The Memorial History of the City of New York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892, Volume II, Part 3

Author: Wilson, James Grant, 1832-1914
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: [New York] New York History Co.
Number of Pages: 705

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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK

inntens by him. Over their proceedings also he had " a negative voice," but he could only "summon and call General Assemblies," or do other things, by and with their "advice and consent." Therefore, how im- portant to him the composition of that council, and the relation of its motbarn to public affairs, may easily be seen from one point in his in- structions. The " Lords spiritual and temporal in Parliament," upon consideration of the great abuses practised in the plantation trade," had passed un net for "preventing frauds and regulating abuses" therain. This was to be " strictly observed." Such abuses could only have been practiced " from the remissness or connivance of such as had boon or were governors in the several plantations"; and Bello- mont In distinctly informed that " any failure in the due observance of these laws, by any wilful fault or neglect " on his part, would be looked upon an "a broach of trust reposed " in him, to be "punished with the loss of his place" and further marks of his Majesty's displeasure ! It may be said, also, that he had "commands " from the Secretary of Stato, the Part of Shrewsbury, and the Lords Justices of England, to "Inquire strictly into the connivances and protections that were given to pirates by Colonel Fletcher, late Gov- ernor." Such among others were the duties laid upon and expected of him; such, to himself, the prospective results

"f "wild fault or noglenet." How necessary he should stand well with the home authorities; but, on the other hand, how dependent for suc- ma in whatever he might undertake, upon his council, hitherto the always and friends of Governor Fletcher, into whose proceedings hp Hax " strictly " to " inquire *!

With these instructions before us and his official relation to the wwwvil and the scully, it will help us if we know in what spirit he word on his dark That the party feud which began in 1689, wat ww www coulissant immensely by Leider's execution, still minut want to be said Boas wonder Governor Fletcher the Iulian wagers had twee tu a seven deque benumbed and when we wont wait powerk It has been said that Lord Wilmai was inon lineland swoichle grejobred with his mind Skua vy Yy Mừng Tony wrong and that the dbtenhoes of his admin- NHÀ THAT We have any I scrutinize IN Linern ed events in their sobre, to are the follower of such state when thug xanh, wenn the same has his wood have so poisoned by was ton what the to wares in kowe he would have tried tone * when we werehand haamed may in harmony with

EARL OF BELLOMONT AND SUPPRESSION OF PIRACY

Bayard, Matthias Nicolls, Gabriel Minvielle, William Pinhorne, John Lawrence, William Smith, Chidley Brooke, and Thomas Willett - the first five of them the men who, as Sloughter's council, voted the exe- cution of Leisler and Milborne; Pinhorne, the sixth, a leading member of the court which condemned him! Moreover, he took into his confidence, and later protected against them, James Graham, attor- ney-general of the province, one of the men most obnoxious to the Leislerians. In fact, at this time all his letters to the lords of trade, and evidently his time and thoughts, are devoted to those trade abuses, as to which he had received such stringent orders. They produced the first rupture.

When the earl and countess landed, the city corporation provided four barrels of powder for a burst of welcome. On the wharf were crowds, who, of course, took off their hats. It was, for the day, a fine reception. Then he received a corporation dinner, two aldermen and two assistant aldermen being the responsible parties to "make a bill of fare." "For the effectual doing thereof " they were authorized (out of the city treasury) "to call to their assistance such cooks as they should think necessary." It was a fine dinner-" venison, turkey, chicken, goose, pigeon, duck, and other game; mutton, beef, lamb, veal, pork, sausages, with pastry, puddings, cakes, and the choicest of wines." Mayor Johannes de Peyster, reputed the handsomest man in the city, presided. One hundred and fifty people dined with the new governor. A loyal address was read, and he was "delightfully affable with everybody." Several stately dinner-parties were given. But these latter, which were, of course, by leading families, were the calm before the storm. Within a week after his arrival, it came to his knowledge that the ship Fortune, Captain Moston, was in the harbor, with East India goods in an "unfree bottom." Here was, at once, a case contemplated in his "instructions." Mr. Chidley Brooke, the col- lector, was doing nothing in the matter, and the goods were being landed by boats, to the injury of his Majesty's customs revenue. When the earl ordered them seized, Mr. Brooke informed him that it was not his business, that John Janance he had no boat to board the ship, and made other excuses; and only under positive com- mand, and after three or four days' delay, did he seize the last boats and goods worth a thousand pounds, out of twenty thousand in all. Other like violations of the customs law the earl could not at the time prevent. Evidently, however, Mr. Brooke was not the man for the emergency, and he removed him. Yet Mr. Brooke was brought up in the family of a relative in Ireland, had first been advanced in the customs by the earl's father and by himself, and the latter was at the time security in two thousand pounds, payable in England, for the

