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 43
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Up to this time all the disturbances had been at night; but the Sons of Liberty of Philadelphia sending an express to New-York, on the 14th, with word that Mediterranean passes (passes issued by the gov- ernment of Great Britain, under treaty with the Dey of Algiers, for safe passage of the Straits of Gibraltar) had been sent out from New-York on American stamped paper by Messrs. Pintard & Williams, two well- known merchants, all disguise was thrown off, and the Sons of Liberty, headed by Lamb, Sears, and Allicocke, marched in broad daylight to the houses of these gentlemen. The next day their persons were seized and taken to the common, where they narrowly escaped being pilloried only on the appeal of the clergymen of the city. They were put on their defense and made humble submission, first on the com- mon, again at their door-steps, and later on oath published in the "Gazette." On February 17 the Falmouth packet brought the satis- factory news that it had been decided that there could be no appeal from the verdict of a jury; but also that of the declaration of Gren- ville in the house that the colonies were in rebellion. Nor was he far astray, when now for nearly three months the "New-York Gazette" was boldly printed under the heading, "The united voice of all his
376
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Majesty's free and loyal subjects in America, Liberty and Property, and no Stamps"; when societies of the Sons of Liberty were already formed in every town and hamlet, and their resolutions published in the New-York prints; when Colonel Putnam openly advised the New- York committee that he would assist them with the Connecticut mili- tia, in the New-York province or any other; nay, more, when the New-York committee openly announced their purpose to seize all the crown officers and embark them for England, while the more radical publicly declared for shaking off the yoke of dependency. At this time the governor himself was wearing American homespun, with the avowed purpose of encouraging American manufactures, while the engineer Montresor was just completing his military survey of the city for General Gage and finishing the unspiking of the ordnance, spiked on the battery, by Colden's orders, before the crisis of November.
On Thursday, March 6, the leaders of the populace resolved to show their opinion of Colden's action, and organized a large procession carrying an effigy representing the lieutenant-governor mounted on a cannon and drilling a vent. On his head was a paper with these lines:
I'm deceived by the Devil and left in the lurch; And I'm forced to do penance, tho' not in the church.
After it had been paraded through the chief streets, the effigy was burned on the common. On the 12th news came from England that Captain Kennedy had been superseded in his command of the man- of-war Coventry for having refused to receive the stamps. The same packet bringing news that Sir Jeffery Amherst had urged an increase of British forces in America, it was proposed to have another proces- sion and to burn him in effigy; and it was also proposed to erect a statue to William Pitt, the recognized friend of the colonies, at the Bowling Green, and that the Green be known forever after as Liberty Green. On the night of the 19th the Sons of Liberty performed an act of boldness as yet unrivaled in their proceedings. They delegated two of their committee to go on board the Garland ship-of-war and demand the surrender of one of the lieutenants of that vessel for having said that the printer Holt deserved hanging for the licentiousness of his paper. The lieutenant was not given up, and the next morning the navy and army officers concerted for common defense. This action of General Gage was a cause of great exasperation to the citizens. They resented the interposition of the military between the navy and themselves. A few days later news came from Connecti- cut that Colonel Putnam was ready to march with ten thousand men, and that arms and ammunition were already collected. Yet at that time not a stamp had reached that colony-all remaining in New-York.
