," Morris adds, "a bow awkwardly made or anything of the kind, or some defect in ceremonial in addressing you has occasioned that remark, I beg it may be attributed to want of courtly education or to anything else rather than the want of respect to his majesty's representative. As to my integrity, I have given you no occasion to call it in question. I have been in office almost twenty years. My hands were never soiled with a bribe, nor am I conscious to myself that power or poverty hath been able to induce me to be partial in favor of either of them, and as I have no reason to expect any favor from you, so I am neither afraid nor ashamed to stand the test of the strictest inquiry you can make concerning my conduct. I have served the public faithfully and honestly according to the best of my knowledge, and I dare and do appeal to it for my justification." Cosby at once removed Morris from his office by handing a notice of his appointment as chief jus- tice to young James De Lancey. The governor assumed the air and powers of a despot. He insulted and degraded the chief justice of the province, violated the law, and showed openly his perfect contempt for the people.
The winter of 1732-33 was a scene of festivity and license in New- York. The governor, fond of conviviality, an Irishman,' impulsive, hospitable, extravagant, kept up a series of entertainments. Around the fort, the Battery, and what is now the Bowling Green the few coaches of the city drove in and out on winter evenings, and the chill winds from the river never prevented the young men and women of the time from accepting the governor's invitations. With the wealthier citizens he seems to have kept on good terms, but not with the wiser. Soon after his daughter Grace was married to a Mr. Freeman; every one hastened to congratulate him and Lady Grace. The allurements
1 Cosby was of Stradbally Hall, Ireland; brigadier and colonel of the Royal Irish Brigade. He had been accused of embezzlement at Minorca, of which he had been governor.
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of a title and the latest news from the English court, the newest fashions and the sayings of the Duke of Newcastle and his Grace of Grafton, were irresistible to the New-York merchants and their fam- ilies. Cosby and Lady Grace knew and made use of the weakness of the provincials. The court party drew in many of the noted names of the time. In spring and summer New-York offered its rare charms. The drive along Broadway was always attractive; the state barge was no doubt often seen upon the river; often the still waters of the bay resounded in summer evenings with the gay laugh of the young and fair, and the music of flute and violin. The evening row upon the river was long a favorite amusement with the New-York families; it was kept up until the beginning of the present century, and has
GREAT SEAL OF GEORGE I.
passed away forever. Never again, we may complain with some venerable Knickerbocker, will the young men and women of the city rise at five o'clock in the summer mornings to walk in pairs on the Battery under the elms and nut-trees, as they were wont to do in the last century; never will the fresh forests of Bloomingdale and the wilderness of Greenwich echo to the merry laugh and song of the gay sleighing-parties of the elder age.
Yet New-York, with all its simpler charms, had many disadvantages. Slowly it had grown beyond Wall street, and Cortlandt street was soon to be laid out. Beyond on the east side were swamps and fens around the Fresh Pond, that often covered the city with noxious vapors. Some effort was made at this time to drain and reclaim them. The more extensive meadows around the west side and the Stuy- vesant marshes on the east were still far out of town. The water of the city was always bad, impure, and brackish. No sewers nor sani- tary arrangements were yet possible. The streets were paved with
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rough cobblestones, if paved at all; to ride on them was a painful pleasure. At night they were lighted by a few lanterns. Broadway was already the finest of the streets, a famous drive reaching nearly to the Central Park. The roads around the city were very often neglected and dangerous: they are often complained of. On the west side the river still came up to the rear of Trinity churchyard; there was a slip at the foot of Rec- tor street; Green- wich, Washing- ton, and West streets were still covered with water. On the east side above Governor's Isl- and was the har- bor of New-York. Here were the docks, slips, and warehouses. The North River was MIDDLE DUTCH AND FRENCH CHURCHES. swept by storms
and ice in the winter and spring and was dangerous for shipping; the East River was always safe, and slips or canals ran up to Hanover Square. The finest of the public buildings was the City Hall. It was situated at the head of Broad street on Wall, a brick building with two wings. The land on which it stood had been given to the city by Abraham De Peyster, always liberal and far-seeing. In the City Hall were the rooms for the meetings of the assembly and council, court- rooms, offices, and a library, the gift of the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel. Its cellar was a dungeon, its garret a common prison. The ground floor was an "open walk," except the jailer's rooms and the jail.1 The private houses were still plain; the largest and most costly was that of De Peyster, on Pearl street opposite Cedar.2 It was eighty feet by fifty-nine and surrounded by a garden that ran down to the East River. Its rooms were unusually large and richly furnished; the silver plate of the family was very valuable. No other house was so costly or imposing. The Walton and the Kennedy houses belong to a later age. The churches of the city, too, were still small except the Middle Dutch on Nassau street, which was finished in 1731. The Dutch congregation, the largest of all, had outgrown the small church in Garden street; the new building was 1 Smith, History of New-York, p. 301. 2 See illustration in Chapter I.
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a "high heavy edifice," very extensive, and could contain a thousand or twelve hundred hearers. It was one hundred feet long and seventy- two wide. It had no galleries. Its bell was given by Abraham De Peyster; much silver is said to have been used in its molding, and its venerable sound may still be heard as it rings to-day from the steeple of the Reformed Church on Forty-eighth street and Fifth Avenue. From the ceiling of the early church hung brass chandeliers with many candles. From its steeple was long to be seen the finest view in New-York of the city, the environs, and the bay. In the Middle Dutch Church, from 1730 to 1736, gathered much of the wealth and beauty of the town. Still only Dutch was preached from its pulpit; its young men had not yet been tempted away by the novel forms of England, and its young maidens, with blooming complexions and golden hair, still carried on their arms, hung by silver chains, their Dutch psalm- books and chanted the hymns of Holland. Trinity Church was still the small building of 1696; it was enlarged some years afterward, and was ornamented with pictures, the "gilt busts of angels winged," an organ, and glass branches. But in 1730 it could scarcely contain the large congregations that filled it. As yet it was the only Episcopal church except the chapel in the fort, St. George's not being built until 1752. The Presbyterians had been treated with little ceremony by the royal governors. The Episcopal party had refused them a charter to hold lands; they then conveyed their lands to the General As- sembly of the Church of Scotland and built their church. So little toleration was there in New-York! The French had their small church, once very flourishing, but now broken up by unwise dis- sensions. The Lutherans and Jews had their religious edifices; but the overbearing conduct of the English rulers and churchmen had roused against them the ill-will of all the other sects. The Episco- palians claimed that theirs was the established church, that they were entitled to tithes or a support from the state, and that the institutions and laws of England should prevail in New-York.1 They even claimed the right of celebrating all marriages.
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