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 49
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1 The Apthorpe house stood, until recently, on Ninth avenue, between Ninetieth and Ninety-first streets. It was a good example of an English country house of the last century. It was built in 1767 by Charles Ward Apthorpe, who was strong in his loyalist principles. General Howe
made the house his headquarters while the Har- lem Plains were still a disputed possession. As Apthorpe was a warm partizan, the English off- cers were always treated with great hospitality. The oaken wainscoting and ceiling of the dining- room were imported from England. EDITOR.
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Official information of the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773, reached England on January 22, 1774. The excitement in London was intense. Franklin, who appeared before . the privy council to support the petition of Massachusetts for the removal of Hutchinson, was grossly insulted by Solicitor-General Wedderburne, amid the jeers of the lords. The news reached New- York on April 14, with the concurrent information that six regiments and some men-of-war were to be sent to Boston; or, as an alternative, that orders would be sent to Boston to seize the committeemen and send them to England for trial. On March 7, the king sent to par- liament a special message on the American disturbances. On the 11th the House of Commons listened for three hours to the reading of one hundred and nine letters on American affairs, after which Mon- day, the 14th, was set for discussion of the American business. On this day Lord North asked leave to bring in a bill for the punishment of Boston by removing the customs officers and stopping the landing and discharging of all merchandise at the town or within the harbor. When the bill was introduced Whigs and Tories vied with each other in their determination to vindicate, not the majesty of the law, but the sovereignty of Great Britain. The Boston port bill provided first for the closing of that port on June 1 to all commerce, at the king's plea- sure ; and also for the indemnification of the East India Company for the ruined tea.1 To Fox, who urged that the closing of the port should last only until the East India Company was paid for the tea, Lord North replied: "Obedience not indemnification will be the test of the Bostonians"; yet when the bill was formally put upon its passage even Fox's voice was still. Strange as it may seem, the bill passed both houses of parliament without a dissenting voice. A handbill containing the text of the bill was distributed through the streets of New-York, with the heading: "The following act came to hand by the Ship Samson, Captain Coupar, arrived at New York the 12th May in 27 days from London; from the 'London Gazetteer' of April 7th, 1774." On the back were printed private letters, from London, of the 7th and 8th. Among the interesting incidents connected with the voyage of this fast ship, the journals record "that Captain Coupar brought an account of the receipt of bills sent from New York to Lon- don in one month and twenty-nine days which was in less time than was perhaps ever before known considering the distance."
The packet brought news still more startling. Besides the port bill, and stirring letters from the friends of America in England urging resistance, came word that General Gage, commissioned civil gov- ernor of Massachusetts, had engaged with four regiments to reduce Boston to submission, and was to sail from Portsmouth in the frigate
1 The value of tea destroyed at Boston was about £8,000. VOL. II .- 28.
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Lively for his new government on April 15. Some consolation was taken from the information that the officers ordered on duty hung back, and declared it a service quite repugnant to their feelings as men and as Englishmen. It was reported that the four regiments ordered were the fourth, fifth, thirty-eighth, and forty-third; and that a formidable fleet would soon appear in American waters. The excitement in the city was heightened
Nicholas Roswell by the arrival of a schooner from Casco Bay, whose crew reported that as they came past Boston they heard great firing, from which it was supposed that General Gage had arrived. This was an error, as the Lively only arrived on May 13. The firing was from the castle, in honor of his appointment.
On Saturday, the 14th, while handbills were passing freely about the city, a notice invited the merchants to meet at Fraunces' Tavern on Monday evening for consultation. The assemblage proving too large for the rooms at Mr. Fraunces', it adjourned to the Exchange, a few paces distant. Isaac Low was chosen chairman. Two parties appeared at this meeting with printed lists of candidates for a com- mittee. The one, a list of twenty-five, was offered by Isaac Sears, the representative of the Sons of Liberty; the other, of fifty names, had been arranged by the merchants. One of these tickets was the basis of both; there are not two names upon the smaller not found in the same order on the larger ticket.1 Both were headed with the name of John Alsop, and both were chiefly made up of merchants. There was a warm contest; but the merchants prevailed, and the committee was raised and directed to "correspond with the neighboring colonies on the important crisis." This was the famous committee of corre- spondence, so much misunderstood and maligned, but, as the sequel will show, to whose firm and consistent adherence to the idea of union the Continental Congress owed its origin. That there might be no doubt as to the formality of their appointment, the assemblage at Fraunces' before adjourning ordered a meeting to be called at the Merchants' Coffee House on Thursday, the 19th, at one o'clock.