THE PART OF NEW-YORK IN THE STAMP ACT TROUBLES 377
A crisis had evidently arrived, and there seems little doubt that within a few days a collision would have occurred and a revolution have been precipitated, when, on the afternoon of March 25, an ex- press arrived from the Sons of Liberty in Philadelphia bringing word of the arrival in the Chesapeake of a vessel from Cork with advices "that everything relating to the affairs of America was settled, . .. the Stamp Act repealed, and requisitions to be made to the respective colonies for the support of the American establishments." As an in- stance of the rapid exchange of letters by the Sons of Liberty, it is stated that "this express arrived in twenty- two hours." There being reasonable doubt as to the exactness of this news, there was no relaxation in the efforts of the organization for concerted ac- tion, and as a first step toward concen- tration congresses of the local societies were called in several of the colonies. On the other hand, the crown officers took measures of precaution. One thousand barrels of powder and twelve thousand stands of arms were put on board the men-of-war in New-York harbor for safety. But the commander- in-chief was compelled to use wood- boats for their transfer, the vessels in GENERAL THOMAS GAGE. port declining the service, and Governor Moore refusing a press-war- rant to General Gage, "as 'twas time of Peace." The general protest- ing, the governor and council consented to the issue of the useless warrant, the result of it being that exasperation against the military now took practical shape. The officers of the Royal Americans were in- sulted, and on one occasion one of their number was assaulted and his sword broken. On April 4 definite news reached the city, from Charles- ton, South Carolina, of the repeal of the stamp act on February 8. Yet this also was premature, as it was not until February 22 that Secretary Conway moved in the Commons for leave to report a bill of repeal, and that Pitt, who had hobbled into the house on crutches and wrapped in flannels, amid the cheers of the bystanders, supported the motion, "as due to the liberty of unrepresented subjects, and in gratitude to their having supported England through three wars." When, on mid- night of March 4, the bill was finally repealed, it was accompanied by an act declaratory of the absolute power of parliament to bind America. The bill for repeal passed the Lords on March 17, and the next day the king, sitting in state at Westminster, gave his assent "in
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
sorrow and despite." Bow Bells rang out the delight of London, and the happy conclusion was celebrated by dinners, bonfires, and a general display of colors. On Tuesday, May 20, an express from Boston brought the news of the repeal. It had been received from Liverpool by a brig belonging to John Hancock. The Sons of Liberty met in the evening, and the next day issued a call for a general meeting at one o'clock the day after at the house of Mr. Richard Howard' in the Fields. The day was celebrated with a dinner, with a "royal salute," and at night there were two bonfires on the common and a general illumination. Pitt was the hero of the toasts, and was designated "the Guardian of America." The gratitude of the people to Pitt was general throughout the colonies, from Massachusetts to Georgia. The idea of a statue in recognition of his services, proposed in New-York, first took practical form in the assembly of South Carolina, by whom in May a marble statue was ordered, and also portraits of her commissioners to the Stamp Act Congress. The example was later followed by New-York. The two statues were similar and by the same artist, Wilton of Lon- don. That executed for South Carolina still exists in Charleston. That in New-York was defaced by the British troops during the Revo- lutionary War. Its headless form may still be seen in the collection of the New-York Historical Society.
The first non-importation agreement, the famous act of commercial defense against the oppression of the British parliament, originated, as has been shown, in the city of New-York, and was undertaken at the deliberate self-sacrifice of the merchants and tradesmen of the city. Copied in Philadelphia and later in Boston, it was at first uni- versally hailed as the true measure of retaliation. Its effect was im- mediate on the sentiment of the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain, and its result was the repeal of the stamp act. The compliance in New-York with the strict terms of the agreement seems to have been from the first general and voluntary, and to have re- quired the interference of no specially appointed committee for its enforcement.2 But pending the repeal of the act, the Sons of Liberty
1 So in the call-no doubt the house of William Howard.
" As to the comparative observance of the non- importation agreement, 1769 -70, an excellent idea may be gained from a letter of William Samuel Johnson to Governor Jonathan Trumbull of Con- necticut : " After all the tergiversations amongst the merchants the trade has this year been re- duced about seven hundred thousand pounds as you see by the following account nearly as it was stated last night from the Custom House Entries." Value of all goods exported from England to the colonies in North America from Christmas, 1767 :
1767-1768 1768-1769
Canada
£110,000
£174,000
1767-1768
1768-1769
Carolina.
£200,000
£306,000
Florida
.32,000
29,000
Georgia
.36,000
58,000
Hudson's Bay .
.. 5,000
4,000
New England
419,000
207,000
New Foundland
.. 6,000
6,000
New York
482,000
74,000
Nova Scotia
.19,000
19,000
Pennsylvania
432,000
199,000
Virginia and Maryland. . 475,000
483,000
How forcible would the commercial agreement have appeared had all the colonies abated in the proportion of New-York, which seems to have imported only the articles allowed by the agree- ment.
THE PART OF NEW-YORK IN THE STAMP ACT TROUBLES 379
took care that there should be no infringement of the agreement. On May 24, 1766, a vessel came in from Bristol bringing a cargo of salt, coal, and bottled beer, consigned to Mr. Bache. Immediately a com- mittee, led by Isaac Sears, boarded the vessel, demanded and received the papers for the cargo, and the same being discharged and branded with the New-York arms, was reshipped to Great Britain. These goods came on commission, and no doubt were shipped after Janu- ary 1, the date fixed by the agreement, but without the knowledge of Mr. Bache, the consignee. This seems to have been the only act of infringement.
