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 30
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
dens; he was very liberal, and one of the wealthiest men of the time. He left many descendants. About this time Water street was begun, and Rector and Cortlandt streets were opened on the west side. A taste for country life began to prevail among the citizens: the Morrises still preferred their seats in Westchester or New Jersey; the De Lanceys had a country house at Bloomingdale, and within the next twenty years the whole island was covered with fine villas and rural homes. Trinity Church, enlarged and decorated, formed now the chief orna- ment of the city. Wall street was laid out, and the beauty of Broad- way, shaded by fine trees, and lined by fair houses, on the tops of which were balconies where the people sat on summer evenings to enjoy the breezes from the harbor, is celebrated by European travelers. New-York was still the gay, social city where many houses were thrown open with generous hospitality. Clarke and his excellent / wife, Anne Hyde, were no doubt liberal entertainers. Mrs. Clarke was a dignified, discreet, and amiable woman, who won the good will of all by her unassuming virtues. Her temper was so mild that nothing seemed to disturb her; she ruled her husband by a gentle influence, and saved him from many errors. But in May, 1740, she died, to the great grief of all the city. To the poor she had always been a liberal ¡friend. She had been accustomed to distribute food among them, and at her funeral loaves of bread were given away to all who would receive them. She was buried in the vaults of Trinity Church, by the side of her mother and of Lady Cornbury.
As the spring of 1741 came on, the city was swept by one of those wild panics that have always attended upon slavery. It was believed that the negroes had formed a plot to seize or destroy the town : the masters looked with suspicion and hatred on those they had wronged ; the slaves perhaps were ready to seek liberty and revenge. Slavery has nowhere presented itself in a more odious form than in early New- York. The slaves for small provocation were whipped and tortured. Often wild savages from Africa, taken from the slave-market in Wall street, barbarous, brutal, they were constant objects of suspicion and fear. It is supposed that they formed at this time about one sixth of a population of twelve thousand, and were plainly incapable of making any effectual resistance to the white owners and the garrison in the fort. But the rumor of a plot, to be aided by the intrigues of the Spaniards, now drove the most reputable citizens into deeds of unex- ampled cruelty. It forms the darkest blot upon the history of New- York. On February 28 a robbery was committed that was traced to the house of Hughson, a place where the slaves had been accustomed to meet, drink, gamble, and secrete their stolen goods. Hughson was a man of infamous character; his indentured servant, Mary Burton, became the chief witness against her master and the other victims.
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WILLIAM COSBY AND THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
JOURNAL A
OF THE PROCEEDINGS IN The Detection of the Confpiracy FORMED BY Some White People in Conjunction with Negro and other Slaves, FOR Burning the City of NEW-YORK in AMERICA, And Murdering the Inhabitants.
Which Confpiracy was partly put in Execution, by Burning His Majefty's Houle in Fort GEORGE, within the faid City, on Wednesday the Eighteenth of March, 1741 and fetting Fire to feveral Dwelling and other Houfes there, within a few Days fucceeding And by another Attempt made in Profecution of the fame infernal Scheme, by putting Fire between two other Dwelling-Houles within the faid City, on the Fifteenth Day of February, 1742 ; which was accidentally and timely difcovered and extinguithed.
CONTAINING,
A NARRATIVE of the Trials, Condemnations, Executions, and Behaviour of the feveral Criminals, at the Gallows and Stake, with their Speeches and Confeffions ; with Notes, Observations and Reflections occasionally interfperfed throughout the Whole AN APPENDIX, wherein is fet forth fome additional Evidence concerning the faid Confpiracy and Confpirators, which has come to Light fince their Trials and Executions.
I. LISTS of the feveral Perfons (Whites and Blacks) committed on Account of the Conspiracy ; and of the feveral Criminals executed, and of those transported with the Places whereto.
By the Recorder of the City of NEW YORK.
Quid facient Domini, andent cum talia Fures? Virg. Ecl.
NEW-YORK Printed by James Parker at the New Printing-Office, 1744. FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE.1
On March 18, after the robbery, a fire broke out in the fort and de- stroyed the governor's house, the chapel, and several other buildings.
