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 40
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more defined organization than can be discerned in the ephemeral actions cited.
The articles of "Sentinel," mentioned above, began on February 28, 1765. According to Sedgwick they were commenced by Wil- liam Livingston. "There is no number of these essays exclusively devoted to the subject of the Stamp Act, the opposition to which was now rapidly drawing to a head," says the same authority. But the first response to the note raised by Barre was sounded by this same "Sentinel," and it became the rallying-cry of the body of the people, the mechanics and seamen of the New-York colony. It is not unfair to suppose that as the hour of direct conflict drew on, a people accus- tomed to concerted action should have consulted together, listened to the advice of such trusted chiefs as John Morin Scott and Alexander McDougall, and placed themselves in communication with their friends in the eastern and middle colonies. The contrary would be strange. In the months of June and July news arrived of the appointment of stamp agents for the several colonies, and of the official announce- ment that the act would be enforced on November 1. As the sen- timent of resistance was general, a concert of action by the several colonies was a natural corollary. Priority in a demand so universal cannot be safely claimed, nor yet to which individual in the several committees of correspondence the credit of suggesting it is due. The House of Representatives of the Massachusetts Bay brought the sub- ject to a focus by agreeing to a committee of representatives or of burgesses on the condition of the colonies, to consider of a dutiful, loyal, and humble representation to his Majesty and parliament for relief. This meeting was set for the first Tuesday in October, and New-York was designated as the place of assemblage.
New-York was naturally selected for the place of meeting as the most convenient because it was the geographical, political, and com- mercial center of the colonies, accessible by water as by land. It must not be forgotten that every one of the original thirteen colonies was a seaboard settlement: each with a seaport of its own; each with its direct communication with England for commerce, and each with some coastwise trade; each independent, and jealous of its independence of the others; and each loyal in its own measure to the parent gov- ernment, as its own interests were consulted in the enforcement or the relaxation of the laws of trade. While each, therefore, might have stood ready to take its chances against its neighbors, even under their onerous exactions, the idea of a danger which they must suffer or avert in common naturally brought them together, and there was no thought of local jealousy when New-York was chosen as the meeting- place for the most important assemblage known in their history. New-York was the natural center of influence. Her geographical posi-
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tion, midway between the more populous settlements to the eastward and southward, which the broad Hudson and the great bay at its mouth divided, was the natural key to the continent. The exposed situation of her northern border to French and Indian invasion had been a concern at all times to all the colonies. Upon her safety hung the entire system of English settlements. "Whatever happens in this place," wrote Colden to Secretary Conway, "has the greatest influence in the other col- onies. They have their eyes perpetu- THIS CHURCH WAS BUILT EY THE CONGREGATION OF THE REFORMED PROTESTANT DUTCH CHURCH IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK FOR ENGLISH SERVICE UNDER THE INSPECTION OFA COMMITTE OF ally upon it, and they govern them- selves accordingly." ELDERS BEACONS Moreover, no col- PETER MARSCHALK ony was in such ČOENS BOGERT PETER LOTT ADRIAN BANCKER ISAAC ROSEUELT direct sympathy THEODORUS VAN WYCK ANDREW MARSCHALK GARRET ABEEL with England. It must be remem- ANDREW BREESTED YO "CARPENTER'AND PROTECTOR LOHN STAGG MASTER. MASON AND' ALEX BATES THE FIRST STONE WAS LAID JULY 2 1767 BY MAR JACOBUS ROSEUELT SEN ELDER THE WALLS BUILT TO RECEIVE THE ROOF JUNE 17 1768 THESE PILLARSREARED JUNE 21 1768 bered that it was an English con- quest, not an Eng- lish colonial settle- ment, and as such THE FIRST ENGLISH MINISTER FOR THE DUTCH CONGREGATION THE REU ARCHIBALD LAIDLIE 1764 PEACE BE WITHEN. THIS SACRED PLACE AND HOLY GIFTS AND HEAVENLYGRACE TOBIAS VAN ZANDT CLERK GABEEL FECIT was more in touch with the ideas of the England of that day than its neighbors of New DUTCH CHURCH INSCRIPTION, 1769. England or of Pennsylvania. New-York was a purely commer- cial city whose life was English trade; most of her merchants were Britons born or in close relation with their kindred across the sea. Favored beyond any of the provincial cities by its climate, the charm of its natural scenery, the variety and abundance of food, native and tropical, of water and land supply, and already the seat of a thriving trade, it was the coveted post of British officials. Here they found church and state very much as at home; a wealthy class whose manners and habits were formed on the easy home pattern, whose residences and tables compared with any of those even of the richest English gentry, and whose native British roughness had been tempered by a reasonable infusion of Dutch and Huguenot blood. As previous chapters have shown, one after another of the connections of royalty and of the high nobility of the kingdom had sought office in the New- York province, and not a few of these, or of the officers of the army and navy, had formed closer ties with their American cousins by mar-
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riage with the daughters of the opulent magnates. Communication with home was constant by the well-appointed packets, and in almost every journal of the day notice may be found of "gentlemen intend- ing for England," or of the return of some well-known traveler. New- York was therefore the natural choice for the meeting of the colo- nial committee.