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proper discharge of his duties as collector ! But the blow went deeper than Mr. Brooke; it reached not the people, but certain of the mer- chants, who were rich and growing richer through this foreign traffic, who were influential and interested in the maintenance of things as they existed under Colonel Fletcher. They had not been used to such an administration of the laws. It is time, therefore, to open up a little the situation which the earl had to face.

Even under William the English acts of trade, it must be confessed, were rigidly framed in favor of England and its home commerce. Cx™ Daruall They were not popular in the colonies, against which they discriminated. Colonial foreign trade was limited to England itself, and in ships built, owned, and commanded by people of England or the colonies. The latter had to pay a tax of five per cent. on imports and exports for the benefit of the mother-country; and they were taxed on what they sent to the other colonies, without right of export from there to the outside world. Revenue to England and a monopoly was the main thought of English colonial legislation. These laws Governor Fletcher, as well as Governor Bellomont, was, under oath, obligated to enforce, but they had not been enforced. There had grown up a traffic, through protected "privateers," and, perhaps, collusion with pirates, the center of which was the East Indian Ocean and the island of Madagascar- a traffic by which the merchants were becoming greatly enriched, but the revenue was not benefited. The goods which, whether obtained out there by privateering, by piracy, or by exchange with pirates, cost little were brought to New-York, and allowed by the officials to be landed, to the immense profit of the merchants, their consignees. But as to the revenue, by a comparison of the different years, the earl discovered that, whilst trade and the city had greatly increased,-had, indeed, doubled,-it was less than it had been ten years before. It may now be understood why the seizure of the goods aboard the Fortune produced such subsequent uproar. There were twenty-two merchant- owners of the lading. Some of these ships brought immensely more in value. It would drive away trade, would ruin the town, had already hindered the "privateers from bringing in £100,000"-so said the merchants, who immediately raised a tumult against Lord Bellomont.

Concerning these merchants it may, probably with truth, be said that theirs was a case similar to that of the "wrathful" Ephesian work- men who cried out: "By this craft we have our wealth," and "This our craft is in danger to be set at nought"; so that "the whole city was filled with confusion." It was not caused by the people at large, cer- tainly not by the Dutch, whom the governor praises as "a sober, in- dustrious people, obedient to government." The merchants had fallen into a gainful but illegal traffic, and did not wish it interfered with-

EARL OF BELLOMONT AND SUPPRESSION OF PIRACY

that was the sum and substance of the matter. Had the "town clerk" (like the one at Ephesus) attempted to "appease" them by suggesting that "the law was open," it was just executing the law that enraged them. No one, at this day, would be willing to defend the English laws relating to the colonies. They were selfish and unjust. "Bad laws," says Edmund Burke, "are the worst kind of tyranny"; they are deliberate, coldblooded, and persistent acts. These were such; they expressed the deliberate intent of the "Lords spiritual and temporal in Parliament"; nor was there any abatement of them for many a day. Our present study, however, relates not to them, but to Lord Bellomont, his character and that of his admini- stration. "He came," says Schuyler, "when the country was at peace, trade had begun to revive, and pros- perity was beginning"; but he was so "anxious to set up a new stand- ard of government and to introduce new methods that he soon involved himself in controversies and quar- rels which made his life a burden and hastened his death." Yes, trade had certainly begun to revive, was reviving at a most extraordinary rate. "Arabian gold and East India Hidegnot . goods were everywhere common." Where did they come from? Not from England, not from the colonies, nor had they passed the cus- tom-house. Did not the officials know! Certainly; everybody knew. Mr. Brooke knew, who was also a member of the council. What was Lord Bellomont to do? what was it his duty to do? In this matter the tumult of the merchants against him should not deceive us, however respectable and influential their position. So much the worse. They talked of the "late happy revolution" to show their loyalty; they held government offices, and persistently violated the laws. Nor did they, like the merchants of Boston, boldly express their "indignation at the acts of navigation" in a protest to the gov- ernment itself; maintaining their right as English subjects to the privileges enjoyed by Englishmen. That was the difference between