1 " Horamanden wrote his book to defend the course of the authorities. He merely left a monu- ment of their senseless credulity, disregard of law and reason, and greedy bigotry. His work was apparently a lucrative speculation: and Clarke, having succeeded in convincing the lords of trade that he had been a martyr, was compensated very
largely for the losses which his letters say he was so unable to bear. but which left him in his pov- erty, as Smith tells us, the snug sum of £100,000. made during his career in New-York." Extract from an address before the New-York Historical Society by John Gilmary Shea
EDITOR.
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
At first it was thought to have been accidental.1 But when, soon after, a succession of fires occurred in various parts of the town, a universal panic spread over it; there seemed little doubt that they had been the result of some secret plot. At once it was rumored that the
TO THE MEMORY OF
GEORGE CLARKE OF HYDE ESQVIRE, WHO WAS FORMERLY LIEVTENANT GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK AND AFTERWARDS BECAME RESIDENT IN THIS CITY
HE DIED JANVARY XII, MDCCLE AGED LXXXIV YEARS
AND WAS INTERRED IN THIS CHAPEL.
negroes had conspired to burn the city. At this moment several of them were heard using threatening language; they were arrested, but denied any knowledge of the plot. But now Mary Burton, who was in prison as a witness in the affair of the robbery, declared that she knew the origin of the fires. Reluctantly, it is said, she gave testimony 1 Clarke to lords of trade, April, 1741. Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., 6: 184.
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WILLIAM COSBY AND THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
against her master and others; she said the negroes had held meetings at Hughson's, had resolved to destroy all the whites; that one Cæsar, a black, was to be governor, and Hughson king. Such was her im- probable story; but upon her evidence many negroes were arrested and imprisoned. One Arthur Price, a servant, charged with stealing, next added his testimony; 1 and as he was in prison with the negroes, was employed by the magistrates to act as a spy upon them. He soon told extravagant tales of what they had disclosed to him. Peggy Salinburgh, a woman of bad character, was the next informer; new arrests were made among the negroes; the magistrates were incessantly engaged in the discovery of new victims; the grand jury, composed of the most respectable citizens, lent its aid to the general infatuation, and the whole town was agitated by suspicion and terror. A reward of one hundred pounds was offered for the discovery of the persons engaged in the plot to set fire to the city ; the three informers, Burton, Price, and Peggy, were never idle, and their extravagant tales grew with the public terror and excited fresh alarm. They were evidently wholly unworthy of belief. Mary Burton had first testified that no white persons were present at the meetings except her master, mistress, and Peggy; she now charged one John Ury, a nonjuring Episcopal clergyman, supporting himself by teaching, with being a Jesuit, and with having been concerned in the plot; next she charged that Curry, a dancing-master, was also at the meetings at Hughson's. Ury, once supposed to be a Catholic, was an object of suspicion. He was indicted, tried, and executed, and at the place of execution solemnly denied the charge, and called upon God to witness its falseness. Mary Burton received the reward of a hundred pounds, but her testimony was at last doubted; the dancing-master, Curry, was discharged for want of proof; it was seen that every white person in the town was in danger from the false witnesses. In this strange panic and reign of savage cruelty one hundred and fifty-four negroes were imprisoned, of whom thirteen were burnt at the stake, eighteen hanged, seventy-one trans- ported, and the rest pardoned or discharged.2 Twenty-one white per- sons were arrested, of whom Hughson, his wife and maid, and Ury, were hanged. It is the darkest page of our early history. Yet it was a natural consequence of slavery. The Spartans massacred their helots; the Romans chained their slaves at night; the people of New- York feared and hated the savages they had enslaved and tortured. Reformers and patriots, the wise and the gifted, seem to have yielded to the dreadful delusion. Daniel Horsmanden, one of the judges, wrote an account of the plot, in which he firmly believed. The poor
1 Clarke to lords of trade, June 20, 1741 (Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., 6 : 197) : "The fatal fire . ... is now known to be the result of conspiracy."
2 Smith, Hist. New-York (ed. 1814), pp. 438, 439; Clarke to lords of trade, August 24, 1741, Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., 6: 203.