It may be stated here that the colonies were as conscious of their power as of their rights. The white male population between sixteen and sixty years of age of the entire territory was estimated at the time at three hundred thousand : a force, when combined, quite sufficient for any and all purposes of defense against any enemy from across the sea. The right of petition has al- ways been jealously guarded as the THE NORTH DUTCH CHURCH, 1769. dearest of popular rights; the right of complaint of the governed to the authorities who govern, no matter under what form. Hence the suppression of the petition from the New- York and Massachusetts assemblies by the privy council of the king was looked upon as a serious outrage and a dangerous infringement of their rights. Such a thing would not have been attempted in case of a petition from Englishmen, and the colonists met the indignity with impatient alarm. They were not of a spirit to brook the idea of in- feriority to the parent race. They awaited the action of the governors with anxiety, and the hope was publicly expressed " that neither the governor of Virginia nor any other governor on the continent would think the proposed Congress so improper a step as to dissolve the assemblies to prevent it"; and that there might be no question as to the right, it was added " that their Excellencies and Honours cannot be thought altogether unacquainted with the Act of Parliament made immediately after the glorious revolution, which declares it is the right of the subject to petition the King, and that Parliament sits for the redress of grievances."
At first the people seemed hardly to comprehend the gravity of the blow struck at their liberties. Colden wrote on the 27th of April to the Earl of Halifax that "this Government continues in perfect tran- quillity, notwithstanding the continued efforts of a faction to raise discontent in the minds of the people and disorder in consequence of it. ... No illicit trade has been discovered of late." And in May he
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wrote to Monckton that "the gentlemen of the law seem to have placed the chief stress of their cause in raising public clamour. Notwithstand- ing of this, I am fully persuaded the People of this Province will quietly submit to the Kings determination, whatever it be. By the care that I have taken that no reply be made to a licentious, abusive, weekly printed paper, the administration is restored to its usual tran- quillity, and I hope it will continue to." On the last day of the month he writes again to the Earl of Halifax that "the administration of government continues in its usual tranquillity." But the gentlemen of the law, as he knew them, anxious for the liberties of the colony as the lieutenant-governor for the prerogative of the king, were not idle, and the tranquillity on which Colden plumed himself was the calm which precedes the storm.