In the interim, Paul Revere, the famous post-rider" and express of the Sons of Liberty, had arrived on Tuesday, the 17th, from Boston, with despatches from that organization to the middle colonies. On Wednesday, at noon, he set out for Philadelphia. In the evening of the same day there was a large meeting of the mechanics at Barden's Tavern. He had again migrated, and was now at the old house kept by John Jones in the Fields: a locality preferred by this class. Revere had brought with him the vote passed at Faneuil Hall on the 13th,
1 The minutes of this committee of fifty, or of correspondence, are preserved in the New-York Historical Society collections.
2 These men were called constitutional post- riders. See Holt's "New-York Journal," May 19, 1772.
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urging the colonies to stop all importations from and exportations to Great Britain and the West Indies until the port bill should be re- pealed. That there was perfect accord between the association of the Sons of Liberty of New-York and the Boston leaders appears from the fact that on Saturday, before Revere arrived, the New-York committee, consisting of Isaac Sears and Alexander McDougall, ad- dressed a letter to the Boston committee concerning the intended meet- ing of the merchants at Fraunces' Tavern, pledging them "to agree upon a non-importation and non-exportation of goods to Great Brit- ain." In this it seems they were premature.
At the meeting on Thursday, May 19, at the Coffee House, both parties attended, but the merchants again prevailed; besides they added to their number Francis Lewis, whence it took its name as the committee of fifty-one. Writing the next day to his friend Penn, Gouverneur Morris, MARINUS WILLETT'S RESIDENCE. then in the heyday of youth, said: "I stood on the balcony and on my right hand were ranged all the people of property with some few poor dependants and on the other all the tradesmen &c., who thought it worth their while to leave daily labor for the good of the country." In the same letter he says: "I see, and I see it with fear and trem- bling that if the disputes with Britain continue we shall be under the worst of all possible dominions. We shall be under the domination of a riotous mob." Watts wrote to Monckton on May 30: "The lower class of people were taking it up [the shutting up of the port of Bos- ton] exceeding high here and would have carried things to extremi- ties, but by the interference of most people of weight a soberer council takes place, though the treatment of their brethren is very ill relished." Colden, writing to Dartmouth, June 1, says that "the prin- cipal inhabitants being now afraid that these hot-headed men might run the City into dangerous measures, appeared in a considerable body at the first meeting of the people after the Boston act was re- ceived here. They dissolved the former committee and appointed a new one of fifty-one persons in which care was taken to have a num- ber of the most prudent and considerate persons of the place." The facts quoted show that the old gentleman was ill informed. But the
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extent of the dissidence appears from a paragraph in Holt's journal of the 20th, to the effect that "since the meeting at the Coffee House on Thursday last, the merchants and mechanics who were opposed to the committee of correspondence consisting of fifty-one persons, have for the salutory purpose of Union among ourselves agreed to that number; and that the gentlemen whose names were published in Mr. Gaine's paper are the Committee for this City."