1 Hugo De Groot, or Grotius, the celebrated Dutch jurist, divine and historian, who at one time contemplated coming to New Netherland, was born at Delft in April, 1583, and died in Au- gust, 1647. His little treatise De Veritate Religionis

Christiana has been perhaps the most popular "Evidences of Christianity " ever published, and has been translated into almost every civilized tongue. It was among the earliest books of its character printed in this city. EDITOR.

HISTORY OF NEW-YORK

them. Says Mr. Burke: "The poorest being that crawls on earth, con- tending to save itself from injustice and wrong, is an object respect- able in the eyes of God and man." But that was not their contention. They were contending for liberty to continue a trade which, at the other end, had the most dubious surroundings; of which, at their own end, they were the beneficiaries; and by which they were demoraliz- ing the city. Meanwhile it was hard on the honest old earl. The ex- panded and erect tail of the lyre-bird is very beautiful and has the Asmuyos exact appearance of a lyre; but the bird gets from it no music. Nor was the earl getting anything very pleasant out of his governorship. Inside his own house the roof leaked and the rain came in to spoil the family's comfort; whilst in the lower halls and rooms the flooring was in an advanced state of decay. Out- side, the merchants were saluting his ears with an angry tempest.

Thus far only the induction of the greater storm. The Fortune and another vessel had been condemned by the Court of Admiralty, not- withstanding the corruption of evidence. The earl had replaced Mr. Brooke with Colonel Van Cortlandt and a Mr. Monsey, for six years chief searcher, as commissioners. One Van Sweeten had some goods concealed in a garret, which Monsey and another officer were sent to seize; but the merchants gathered, or some of them, and the officers were locked in and left there for three hours; whereupon Bellomont sent the lieutenant-governor (Nanfan), with three files of soldiers and some servants, to break down the doors and release them. This ex- perience, with perhaps other influences, induced Monsey to resign. But Van Sweeten brought the matter before the council. They could not sustain him, whatever they might have wished to do. Neverthe- less, a conflict with the council was already in the earl's larder ready for the cooking-it was sure to come on and speedily. Their feeling toward him may be judged from a letter of his to the lords of trade (May 25), in which he says that not a man of them had ever come to offer him any account of the state and condition of the province; and that all his "light and information" on the subject had come from Mr. James Graham, the attorney-general, "a man of great sagacity and temper." Several of them were themselves merchants. Mr. Frederick Philipse, the oldest member, was one who had a ship on the way from Madagascar. So far, however, they knew full well that the earl had simply been doing his duty according to the law and his instructions. The conflict opened the very day of the Van Sweeten business, or June 7. Four ships laden at New-York and bound for Madagascar ap- plied for clearances, in other words "protection," such as ex-Governor Fletcher had been in the habit of giving, and which was a part of the "malfeasance in office" charged against him. They carried (usually)

EARL OF BELLOMONT AND SUPPRESSION OF PIRACY

"liquors, gunpowder, and arms," as most in request, and returned with East India goods. Profitable business, when one could sell rum, cost- ing in New-York two shillings, for fifty shillings and three pounds a gallon in Madagascar; and a pipe of Madeira wine, which cost nine- teen pounds, for three hundred pounds! No wonder New-York was "flushed" with Arabian gold and East India goods! Yet it must be said, in relation to the present case, that these voyages to Madagascar were open; that a clearance and government "protection" involved payment of revenue; and that the trouble was the real purpose of the voyage, as to which there could be no downright evidence; not piracy, perhaps, but dealing with and obtaining their goods from pi- rates. The character of their lading, everything, pointed to this; an experienced custom-house officer would have had no doubt about it. It was sustaining piracy, if not piracy itself. But the earl could only proceed "on suspicion." Yet that "suspicion," he thought, was suf- ficiently backed to require of each ship "good security not to trade with pirates." He delayed as to the clearances until he had called together and consulted the council. Unanimously they opposed this method as "not prescribed by law," and as never having been "prac- tised there before." He yielded, and let the ships go.

