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 4
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The earl's return in September led to further and important changes in the council. Up to this time he had shown no intention of pushing forward the party of the Leislerians. Only one thing had he done, about a month after his coming, which could possibly be construed that way: he had ordered the restoration of the Leisler and Milborne property. But if there was one thing the earl held sacred, it was an act of Parliament; he was loyalty itself to the law and his instructions- they were his rudder and chart, and decided his course. Added to the seizure of goods, this order was caught at for purposes of prejudice and resistance. It was said, and has come down in history as valid, that "innocent parties" had to "vacate houses and stores" which they had bought "in good faith"! Such a plea was barefaced. In 1692 Mary in council ordered the estates of the deceased restored. From that moment the title was bad, and they knew it. In 1695 a positive act of Parliament required the same, and they knew it. And now, on the one side were the Leisler families defrauded of their rights and press- ing them on an honest governor; on the other, parties who held the property in defiance of law and Parliament. In such a case the only charge against Lord Bellomont can be that he was too brave and right- minded to hesitate as to his duty. But it touched the dominant party; no Leislerian, we may be sure, had ever bought that property. Further than that the governor had not gone. In fact, in a list of six names of persons suitable for councilmen in place of Brooke, Nicolls, and Pinhorne, he had included Philip French and Adolph Philipse, son and son-in-law of Frederick Philipse, who cer- tainly would have been against him. French was speaker of that abortive assembly, and concerned in its illegal acts. By September, VOL. II .- 2.
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however, he felt obliged to remove other members of the council; and equally was he obliged by everything in the case to turn to some of the other side. The merchants and others opposed to him, both in and out of the council, were in no way placated; and many of these prominent men had even sent a petition to Whitehall, by Mr. Brooke, for his recall. Verily might he be "sick of such coun- cilors." Bayard and Minvielle and Willett he now (September 28) suspended; also John Lawrence, who was eighty-two years old; and the next morning Philipse resigned on the plea of age. These were succeeded by Abraham De Peyster, Robert Livingston, Dr. Samuel Staats, and Robert Walters, "men of good estates and reputation"; and these, with Van Cortlandt, Smith, and Peter Schuyler of the old number, made up the new council of seven.
The names of some of these men suggest the past and connect it with the present. Bayard, Philipse, and Van Cortlandt were the coun- cil in office under King James II., and as such led the opposition to Leisler in 1689, although Bayard was throughout the conspicuous and influential figure. Of those present when Governor Sloughter landed in 1691, and who influenced him in his dealings with Leisler, were Philipse, Van Cortlandt, Minvielle, Brooke, Pinhorne, and Willett, Bayard and Nicolls being at the time prisoners in the fort. Of those who examined Leisler and the rest as prisoners were Van Cortlandt and Brooke; of those who judged and condemned them to death were Pinhorne, William Smith, and John Lawrence; the council which condemned Leisler and Milborne to their hasty execution were Philipse, Bayard, Van Cortlandt, Nicolls, and Minvielle; and the man at whose house weak Governor Sloughter was induced to sign the death-warrant, during a convivial party, was Bayard! These men, thus personally and deeply implicated in that feud, had ever since been the council, controlling the offices and the execution of the laws, under the governor. They were the head and front of that "little oligarchy" of which Bancroft speaks; that shrewd but " selfish " aris- tocracy composed of wealthy people, landowners, and merchants, who had thus far had everything their own way. Of them all Bayard, sec- onded by Nicolls, was by his personal qualities the undoubted leader, clever, untiring and aggressive. Of the men of the period which is passing before us Livingston, for one, is said to have been so " icily impertinent," so "indifferent to giving pleasure or pain," as never to have been popular in New-York. On the other hand Bayard had qualities which made him popular in his own set, and as a partizan exceedingly influential; to the other side as obnoxious, as intensely hated, as man could well be. For this, aside from public acts never to be forgiven, his excessive pride, his overbearing arrogance to other people whom he chose to consider not his equals, was mainly respon-
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sible. It is true he had once been a deacon, and one of whom Domine Selyns in his exuberant style had written for his use in England: a "pious, candid, and modest Christian," filling his office of deacon "with consummate approbation and praise"! Nevertheless, he has not come down to us in the picture-gallery of that day as a "modest Christian," who to any very successful extent cultivated humility; nor, during these immediate years, was piety as noticeable in him as were some other qualities. The religion of the period in the colony, we must remember, was not as advanced in the moralities as at present. It labored under disadvantages, was to a large extent outward and formal-a cutaneous erup- Fair 51. tion with many, which touched no vital organ. Especially were Vacant men of rank and standing, who were not wholly disgraceful, apt John St. to be lauded as good Christians. Moreover, these were high party William St. times - times which brought to Maiden Path THE TAN PITS the surface and showed in their malignity traits, if they were there, which otherwise would have remained and slumbered innocuous under ground. Such SHOEMAKER'S LAND.1 as Bayard was, such was in the main his party. The offices and the influence were theirs of right; and to be superseded by Leislerians was an indignity and an offense which startled them like an earthquake.