As early as April 15 the Sons of Liberty declared that even though the stamp act itself should be repealed, they would insist on all restric- tions of trade being removed and the abolishment of post-offices and courts of admiralty. On May 11 the New-York committee informed that of Philadelphia "that a very great majority of the merchants and in- habitants of the city [New-York] are positively determined that the non-importation agreement shall not be broke through here (while the other colonies continue to adhere to it) till a total repeal of the Acts imposing duties upon paper, painters' colours, glass and tea, takes place." The act of repeal, as will be remembered, was accompanied by an act declaratory of the right of king and parliament "to bind the colonies and his Majesty's subjects in them in all cases whatso- ever"; and Pitt himself, in his demand for the repeal, had said, "Let the sovereign authority of this country [Great Britain] over the colo- nies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever; that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever except that of taking money out of their pockets without their consent."
Hardly were the rejoicings in the city of New-York begun before the Sons of Liberty further declared that they would neither obey nor suffer to be obeyed any requisition whatever. Later advices and a publication of the warm appeals of the friends of America in parlia- ment, and the congratulations to the merchants from their London correspondents, greatly calmed the general excitement ; and as these letters advised a further ease to American trade by taking off several restrictions, the extreme purposes of the more radical of the Sons of Liberty were modified or fell to the ground. Montresor tells us that they even "divested themselves of their home-spun clothes, and were supposed only to remain with home-spun hearts." All business was resumed on the old footing. The organization itself was shortly after dissolved. As its minutes are not, so far as known, in existence, it is difficult to fix the precise date of discontinuance. The last official paper in the collection of John Lamb, who seems to have been the
380
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
custodian or secretary of the society, is a letter of May 24 from Albany, signed by Jeremiah Van Rensselaer and others of the com- mittee of correspondence of that place. A later letter, dated London, July 28, 1766, from Mr. Nicholas Ray, a wealthy merchant of New- York and an ardent patriot, speaks of his being informed that "the Society is dissolved." Mr. Ray, recognizing the great service rendered by the constant dissemination of news in England through the action of the society, urged the formation of a club by ten or twenty of the leading members of the late society, under the title of the Liberty Club,
Dear Son
Keny ag . 6. 0261.
I have like to day but to Rank God for our Health, IL
I cannot you go cut , the Imate now being book in the Broad way the Chapquel Strat for that - M: Barclay chefe to that of the Chapped Gestion. being himself norwell , rather than I should ventun. IN" Rivington was ho for one. East Soaring It tells me he was from home, others have funt fundet , It he WN . Winflow , with Complet that is magazine " more taken in the best thing , has he phase form have a suppif & work wider for mor white . I belove our Commencent with his the last west in May , when it Rover is a. lefiel, I want want the tripday after, contact- for frankford of health continues . with best Regards Q. I am
for affectionately J. Johner
PRESIDENT SAMUEL JOHNSON'S LETTER TO HIS SON.
which should meet monthly and annually celebrate the deliverance of America. The recommendation of Mr. Ray was not found advisable, as the Lamb correspondence shows.1
The reaction from the intense strain was great, and for the moment everything was forgotten but a feeling of relief, which displayed itself in wild demonstrations of loyalty to the king on the anniversary of his birthday, which fell upon June 5. The bells of every church were rung at daylight. At nine o'clock preparations began for the roasting of two large fat oxen on the common, where a great crowd gathered to gaze on the mighty roast beef. At noon the firing of a gun sum-
1 Having named this gentleman as the London correspondent, it may interest some of our New- York citizens to know that Jonathan Sturges,
of Fairfield, Connecticut, was the agent through whom the correspondence of the society passed for that colony.