The further outline of this traffic and its relations to piracy may be deferred till we come to the case of Captain Kidd. Our present concern is with the earl and his council. That he had reason enough for his efforts to restrain the traffic, and right there in its center, would be easy to show. "The money brought in was dearly pur- chased " (was Governor Bradford's testimony) by the vices and evils engendered in the community. It infected the people. This demor- alization was one of his main difficulties. But whether the "method" proposed would accomplish anything was very questionable; it was too easy to escape. And certainly it was not "prescribed" by law. He did well, therefore, to yield to their decision. Nevertheless, it brought to the front a reason more impor- tant to some of them than the legal one, a reason in which all of them, it is to be sup- posed, more or less sympathized. It was the point of feeling; it had never been "prac- tised there before"! The words can only properly apply to recent years, William's reign, during which alone the difficulty had existed; that is, to ex-Governor Fletcher's administration. There was where "reform" measures touched them. Ships had gone and come with- out inquiry, let, or hindrance; or rather, they had been let go. It was expecting much and too much of Mr. Frederick Philipse, for in- stance, to suppose that he would now consent to a measure which re- quired of him "good security" that his own ships should not "trade

HISTORY OF NEW-YORK

with pirates"- unless he wished to set a good example! Either as merchants or as a council they were all more or less, officially at least, involved in what had been "practised there before." They may have

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had no personal regard for Governor Fletcher; or they may have been willing, when they could, to separate themselves from his doings. On May 8, some of them, "the gentlemen then present," on the strength of certain depositions laid before them, thought he ought to be sent home " a prisoner." But it is evident enough that this did not repre- sent the majority sentiment. It is not the writer's place nor purpose to enter into the preceding administration further than it concerns

EARL OF BELLOMONT AND SUPPRESSION OF PIRACY £

Lord Bellomont. The latter has, however, been accused of, and of acting upon, an intense "prejudice," unreasoning and unreasonable, against his predecessor. Certainly he had a prejudice; how could he help it? All this time, to say nothing else, ex-Governor Fletcher remained in the city; no man in it was more deeply concerned that Bellomont should fail in his mission than he; and at his house he and members of the council, Bayard, Nicolls, Brooke, Minvielle, and Pinhorne, if not others, caballed, counseled, and planned. Nor could Bellomont remove them except for cause. Daniel Webster has said that "the simplest of governments is a despotism "; that is, a one- man rule with absolute power. Bellomont had to consult and satisfy lords of trade, king, council, assembly. He was between two lines of fire. The council " hindered " him, and the merchants threatened. He says he was obliged to "stand entirely upon his own legs"; but they were sturdy Irish-English legs, and equal to much "uphill work." Against Nicolls he obtained sufficient evidence of various trade com- plicities, suspended him, and sent home his reasons and proofs. Also (June 14) he suspended Brooke and Pinhorne. Pinhorne was vio- lently opposed to the governor's proceedings, and became disrespect- ful to his Majesty. He retired to his plantation on the Hackensack, and became a judge and councilor in New Jersey. But it still left in Bayard and Minvielle the council to trouble him, whilst Brooke and Nicolls became brewers of mischief without.