John Morin Scott, in three masterly papers which appeared in "the licentious sheet " (Holt's "New-York Gazette," the liberal organ) on June 6, 13, and 27, under the signature of "Freeman," startled the people to the consequence of non-resistance, against which Living- ston had entered his warning ten years before. Bancroft seems un- certain as to the authorship of these letters of "Freeman." He agrees that Scott seems most likely to have written them. But Dawson has no hesitation in his ascription of them to Scott, though he gives no authority. Bancroft makes frequent quotations from their significant passages. "It is not the tax," said he, "it is the unconstitutional man- ner of imposing it, that is the great subject of uneasiness to the colo- nies." He charged that "the taxation of America is arbitrary and tyrannical, and what the Parliament of England had no right to impose"; and further, drawing his conclusions from his close premises, he says, "If then the interest of the Mother Country and her Colonies can not be made to coincide, if the same Constitution may not take place in both, if the welfare of the Mother Country necessarily requires a sacrifice of the most valuable natural rights of the Colonies: their right of making their own laws and disposing of their property by representation of their own choosing -if such is really the case between Great Britain and her Colonies, then the connection between them ought to cease; and sooner or later it must inevitably cease. The English Government cannot long act towards a part of its domin- ions upon principles diametrically opposed to its own without losing itself in the slavery it would impose upon the Colonies or learning from them to throw it off and assert their freedom. There never can be a disposition in the Colonies to break off their connection with the Mother Country so long as they are permitted to have the full enjoy- ment of those rights to which the English Constitution entitles them. . .. They desire no more; nor yet can they be satisfied with less." In his text Scott called this the "Land of Liberty." This bold assertion of
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the rights, this bold declaration of the intentions of the Americans, was "caught up," says Bancroft, by the impatient colonies, and formed part of the instruction of South Carolina to her agent in England. The situation at this time is thus summed up: "Virginia marshalled resistance; Massachusetts entreated Union; New-York pointed to independence." So says Bancroft. In fact, however, the first resis- tance came from New-York; the first idea of union was formulated in New-York, and in New-York independence was the early ultimatum. And while the thoughtful were thus addressed through the press, the streets abounded in pamphlets and squibs, and the stamp act itself was hawked about as "The folly of England and the ruin of America."
As the summer waned the popular indignation waxed stronger. On the morning of August 14 two effigies were seen suspended from a branch of the Great Tree, one of the large elms on Hanover Square, in the town of Boston. One was labeled "Distributor of Stamps." After hanging all day they were toward evening cut down and carried in procession to a building newly erected and belonging to Mr. Oliver, the stamp officer for the Massachusetts province, which was sacked and destroyed. Mr. Oliver took the warning, and the next morning resigned his office. This example was followed in the other colonies. Ingersoll at New Haven engaged to reship the stamps or leave them to the disposal of the people. Later he was hanged in effigy at Norwich. Johnston at Newport was burned in effigy, and resigned. Coxe in New Jersey, unable to hire an office, threw up his commission. Colden's letter to Sir William Johnson is authority for the action taken in New-York. "Yesterday, August 30th, James McEvers (who had accepted the office of Distributor of Stamps and entered into bonds) sent me his resignation of the office being terrified by the sufferings and ill usage the Stamp Officer met with in Boston and the threats he has received at New-York." Still Colden had hopes to be able to defeat the measures of the patriots and to deliver the stamps. In the very letter above quoted he says, " I shall not be in- timidated." On September 2 Colden asked General Gage for a mili- tary force to protect the government, and suggested the ordering to the city of the nearest battalion available; and the next day urged Captain Kennedy, commander of H. M. S. Coventry, to watch the incoming vessels and protect that on which the stamps might be.
On August 26 there was a great riot in Boston, when several build- ings, including that of the lieutenant-governor, were injured; yet, but a few days before, the anniversary of the birthday of the Prince of Wales was celebrated, as the journals reported, with great dem- onstrations of joy and with marks of unfeigned loyalty. The "New- York Gazette" makes no mention of any similar exercises here. In September, Hood, the stamp-master for Maryland, was driven from
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Annapolis and took refuge in New-York. He took lodgings at the Kings Arms Tavern, but, learning that the people of the city were about to force a resignation from him, he applied to Colden and re- ceived quarters in Fort George, which on the 14th he described as "crowded with men and military stores." The similarity of these events in the several colonies justifies Colden's expression to Conway that a secret correspondence had been carried on throughout all the colonies; and that "it has been concerted to deter by violence the
Distributors of Stamps from executing their office and to destroy the Stamped paper, when it arrived."