-
THE PART OF NEW-YORK IN THE STAMP ACT TROUBLES 381
moned the authorities and the principal gentlemen of the city to wait on the governor at the fort and drink the king's health. The battery guns fired a royal salute, and the people exclaimed, "Long live the King, the darling of his people!" Three hundred and forty persons sat down to an entertainment given by the principal inhabitants. Forty-one toasts were drunk. At the king's health a royal salute was fired by the guns on the common, and at each toast afterward a salute was given to complete twenty-eight, the number of years of the king's age; nor were the friends of America in England forgotten. The overplus of the tables was sent to the common, and the new jail and poorhouses were remembered. There was high festivity on the common also: on each side of one of the roasting oxen was a large stage with twenty-five barrels of beer, a hogshead of rum, sugar and water to make punch, bread, etc .; at one end a pile of twenty cords of wood with a tall mast in the middle, to the head of which were hoisted twelve tar- and pitch-barrels and placed on a round top; at the other end of the Common were fixed twenty-five pieces of cannon, and at the top of a mast a flagstaff with colors displayed. In the evening the whole town was illuminated in the grandest manner that ever was seen here, and the streets were crowded, yet without disputes, quarrel- ing, or accident. Similar demonstrations of loyalty were made in Philadelphia, where in addition the gentlemen had previously, at a great public entertainment, engaged, in their gratitude for the repeal, to dress themselves in a new suit of the manufactures of England and give their homespun to the poor. In Boston the Sons of Liberty, in celebration of the glorious majority for the repeal in the House of Commons, increased the number of lanterns on the tree of liberty from forty-five to one hundred and eight.
The New-York assembly, summoned by Sir Henry Moore, met on June 16, and voted a warm and dutiful address, engaging the prov- ince to new ardor for the king's person, a cheerful obedience to the laws, and a respectful conduct toward the mother-country. William Nicoll was the speaker of the assembly. On the 23d a large meeting of freemen and freeholders was held at the Merchants' Coffee House, and addressed a petition to the general assembly for "an elegant statue of brass of Pitt." The petition was presented to the city mem- bers (John Cruger, Philip Livingston, Leonard Lispenard, and William Bayard), and by a committee appointed at the meeting. This was composed of James De Lancey, William Walton, John Thurman, Jr., Isaac Low, Henry White, and John Harris Cruger. The journals of this session of the assembly have been, as has been stated, unfortu- nately and apparently irrevocably lost; but it appears from a pub- lished extract of the votes and proceedings that the house, on the very day of the meeting at the Coffee House, made provision for an
382
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
equestrian statue of the king, and, on the motion of Mr. Cruger, re- solved also on the erection of a statue to William Pitt in brass. The material was later changed, and the fate of the monument has been told. The merchants of London were no less grateful to the great commoner, and a large number of rings set with his head were ordered by them for their friends in America, and a statue of him was set up by the merchants of Cork in their Guildhall. For a while it seemed as though an era of peace and good will had opened. Not even the arrival of the forty-sixth regiment from the north, nor yet the sup- pression of the "Levelers," a large and riotous body who had created disturbances on the manors of Cortlandt and Livingston, and with whom the Sons of Liberty were supposed to sympathize, had dis- turbed the quiet of the population, which was now eagerly bent on trade. The very name had dropped out of sight and hearing. Yet trouble was brewing. The assembly had positively refused compliance with the act of parliament relating to the billeting of troops. They confined themselves to their old action of supplying barracks with furniture, etc., for the king's troops marching through the colony. The twenty-sixth, passing through Albany, were refused quarters; the barracks in New-York into which the forty-sixth were marched were but bare walls, though later the corporation allowed the use of some unexpended money paid by General Amherst.
As the quartering of troops was viewed with jealousy, collisions were inevitable. The first occurred on the evening of July 21, when four officers of the regulars, who had been drinking freely at one of the tav- erns in the upper end of Broadway, sallied out and began to break the city lamps near the college. One of the tavern-keepers protesting, they pursued him into his house and wounded him with their swords. Proceeding down Broadway, attended by two orderlies, they broke thirty-four lamps. Meeting the watch, a fray ensued, in which some of the watch, who were four in number, were wounded ; two of the officers were knocked down, of whom one was secured and lodged in the watch-house. The three who escaped called the sentinels from General Gage's door, and, reinforced by about a dozen soldiers from the fort, armed with muskets and with fixed bayonets, marched toward the City Hall. Meeting the watch on their way, they wounded several, and proceeding to the City Hall, where the civil watch was kept, released the prisoner. The next day the officer, who was known, ven- turing abroad, was arrested, and soon after another. The two were taken before the mayor and aldermen and held to bail in a large sum to appear before the Supreme Court. The penalty for each lamp wil- fully broken was twenty pounds. The mayor at this time was John Cruger, the same who received the stamps. General Gage's behavior on the occasion was entirely satisfactory to the authorities and citizens.