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negroes were brought before the court to be tried without defenders, friendless, the victims of a public insanity. Against them were ar- rayed the best counsel of the city, the finest intellects of the time. A day of thanksgiving was appointed by the lieutenant-governor for the wonderful deliverance, and was devoutly observed.1
Political disputes never ceased, and when, in September, 1740, the assembly had met, Mr. Clarke in vain urged the house to raise a rev- enue for a term of years. War, he said, was upon them; and as he noticed the successful efforts of the Rev. Henry Barclay among the Indians to convert and civilize them, he hoped they would rebuild or repair his chapel. But the assembly indignantly refused all his requests for a revenue, and even threatened to reduce still further his salary. They refused to vote money for the Spanish expedition, and suggested that England should pay for its own wars. The assembly met again in April, 1741. The lieutenant-governor in his speech used language that showed he feared the provincials were anxious to throw off their allegiance to the British crown. He said such a fear had long prevailed in England; he spoke of the protection and aid the crown had ever lent to the colony; he urged that New-York had been the most highly favored of all the provinces; he pointed to its prosperous condition under his administration, and demanded a liberal support and a dutiful obedience to the wishes of the English court. This un- wise speech roused at once the independent spirit of the assembly .? It replied to Mr. Clarke in a paper prepared probably by Colonel Morris. It denied that there was any one in the colony who wished to separate from the parent land; it showed that it was only following the example of the English parliament in granting supplies from year to year; it pointed out that the colony had spent four times as much in a few years on its defenses as the English government had ever granted it. "How was it highly favored," it said, "when its trade and commerce were so heavily burdened to assist England in its wars?" It had always provided liberally for the government, and had failed in none of its duties toward the crown. The argument on either side was equally vain and useless. The colony required the support of the parent country, it was not yet ready to sever the tie of allegiance; it was obedient and loyal, but it was resolved to expend its own money in its own way. No foreign power should tax it without its consent. One saddening spectacle to modern eyes nearly concluded the session. The grand jury who had indicted the miserable victims of the fancied plot were called in and thanked by the speaker for their vigilance and attention in bringing the offenders to justice. No sentiment of hu-
1 Some excuse for the panic may be found; none for the barbarous cruelty.
2"What won't a selfish nigardly [sic] people say
to save their money," he writes, December 15, 1741. Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., 6: 209.
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manity seems to have been roused by the fearful scenes that followed their hasty action. No one was shocked at the fate of the negroes writhing at the stake, or doubted for a moment the horrible delusion.
Of the condition of the people of the city in 1741-42, we cannot form any pleasant picture. The existence of white and black slavery in all its worst forms must have deprived the free laborer of his just reward. Imprisonment for debt, with all its ancient barbarity, still terrified the honest but unfortunate trader. The building in the Park was the common prison for convicts, negroes, and debtors. A paper currency of doubtful value checked the course of trade. Disease, arising from the uncleanly condition of the city and the habits of the people, raged constantly. It is doubtful if the negro quarters and the kitchens of our ancestors were ever free from smallpox and fevers. No sewers purified the streets; the docks were foul and filthy; the churchyards spread disease; the bad water and the tainted air of summer often invited yellow fever. Education was almost unknown; the working-people lived in barbarous ignorance; the charms of its situation and the kindly hand of nature alone made New-York the fair and gracious city it seemed to the European visitors. The winter of 1740-41. 1740-41 had been one of intense severity and suffering to the people of the province. It was known as the "hard winter." The extreme cold began in the middle of November and continued until near the end of March. Never in the memory of the older citizens had such severe weather, such incessant frosts, fallen upon New-York. The Hud- son was frozen from shore to shore, and was easily crossed on the ice.1 Great and frequent falls of snow covered the ground to the depth of six feet; cattle perished for want of fodder, the wild deer starved and were easily taken in the snow. In the city the poor suffered for want of fuel and food, and political discontent followed. It was one of those rare winters, like that of 1780 or 1835, when the Arctic climate seems to descend upon us and the course of nature to change. As the sum- mer came on the enormities of the negro plot must have covered the city with gloom. The exciting trials, the madness of the commu- nity, the burnings, the hangings, must have made New-York a scene of endless horror. Fierce, rude, pitiless, our ancestors represent a distant and barbarous age from which we have at last escaped. The political contest raged in the autumn with more than its usual violence. Clarke had lost some of his most vigorous supporters. Even James De Lancey, conscious of his early errors, joined the popular party. His rare talents, great wealth, and family influence now aided the cause of freedom. Governor Lewis Morris of New Jersey, too, had still a keen interest in the affairs of New-York; in his letters he paints
1 Smith (Hist. N. Y., 2: 189), says that great flocks of pigeons filled the forests in early spring; after the cold winters they came from the south.