It will be seen that the earl had now brought down upon him the aristocratic party; at least that portion of it which was more devoted to Bayard. As merchants, as a council and as a party, they were essentially one-all anti-Leislerians. In removing their leaders from the council, and especially now Bayard, and in thus replacing them with De Peyster and the rest, he had struck a blow at the party Suprem- acy. From his letters, his own idea would seem to have been to "bal- ance" parties. But to be "balanced" with Leislerians, by turning out their own leaders, was a thing not on the cards of the so long uppermost faction. They were again in loud insurrection. So indignant was Bay- ard with the whole business that he followed Brooke to England to present grievances, leaving Nicolls to manage party interests at home. In a word, we may say that up to this time, since 1691, to keep them- selves up and in, to keep the Leislerians down and out, had been the dominant chord with the other party. Compromise had not been
1 The original name was Shoemaker's Pasture, presented to the Dutch Reformed Church, and still forming part of its property. EDITOR.
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thought of, nor was it as yet really possible. The cockatrice of the ancient fable was the product of a cock's egg hatched by a serpent, and had the wings, legs, and head of a cock upon a serpent's body-an in- congruous and impossible combination, quite contrary to nature. So here, this was a blood feud, with a separating scaffold between, and their principles and motives were utterly diverse. If the earl made any changes, or any that were to be of service to him in his principal work, he must introduce into his council new elements, men not so bound together by ties and interests adverse to him as were those who went out. And (as he himself felt) why should he not? Why should these same men and this "little oligarchy" be always and only in office and in power, when the other side comprised the real majority of the people of the province! In this and in these feelings he was liberal, demo- cratic, and consistent with what he had said concerning "the rights and liberties of the House of Representatives." An old writer has said that in his time there had always been (what he calls) an "upper-crust party," composed of certain prominent classes. But whatever the uses of the upper crust in the baking, it is certain that the under crust bears the main burden of the pie, and has, therefore, a clear claim to respect- ful consideration. For one of his rank and education, in his day, and with such opposition as confronted him, it should surely be regarded as a reason of honor to Lord Bellomont, that he so freely and bravely recognized and accorded to the people their rights.
Individually, the different scenes of a tragedy or comedy only advance by so much the main thought of the piece. This must not be over- looked in the history of a period. On some narrow strip of land or upon some inland sea may have been fought, has before now been fought, a battle fateful to dynasties or countries. Yorktown decided the success of the Revolution, the separation of America from Eng- land. Said Lord North, the English premier, when he heard of it, "O God, it is all over!" Professor John Fiske closes his "Beginnings of New England" with the words, "The spirit of 1776 was foreshadowed in 1689." They may seem periods too far apart to connect, but are not so in reality, any more than cars upon the same track, which are brought together and propelled, mile after mile, by the same spirit of steam in the engine. We speak of the "spirit of '76," almost as if it were some thing isolated and alone. It simply marked an advance, the ripening of grain long before sown. As the origin of the Revolution, Hutchin- son refers to a slight which had been put upon the father of James Otis, in his not being chosen chief justice of the province; and says, "from so small a spark a great fire seems to have been kindled"-that is, it made James Otis a malcontent against government and a patriot. President Adams said, better, "here began the Revolution"-not in that affront, a personal pique, but in the principles advocated by Otis.