NC
NJ
NY
In September the idea of union took SC definite shape. A broadside entitled V NE the "Constitutional Courant," secretly G M P printed in New Jersey, was widely cir- UNITE OR DIE culated in New-York, and later re- printed here and in Boston. It bore as a head-piece the device of a snake cut in parts to represent the colonies, with the motto " Unite or die," the familiar symbol used by Dr. Franklin in his "Pennsylvania Gazette," in 1754, to arouse the colonies to the danger of the French invasion. Copies of the "Courant" were handed about the streets of New-York by Lawrence Sweeny, an eccentric character, better known by his sobriquet of "Bloody News," from his familiar cry announ- cing the army news during the sanguinary French war. When asked by Colden where he obtained the paper, he humorously answered, "From Peter Hasenkliver's iron-works,1 please Your Honor." The next day the "Courant" took up the joke, and gravely announced that it was there printed. Colden sent a copy of it to Secretary Conway, and advised him that bundles of them had been delivered by James Parker, secretary to the general post-office in North America, by whom it was believed to have been printed, and that it had been distributed along the post-roads by the post-riders. Songs were written for the Sons of Liberty. The temper of the city was so high that even Col- den wrote to the home government that he agreed with the gentle- men of the council that it was not a proper time to prosecute the printers and publishers of the seditious papers. Indeed, the attorney- general had told him that he did not think himself safe to command any such prosecution.
During this exciting period General Monckton remained in London, and was kept well informed of events as they happened on this side of the water. Like his companion at Quebec, Colonel Barre, he was not
1 Peter Hasenkliver was an enterprising char- acter about the middle of the eighteenth century. He established the iron-works in East Jersey.
The property is now owned and occupied by ex- Mayor Abram S. Hewitt.
VOL. II .- 23.
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in favor of the oppressive measures. In time he formally resigned, and Sir Henry Moore was appointed to succeed him in the New-York government. Those acquainted with Moore's character, public and private, were pleased with the appointment. He had served the crown as governor of Jamaica, and was knighted for his conduct in the suppression of an insurrec- tion of the slaves in that island. But such sa- gacious men as Monckton's friend, John Watts, doubted the wisdom of the appointment. "The Northern Colonies," he wrote, "have always con- sidered the planters of the Southern their enemies #Moore from self-interest, and if ever there is the least occasion, will be more uneasy under such ruler whose heart naturally will be where his trea- sure is, than under a person they judge unprejudiced and disinter- ested." As September drew to a close, Colden seems to have grown somewhat uneasy, and wrote to the new governor that nothing could give him more pleasure than his presence in the city. Watts describes him as terrified at the mobs which now ruled the town, and the fort as armed beyond what it had ever been before: "howitzers on the curtains, cannon facing the gates and the Broadway, as if Montcalm was at King's Bridge." So full was Fort George that Colden wrote to Governor Franklin of Pennsylvania, who had asked a lodgment for the stamps for that province in the fort, that there was no place for them but in the governor's house, and recommended that they be put on one of the king's frigates in port. His own arrangements he thus describes: "I desired the Captains of His Majesty's Ships of War now in the river to protect the ship in which they should come. For this purpose a sloop was placed at Sandy Hook and a frigate midway between that and this place, while the Coventry lay before the town."
Early in the month news had reached the colonies of a change in the ministry. There was great rejoicing in Boston. The great elms venerated for their antiquity were decorated with the emblems of Eng- land, the colors embroidered with mottos; and, with cheers and mili- tary salutes, a copperplate on which was stamped in golden letters the legend, "The Tree of Liberty, August 14, 1765," was placed on the tree where the effigies had hung on that day. This appears to have been the first liberty tree, but the custom of stripping a tall tree of all but its topmost branches, beneath which the national standard waves, has not yet died out in the villages of the country.
The stamped paper now began to arrive; the first instalment, des- tined for New Hampshire, reached Boston early in September. A few days later a ship arrived in Boston with fourteen boxes, but was com- pelled to seek safety under the guns of the castle and in the guard of
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a sloop of war and a cutter. Those for Philadelphia arrived on Octo- ber 5. The ship lay off Newcastle on the Delaware, under similar protection. As it rounded Gloucester Point the colors of the vessels in the harbors were lowered to half-mast, and the bells of the city were tolled. A mass-meeting was held, and Hughes, the stamp-mas- ter, compelled to engage that he would not execute the office.