THE PART OF NEW-YORK IN THE STAMP ACT TROUBLES 383
Mention has been made of the tree of liberty in Boston. The first liberty tree in New-York, or liberty. pole, as it was later called, was that set up on the north side of the common, opposite the Church Farm, at a point in the City Hall Park between Warren and Chambers streets. It was set up and bore the colors on the occasion of the rejoicings on the king's birthday. It is variously described as a tree, pole, mast, or flag-staff. Montresor's journal of August 10 reports the gathering on the common of an assemblage (mob he calls it) of two or three thousand men, chiefly Sons of Liberty, headed by Isaac Sears, to demand an explanation from the officers and soldiers for their cutting down of "a pine post where they daily exercised, called by them the Tree of Liberty." It was cut down on the night of Sun- day, the 10th. This was the first outrage by the soldiery on what the citizens held to be sacred as an emblem of their principles, and this was the first collision in consequence. The mob used brickbats, the soldiers defending themselves with their bayonets until they received orders from General Gage, to whom they had sent a messenger. The general's aide-de-camp was attacked on his way to the troops and com- pelled to draw in his defense. Two or three persons were wounded and several hurt by the soldiers. General Gage declared that if the soldiers were the aggressors they should be punished; if not, they should redress themselves. The governor did not interfere. The of- fending soldiers, who appear to have been the aggressors, were of the twenty-eighth regiment, then quartered in the barracks. The towns- people held the affray to have been a premeditated insult, and were justly uneasy at the presence of such a body of armed men patrolling their streets as though those of a military post or conquered town.
The Sons of Liberty gathered again on the 12th, it would seem by private call or of their own accord, since, as has been shown by Mr. Ray's letter of July from London, they had long before dissolved as an organized body, They determined that they would no longer allow the soldiers to patrol the streets or beat their retreat and tattoo through them. The same day they erected "another high post in lieu of the other, with 'George, Pitt and Liberty,' and hoisted a large ensign thereon." This was the second liberty pole set up in the city of New-York, and on the original site. On the 13th the commander-in- chief, General Gage, reviewed the twenty-eighth regiment, apparently on the common, for it is related that the artillery formed the square for the service with fixed bayonets ; the people attempting to push through, claiming the ground was theirs. The gulf now widened day by day. The soldiers were daily jeered and threatened. A captain (Heathcote) of the royal artillery, returning from camp to the city in a sedan- chair, was stopped at midnight by an angry party and told that he was mistaken for Major James, whom they would have buried alive.
384
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Agreements were made to have no intercourse with the soldiers nor admit them to the inns or private houses. The market-people were requested to sell provisions neither to officers nor soldiers. Increasing in boldness, the more violent proposed to drive the military from the city and break up the garrison. The more conservative of the former members of the patriotic organization seem to have taken no part in these proceedings, though they took no steps to check them.
Meanwhile, by summons from the mayor, all parties concerned in or witnesses to the affray of the 10th appeared before him. Major Brown denied the truth of the affidavits, but it was clearly proved that the soldiers were the aggressors in interfering with the setting up of the second pole. Major Brown gave bail. The military felt the need of further defense, and mounted guns at the entrance to their artillery barracks and on the ramparts of the fort. On the 24th Sir Henry Moore and General Carleton, lieutenant-governor of Canada, sailed for Albany. General Gage remained in the city, but distributed the regulars to their several districts, retaining only eighty artillerymen in New-York. Nevertheless, he urged on the engineering surveys of Captain Montresor on the defenses of the city and harbor, under enjoinment of secrecy, and, what is of more significance, ordered the preparation of "a military plan for passing through any country with an army." Montresor had served in America for twelve years, and was an officer of great merit. His journals, recently published by the New-York Historical Society, throw light upon the events of this inter- esting period. The withdrawal of the troops, on the one hand, and the decision of the court that the writs taken out against Major Brown were not actionable, for a while quieted the dissidents, or at least no outbreaks occurred. But on the night of Tuesday, September 23, the second liberty pole was cut down by persons unknown. The next day a third was erected in its place.
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