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What fire of such dimensions could even Otis have kindled, had there been no burning material ready to hand in the minds of the people? It may seem far to carry back the beginning of that flame, or its preparation, to 1689. Were not popular liberty a principle of the reason with its germs in human nature, and, therefore, like every- thing of God's planting, destined to be developed, it might seem too great a length of time to carry it back to Roman days-to those old days when the Senate ruled, when the aristocracy was or thought itself the nation, when it took all conquered lands at a small quit-rent and handed them down from father to son; but when, also, in due time the Commons arose to claim their share. Defeated, suppressed, even dis- appearing for long periods, the spirit of liberty in and for the people lived on. The rule of English Oliver was a break in the long subserviency to king and nobles. The year 1689 in New-York (to which we return) brought another Bellomonte. break; it gave coherency to a popular party-the first in its colonial history. Leisler held his own for two years because he was backed by the people, not a "rabble." One avowed reason for his execution was to intimidate the people. And now we have Bellomont in 1698, after the intervening years of virtual suppres- sion, by his change of council and its effects, affording them an oppor- tunity to establish themselves, putting new life and vigor into them. It was a happy circumstance for the state, for that party grew in power and was there when much needed, under subsequent royal gov- ernors of a different kind from Lord Bellomont. It may be said, also, that the Leislerians, at this precise date, were the most honest party- not through any incorruptible grace, but because they came so largely from the as yet unsophisticated people; because they had been kept away from the public crib; because evils in the soil had not been watered by opportunity nor visited by the sunshine of Governor Fletcher's favor. So it happened that those original trade dishonesties obliged the earl to do the people's party and the state future a good turn- which, however, his own liberal principles allowed him to do heartily.
Early in October, and, doubtless, a first-fruit of the change in the council, an event of marked interest took place. It was the interment of the bodies of Leisler and Milborne. For seven years since the exe-
1 This later portrait of Lord Bellomont has ap- peared in several recent works, but there is some doubt of its authenticity. It certainly has no re-
semblance to the earlier and genuine picture on another page. EDITOR.
.
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cution in 1691, they had remained where they had been hastily placed, in a grave of dishonor, or it might be called a hole, at the foot of the gallows. Abraham Gouverneur and Robert Walters, with others of the family, now moved to have them receive Christian burial in the crypt of the old Dutch church. To this the governor assented, partly out of a "principle of compassion" for the family, but "chiefly" out of respect to the act of Parliament which, as he expressly says, legiti- mated Leisler's assuming the government. Of course, it was furiously opposed; but the governor sent a guard of honor of a hundred sol- diers. The disinterment took place at midnight. A "rank storm blew." Nevertheless, upward of twelve hundred people were present, who, to the beating of muffled drums and with lighted torches, moved in procession to the City Hall. There the remains were permitted to lie in state for several days, and were then interred under the church. So ended, without any breach of the peace, this act of late justice; but without the relaxing of a muscle of that implacable hate among the old leaders and so much of the opposite faction, which had pursued the memory of these two men and pursued their adherents since 1691.