VOL. II .- 17.
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vigorous sketches of the rudeness and ignorance of the people and the violence of the political leaders.
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At length came the news of the appointment of George Clinton as governor, and Clarke's rule approached its end. He had few friends left in the colony, but he was never weary of urging the assembly to grant a perpetual revenue and submit to the authority of the crown. They treated his addresses with neglect, but provided liberally for the expenses of the province. On September 22, 1743, George Clinton arrived in New-York, and Clarke soon after returned to England. He had grown very wealthy and had purchased a fine estate in Cheshire ; he was supposed to be worth one hundred thousand pounds-so profitable was it to rule New-York. In the close of his life he lived in the city of Chester, and a tablet was raised to his memory in one of the chapels of the cathedral. He was very old at his death. Some of his descendants still hold lands in the western part of our State, and recall the memory of George Clarke and his excellent wife, Anne Hyde. It must be remembered as a palliation for many of his politi- cal errors that he acted under instructions from Newcastle and the lords of trade, and reflected the want of wisdom that marked the 'usual conduct of the English ministry in colonial affairs.
MAYORS OF NEW-YORK.
PAUL RICHARD was mayor in the years 1735 to 1738. His grandfather was born in France, but was sent over to represent the paternal mercantile business established in that country as a sort of factor in New-York. This was before the English conquest. Being prosperous, he soon was enabled to found a mercantile house of his own, and he purchased a house and lot on the north side of Pearl street, between Whitehall and Broad streets, then fronting on the river or bay. His son and grandson succeeded to the business, and were among the wealthiest men of the city. On Mayor Lurting's death, Mr. Richard was appointed to fill his place for the remaining portion of the year, and was reappointed successively in 1736, 1737, and 1738. The city's population had now grown to 10,000.
JOHN CRUGER was mayor during five consecutive years from 1739 to 1744. He came over from England at an early age; in 1698 he was engaged as supercargo of a slave-ship called the Prophet Daniel, a name which ought to have covered a better business. After this somewhat exciting and adventurous course Mr. Cruger settled down to more respectable enterprises in trade, although his connection with the slave- trade was not a reproach to him in those days. He became a very prosperous mer- chant, his connections being especially with the city of Bristol in England. His public life began as alderman for the Dock Ward in 1712, and he served for twenty-two years in succession. Soon after he ceased to be mayor he died, leaving several sons, all established in prosperous business. His namesake, as we shall see, became mayor a few years later. Mr. Cruger lived in Broad street, and his house was notable for its elegance. EDITOR.
CHAPTER VIII
GEORGE CLINTON AND HIS CONTEST WITH THE ASSEMBLY 1743 - 1753
HE ten years that comprise George Clinton's administra- tion form a unique period in the history of New-York city. We find during this time the province undergoing a great constitutional revolution, chiefly brought about by the efforts of her most illustrious citizens, not acting in a muni- cipal sphere, but as her representatives in the provincial assembly. In this period, when the gravest questions of foreign policy were to depend on the will of the assembly, controlled by the city politicians, we shall find them all disregarding the exceptional and ideal to grasp at the regular and politically practical, with such tenacity that ward politics and ale-house brawls were to have a far-reaching effect on the government of the province. This chap- ter therefore can contain very little of purely New-York city history. The city so completely fulfilled the function of being the capital of the province, that the course of its history is to be sought for in the political history of the prov- ince. The rise of the power of the provincial assembly has already been observed. The con- stitution of New-York grew from a gradual encroachment of Englishmen on the arbitrary claims of English governors. In the course of the half-century following the English revolution of 1688, the cosmo- politan element in New-York had first created an American people, a people which claimed self-government, legally as British subjects, but in fact because they were conscious of its ability to invoke and maintain the higher right of progressive civilization. The claim of a higher right than that granted by law, when it is not the consequence of victorious armed violence, is always the outcome of a crude feeling of might diffused over a large mass of men, who naturally fall into the hands of a few leaders.