The delegates to the congress-the "Stamp Act Congress," as it is known in history -began to arrive in New-York early in October. The first was the committee from South Carolina. When the question of its appointment came up in the assembly, says Ramsey, it was thus ridiculed by a humorous member: "If you agree to the proposition of composing a Congress of deputies from the different British Col- onies, what kind of a dish will you make? New England will throw in fish and onions; the Middle States, flax-seed and flour; Maryland and Virginia will add tobacco; North Carolina, pitch, tar, and turpen- tine; South Carolina, rice and Indigo; and Georgia will sprinkle the whole composition with saw dust. Such an absurd jumble will you make if you attempt to form a union among such discordant materials as the thirteen British provinces." To which a country member re- torted : " He would not choose the gentleman who made the objections for his cook, but, nevertheless, he would venture to assert that if the colonies proceeded judiciously in the appointment of deputies to a Continental Congress, they would prepare a dish fit to be presented to any crowned head in Europe." On Monday, October 7, the con- gress met in the City Hall. There were present delegates from nine colonies, viz .: Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence plantations, Connecticut, New-York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the government of the counties of Newcastle, Kent, and Suffolk upon Del- aware, Maryland, and South Carolina. Of these only six were duly authorized committees appointed by the legislatures within the terms of the call. As the New-York assembly had not been in session for a long period, the committee of correspondence chosen at its last ses- sion was admitted to represent the province. These were John Cru- ger, Robert R. Livingston, Philip Livingston, William Bayard, and Leonard Lispenard-an able and fearless body. The South Carolina and Connecticut delegates were restricted in their action by their as- semblies. Virginia and North Carolina were not represented; their assemblies having been prorogued by the governors. The Georgia as- sembly were enjoined by their governor from sending a committee. New Hampshire wrote that they were not in a position to send dele- gates. Among the twenty-eight members who appeared were many whose names were familiar throughout the colonies: Cruger and the Livingstons of New-York, Otis of Massachusetts, Johnson of Connec- ticut, Dickinson of Pennsylvania, Mckeon from Delaware, Gadsden
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and Rutledge from South Carolina-all historic names. Ruggles of Massachusetts, who had commanded a brigade in the late French war, was chosen chairman. The sessions were secret, and the journal printed later is extremely meager in the details of their proceedings. It would seem that they named a committee to draft a declaration of rights and grievances, and then adjourned. They met finally on October 19, and, after mature deliberation, agreed on this docu- ment. The authorship of the der- laration has been usually ascribed to John Cruger. It has also been claimed for John Dickinson. It is an able and fearless paper, of which any one of the great men named might have been proud. Commit- tees were then appointed-one to draft an address to the king; an- other, a memorial to the lords; a third, a petition to the House of Commons. On the 21st, 22d, and 23d these addresses were adopted. On the 24th the colonies were re- quested to appoint special agents In: Alexander' to solicit relief. When the business was completed, Ruggles, who had presided over the several meetings, refused to sign the petitions "as against his conscience." All the others, however, except Ogden of New Jersey, unhesitatingly sub- scribed their names. The congress, after engaging themselves not to make public their petitions until they were presented, adjourned on the afternoon of Friday, October 28. They separated after an affectionate leave-taking, most of them setting out at once for home. Ruggles had left the previous day. Colden was greatly disgusted with these proceedings. To the Boston committee, who waited courteously upon him on their arrival, he gave a cold reception, and told them that the meeting of the commissioners was unconstitutional, unprecedented, and unlawful, and that he could give them no kind of countenance or encouragement. He hardly mentions the subject in his letters to the home government, confining himself to announcing their arrival, and disclaiming any knowledge of what they were doing or designed to do.
Meanwhile the people were in council as to some means of forcing the merchants of Great Britain to take up their quarrel or redress
1 The portrait of James Alexander and that of his wife are from the originals, attributed to Copley, in the possession of Mrs. Archibald Russell of New-York. EDITOR.
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