We must now turn to the assembly, the important popular body, although it numbered but nineteen members. The actual origin and beginning of the New-York assembly was with Leisler. It was the natural outcome of his democratic ideas, and he first called it into being. Back of him and into Stuyvesant's time the advocates of larger liberty for the people had rapped at the doors of successive governors for recognition, but had failed in their demands. The cen- ter of these demands was invariably certain towns on Long Island. There stood the tree which no gusts of royal or viceregal displeasure could uproot, which only grew the more sturdily for the blasts it encountered. To Leisler we owe the first fruitage of this long wait- ing. William, fortunately, had the same liberal ideas, and by his orders to Sloughter in 1691 made that first experiment permanent. It had become already an institution of considerable power; for the country members, especially, were sometimes very stubborn and inde- pendent: "big," as said Governor Fletcher to them in his wrath in 1694, "big with the privileges of Englishmen and Magna Charta," and "taking upon them airs as if they were dictators"! Therefore, as he could not move them to his wishes, he told them, with an angry snap, to " withdraw to their private affairs in the country." "You are hereby prorogued to the tenth day of January next ensuing!" In

HISTORY OF NEW-YORK

the present posture of affairs the character of the assembly was of consequence to the governor. If it was controlled by the same influ- ences and individuals that opposed him in the city, his position would be well nigh untenable. The assembly voted the money. The first one, called by him for May 8, was unimportant except as showing his principles of action. He should "consider it the glory of his govern- ment," he told them, "to find out some way to reconcile party spirit." "I will pocket none of the public money myself, nor shall there be any embezzlement by others"; his accounts should be furnished for inspection whenever desired. He did not hesitate to tell them in what François Rombouts state he had found the govern- ment. In fact, the assembly itself was an evidence of this on one point. His proclamation had commanded "all fairness of elections, and legal and just returns of representatives." Yet what was the case, even so early in our history ? The election of eleven, a majority, was disputed, but they kept their seats. The sheriff of New-York and Orange Counties returned four persons as elected, and yet confessed that he had not allowed the people of Orange County to vote; and these four, together with other disputed members, kept out two who were regularly returned, on pretense that they were under attainder for taking part in the Leisler troubles! So old, in our politics, are election frauds, so early was the seeding of what has become a far-branching upas-tree! The injustice, in the assembly, was to Leislerians. But when appealed to by six members, the governor said he neither managed elections nor would he inter- fere with "the rights and liberties of the House of Representatives." However, as the assembly did nothing but wrangle for a month, he prorogued it.

We now revert to matters in and out of the council, previous to the next assembly. So far, one thing had been gained-the revenue was increasing under Van Cortlandt. In July the earl himself went to Albany to fulfil an appointment with the "Five Nations of Indians"; and it is an instance of his indomitable resolution and energy that, to be there punctually, he embarked in the midst of a fit of the gout, to the great hazard of his life, since he caught cold on the river, and " had like to have died" when he reached Albany. We need not recount his negotiations with the Indians, or with Count Frontenac, so long the plague of that frontier. To keep the Five Nations friendly in the face of French intrigue, Bellomont, like his predecessors, had to fee them well. According to Domine Dellius, of Albany, who preached to and studied them, they were at this time among the very lowest in social morality, and were, to some extent, cannibals. It is just to note, in this connection, that three years before Eliot, the celebrated apostle

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to the Indians, held his first service, the Dutch ministers of Albany began a Christianizing work and preaching along the Mohawk Valley. Between 1690, when Schenectady was burned, and 1697 and the Peace of Ryswick in Europe, in Canada and the woods it was a state of war. But there were some so-called "Christian Indians"; and in fifteen years after 1702, there were recorded in the Schenectady church thirty- nine marriages, one hundred baptisms, and fourteen received as mem- bers; so that in 1880, at the two-hundredth anniversary, they joined the tortoise with the Holland pelican, the English lion and the American eagle, in remembrance of their early Indian membership. What havoc that war made may be told in figures. In 1689 the Five Nations had 2800 men; in 1698, 1320-a loss of 1480! In 1689 the city and county of Albany had 662 men, 340 women, and 1014 children ; in 1698, through departures and casualties, 382 men, 262 women, and 805 children - a loss of 567. These figures, also, show an average at the time of three children to an Albany family.

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The Memorial History of the City of New York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892, Volume II, Part 3

Author: Wilson, James Grant, 1832-1914 Publication date: 1892 Publisher: [New York] New York History Co. Number of Pages: 705

Author: Wilson, James Grant, 1832-1914
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: [New York] New York History Co.
Number of Pages: 705