The new assembly was convened for March 2, 1699, but owing to bad weather and travel did not meet till March 21. Exciting times beforehand! It was a test question-Leislerian or anti-Leislerian! To secure a reasonable degree of fairness, the governor changed the old sheriffs and put in men of "better figure" in their counties. Nicolls especially was in his element-a practised political manager, active G minnelle and indefatigable. More than once, it is said, he slept under a haystack, and he rode night and day about the country appealing to people to elect representatives who would oppose a "revenue." Good demagogue that he was, he made it out a matter of selfish interest to the people themselves, who were mostly farm- ers-and outside of the city, which was rich, they were comparatively poor; but his real meaning was that an assembly that would refuse to continue the revenue would be a sure means of ruining the earl's interest at court, and so of getting him "quickly called home"! For- tunately for themselves, the Leislerians in this canvass also had good leaders. Abraham Gouverneur was one, and Robert Walters "twice swam a swollen stream when the ice was breaking"! Such was this early but by no means unimportant election campaign for members of the assembly; nor would the picture be complete without the mention of some fighting and broken heads at the polls. But the Leislerians were victorious; and it gives us the means of judging very nearly the relative strength of these two parties. The figures tell. The assembly had twenty-one members, of whom sixteen were Leislerians! In the
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city itself the vote was four hundred and fifty-five (freeholders) to one hundred and seventy-seven-the latter anti-Leislerians! To be sure, Bayard and Brooke were absent, but any change would have been relatively small. To Bellomont the victory was most important; for it showed that the people were largely with him; and besides this, upon the third day of the session these sixteen Leislerians voted him the "rev- enue," and its management, for six years, with the remaining one year of ex-Governor Fletcher's dotation added ! To the Leislerian party it was important, for it gave them standing and power, with the gover- nor and council and assembly in reasonable accord. We may well ask, however, in view of the figures, how so much smaller a party had kept the rule so completely and so long? As a matter of fact, twenty-eight or thirty persons had been the nucleus of every disturbance. The reasons are plain. They had acquired wealth, and assumed style and standing above their fellows; they were a coterie who held together and pushed their class pretensions with persistent assertion and arro- gance; they were the society that surrounded the incumbent governor and had his support; for years several of them had been steadily in office, Bayard for now forty years, until, in the end, they turned what was at first only pretension sustained by wealth and viceroyal favor into a right which it was an insolence to dispute. These claims and their place in the public eye they meant to maintain; and under acute leaders like Bayard and Nicolls, their connection with the governor gave them the means and the power. When that connection ceased and it came to votes, as in Leisler's time and now, their ascendancy ceased, they shrank to a lean minority. One hold upon power they still had-it was Bellomont's weak and vulnerable point. By misrepresentation and clamor, as gentlemen of wealth and chief standing in the city, they might do him harm in England, might even compass his recall.
One incident of that assembly had a kind of grim humor, not at all to the taste of the person concerned. James Graham, the attorney- general, was for the nonce speaker. He was a son of the Scotch Earl of Montrose, a man of some fine intellectual and social gifts, but as a politician shifty and uncertain. He had already shown his ability to leap the political fence with neatness and despatch, and without a straddle. In 1691 he was active in Leisler's trial and condemnation; in 1698, Lord Bellomont's friend and a reputed Leislerian! No wonder (to quote the earl) he had "the ill-luck to be hated by all parties in the House"! Especially was not Gouverneur, the husband of Mary Leisler, Milborne's widow, himself one of the "condemned six," and now the member for Orange and Kings, likely to forego a chance which offered itself to pay off some of the old score by humbling
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Graham. He drew up a petition to the king asking repayment of £2700 expended by Leisler personally for the public service. It re- counted his cruel treatment. This petition, if passed, it would be Graham's duty to sign and, at the head of the assembly, present to the governor. If he did not, they meant to expel him; if he did, as he told Bellomont, it would be "cutting his own throat." From this plight the governor relieved him. His name had been for several months on the list approved by the king for the council, so the gov- ernor now swore him in and told the assembly they must elect another speaker. Gouverneur was then elected, and the petition was passed and sent by the governor to the king. It was the last incident re- lating to the Leisler family, or as to any reparation of damages sus- tained by members of the party, during the earl's administration.