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
In Cosby's time permanent parties arose, not because people were worse or better than before, but because after the contentions that led to Zenger's trial there was no reason why as much honor and profit could not be had out of opposing the English governors as out of assisting them. But the principal reason why the party feuds of Cosby's time were liable to be perpetuated was because they did not arise from a religious or national antipathy, but from motives of pure political expediency, which angered the beaten party so much that they claimed to represent a principle, and soon persuaded themselves and their friends of their sincerity. Thus Lewis Morris, William Smith, James Alexander, and Cadwallader Colden, the representatives of the opposition to Cosby, formed one party, while James De Lancey and the supporters of Cosby formed another party of placemen, office- holders, and their counterparts of grumblers. Under Governor Clin- ton's predecessor, Lieutenant-Governor Clarke, the practice of passing the government supply annually, so as to subjugate the governor, had grown to some fixedness, and after a most harassing struggle, in the midst of threats of war from the French and the desertion of the Six Nations, came the news of the appointment of a new chief magistrate.1 Finally, in September, 1743, the long-expected governor, Commodore George Clinton, arrived in New-York, accompanied by his wife and a family of young children. From the landing-steps his progress through the town was signalized by great marks of public favor, as the people expected to find a leader in future troubles against the French, and a pacificator of partizan discord. For in the interval between his appointment and his arrival people had had ample opportunity to find out who the new governor was, what he had done, and why he had been sent out by his Majesty George II.
George Clinton was the second son of the Earl of Lincoln and uncle of the then earl, a relative by marriage of the mighty and incompe- tent Duke of Newcastle. By profession a sailor, he had been made captain in 1716, and had commanded a squadron since 1732, when he was commissioned as governor of Newfoundland and commodore. Five years later he transferred his flag to the Mediterranean fleet, and served there till July 4, 1741, when he was commissioned to be gov- ernor of New-York. This position he owed to the protection of the duke, who also secured him the rank of rear-admiral of the Red Squad- ron in December, 1743. Although the prime motive of his coming to New-York had been the hope of bettering his fortune by having an extra salary, his career had fitted him with the desire to do thoroughly and well the things he had entered on. He does not appear either to
1 John West, Lord De-La-Warr, is stated by some writers to have been appointed Governor of New-York about this time. He may have
been, but we find no sufficient authority for the statement. EDITOR.
GEORGE CLINTON AND HIS CONTEST WITH THE ASSEMBLY 261
have been a well-trained administrator, or to have had a very large amount of learning, but he did have a good will, and apparently in- flexible doggedness in resolve, and the rare power of obtaining the greatest amount of work from his subordinates. . His early command had left entirely undeveloped any possibilities of conciliating men, and had brought about a self-reliant bluntness and force that utterly unfitted him to cope with politicians or to make his friends at home understand the phases of the various troubles he labored under here. He was eminently self-sufficient except in regard to business, where however, he always knew what was wanted, and then relied on his subordinates for the proper execution. He was said to be very eager for making money and to have taken his repose not in colonial society, but with his family or his friends over a jovial bottle. Such was the man who was to govern the province of New-York, and who was to reassert the royal prerogative in its fullest extent, to whom not only the great problem of the management of the Six Nations of Indians was intrusted, but who as governor of the great province of New- York was to check the French in the north and west and to raise the commerce of the city.
The fundamental disadvantage he labored under was a great naïveté in regard to men's motives, and an irrefutable belief that men as political bodies were capable of caring for good motives and remembering favors to the individual. Coupled with this was a desire to find some favorite, who would be his dependent and do much of his work, and whose ambition he could satisfy by giving him that repose he himself so earnestly longed for. That this could not be he soon learned from his experience with Chief Justice De Lancey. On him he at first relied implicitly, and was deluded into appointing him practically for life, by giving him on September 14, 1744, a commission during good behavior, instead of his former re- vokable commission. The story goes that on June 6, 1746, the gov- ernor and the chief justice had an altercation over a bottle, and that henceforth the chief justice swore vengeance. How he obtained it will appear in the course of this history. The powers under which Governor Clinton was to rule the province were contained in his commission. This was published on the day of his arrival, first to his council and then to the people. Its main distinction from the previous commission was that it separated New Jersey from New- York and placed New Jersey beyond his power. The aim of his commission-New-York's constitution for the time- was to ask very little specific and nothing new, but to insist strongly on the restora- tion of the exercise of the royal prerogative in the matter of money bills, which had been lost during Clarke's administration. The politi- cal people of the province were chiefly or only the freeholders who
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