Another measure passed by this Leislerian assembly was of real importance to the state and its future, although it involved the earl in a fresh fire of resistance and trouble. It was the vacation of cer- tain land grants made by ex-Governor Fletcher, contrary to good policy and right, and which invested about a dozen individuals with two thirds or three fourths of the lands of the province, including, also, some from the Mohawks. For the state it was a question whether the semi-feudal manorial system should prevail, to the extent indicated by these grants-a system which carried with it almost baronial privileges and position for the proprietor, and which would require, if carried out, a large importation of negroes as servants. They had first come in as slaves in 1638, were selling in New-York at thirty-five dollars a head, and were the main dependence of these "grandees" for servants. Philipse, the "Dutch millionaire," received his charter in 1693; when he died, in 1702, his household embraced forty slaves; and in that year, also, Cornbury's assembly passed an act "for disciplining slaves who had become insolent and unmanageable." It was one plea of the merchants that their ships went for negroes, and picked up the "Arabian gold and East India goods" quite legitimately on the way. The subject, therefore, involved an increase of slavery, and the char- acter of the future population. There were no conditions in these grants, apparently, requiring the settlement and improvement of the country, as had formerly been the case-when, if not settled within three years, the lands returned to the grantor ; and, in any case, the settlers would merely be tenants subject to these lords, whose would be all the profit. For the government quit-rents attached to the grants were ridiculously small, even if collected-for instance, "one beaver skin per annum for the first seven years," and five a year "for ever after," as rent of seventy miles long by twelve in width! In such a way had the public domain been disposed of to these few men, for no reason but that they were favorites of Fletcher or able to fee him.
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EARL OF BELLOMONT AND SUPPRESSION OF PIRACY
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LETTER OF COL. NICHOLAS BAYARD.1
1 Translation of letter :
Mr. Robert Sanders: N. York, Jan. 10. 1691. Your letter of Nov. 15 reached me duly with the answer between you with Messrs. Honan and Miller. I have again arranged with Honan, who will now write to you; they have neglected to take up the grant, and now the time has run out so that it must be petitioned for again, and while Miller has gone I think Mr. Jamisson will take his place, with whom you will again come to rights much better; however, if you wish to have a grant sepa- rately for yourself for Squaege, I shall promote the same for you, but the same will cost about three pounds or 10 pieces of 8; this money you will need to advance here, for without money there is nothing to be gotten out of the Secretary; and then you must procure a deed of sale, or free
gift under hand and seal from the Indian proprie- tors, certified before some magistrate, whereupon the patent will be passed; this is for your infor- mation. The remaining trifles, such as tobacco and pipes, &c., I will send up with the first yacht. I would have sent them up with the last yacht, but your letter came too late into my hands. Should it happen that you come to see Skohaare's land, be so kind as to make me a chart or report of the situation of the same. The patent is now being made: the envy of those of Albany has made it cost me more than I had thought; for a long time it will not be worth anything, and now they tell me that the best land has been ruined by the overflow and sand from the Kill. Patience! With greetings from your friend and servant, N. BAYARD.
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
When attention was called to it in England, accompanied by a schedule of the grants, the lords justices instructed Bellomont to use "all methods whatsoever allowed by law" for "breaking and annul- ling" them. Whereupon Mr. Attorney-General was directed to draw up a bill to that effect. He had been in favor of such a measure, and at his own suggestion six special grants had been named in the bill. But when it was about to be acted upon in the council and assembly, what was the earl's amazement to hear him declare that it "could not be done," "'t was an original right by virtue of the great seal and the public faith of England"! Mr. Attorney had found a "quarter of meat" laid across his threshold, which he considered a menace that he was to be "quartered"! The earl laughed in his face; but evidently he had been "threat- ened," and went over the fence at once. In the house, and as speaker, he opposed the bill vehemently. With all his fine talents, and even brilliancy, it is certain that Mr. Graham was THE NEW CITY HALL, 1700. a coward and trimmer, utterly untrustworthy. Like a heron watching a frog-pond, he stood on one leg till expediency led him to change to the other, with the concomitant "ill luck" of being hated and despised. Lord Bellomont was not of that kind. The council stood three to three, and he gave the casting vote. In the house it passed by a large majority. But before it could become fully effective, it had to receive English approval. This it was which gave the earl his trouble; it transferred the conflict to the other side, where agents and agencies were busy to pull him down, whilst he was confined to his duties at home. Moreover, it brought in a fresh element of opposition,-the clerical,-which must now be explained.
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