The names of the committee appear in the minutes of the first meeting of May 19, 1774. They were John Alsop, William Bayard, Theophylact Bache, Peter V. B. Living- ston, Philip Livingston, Isaac Sears, David Johnston, Charles McEvers, Charles Nicoll, Alexander McDougall, Captain Thomas Randall, John Moore, Isaac Low, Leonard Lispenard, Jacobus Van Zandt, James Duane, Edward Laight, Thomas Pearsall, Elias Des- brosses, William Walton, Richard Yates, John De Lancey, Miles Sherbrooke, John Thurman, John Broome, John Jay, Benjamin Booth, Joseph Hallett, Charles Shaw, Alexander Wallace, James Jauncey, Gabriel W. Ludlow, Nicholas Hoffman, Abraham Walton, Gerardus JaDuane Duyckinck, Peter Van Schaack, Henry Remsen, Hamilton Young, George Bowne, Peter T. Curtenius, Peter Goe- let, Abraham Brasher, Abraham P. Lott, David Van Horne, Gerar- dus W. Beekman, Abraham Duryee, Joseph Ball, William McAdam, Richard Sharpe, Thomas Marston, Francis Lewis. The committee
1 James Duane was the first mayor of New- the owner of the township of Duanesburgh, York after the Revolution, holding the office Schenectady County. About sixty-four thousand acres bought by him in that part of the province which afterward became Vermont were lost to him by reason of the subsequent territorial com- plications and disputes as to possession. It is unnecessary here to recount Mr. Duane's public services during the Revolutionary period. They were not of a military nature, but confined en- tirely to political and legislative measures, both in National and State affairs. In 1789 President Washington appointed him district judge for the district of New-York, upon which he resigned the mayoralty. In 1794, after five years of ser- vice as judge, he resigned on account of failing health. He then removed to Schenectady, at the same time commencing the erection of a house in Duanesburgh, where he desired to pass the remainder of his days. He died, however, before the house was completed, February 1. 1797, leaving one son and four daughters. from 1783 to 1789. He was born in New-York city in 1733. His father was at first an officer in the British navy, but he resigned and engaged in mercantile pursuits in New-York. Two of his sons entered the navy, but James, the third, was educated for the legal profession, studying law in the office of James Alexander. His mo- ther, who died when he was only three years old, was Altea Keteltas, so that he was connected in this way with some of the old and prominent New-York families of Dutch origin. By his own marriage he became related to the powerful Livingston family, as his wife was Mary, the oldest daughter of Colonel Robert Livingston, the proprietor of the manor. He rose to great eminence in his profession, and enjoyed a very lucrative practice, being among other things the attorney for Trinity Church in the Anneke Jans suits. By purchase and inheritance he became
EDITOR.
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THE SECOND NON-IMPORTATION AGREEMENT
met on Monday, May 23, at the Coffee House, and organized with Mr. Isaac Low, chairman, and John Alsop, deputy-chairman. A letter was read from the body of mechanics, signed by Jonathan Blake, their chairman, concurring in the nomination of the committee. At a meeting in the evening of the same day they adopted a letter in answer to those received from Boston, probably referred to them from the association of the Sons of Liberty. This letter contained the non- importation resolutions adopted at Faneuil Hall on the 13th. The terms of the New-York letter in answer are significant. "The course," they write,"is general and concerns a whole continent, who are equally interested with you and us; and we foresee no remedy can be of any avail unless it proceed from the joint act and approbation of all. From a virtuous and spirited union much may be expected, while the feeble efforts of a few will only be attended with mischief and disap- pointment to themselves, and triumph to the adversaries of our lib- erty. Upon these reasons we conclude that a Congress of Deputies from the colonies in general is of the utmost moment; that it ought to be assembled without delay and some unanimous resolutions formed in this fatal emergency, not only respecting your deplorable circum- stances, but for the security of our common right"; and they request their "speedy opinion of the proposed congress," that if it meet with their approbation they may use their utmost endeavors to carry it into execution. This letter was engrossed and delivered to Paul Re- vere, the express from Boston, who immediately set out on his return. A copy was ordered to be sent to the committee of correspondence for the city of Philadelphia.
Meanwhile the letter of the Sons of Liberty, pledging the merchants of New-York in advance to a non-importation agreement, had reached the Boston committee, and they replied on June 3 expressing their concurrence with the proposed "suspension of trade." To this the New-York committee promptly sent answer on the 7th that the Bos- ton committee had made a mistake in attributing to them the expres- sion of an opinion; "that said and every other resolution we have thought it most prudent to leave for the discussion of the proposed General Congress. Adhering therefore to that measure as most con- ducive to promote the general system of politics we all have in view, we have the pleasure to acquaint you that we shall be ready on our part to meet at any time and place that you shall think fit to appoint: either of deputies from the General Assembly or such other deputies as shall be chosen not only to speak the sentiments but also to pledge themselves for the conduct of the people of the respective colonies they represent." They add: "We can undertake to assure you, in behalf of the people of this colony, that they will readily agree to any measure that shall be adopted by the General Congress. It will be
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necessary that you give a sufficient time for the deputies of the col- onies as far Southward as the Carolinas to assemble, and acquaint them as soon as possible with the proposed measure of a Congress. Your letters to the Southward of us we will forward with great plea- sure." On the 2d the committee published a card disavowing the letter to Boston, of the 14th, pledging the suspension of trade. The Boston merchants were no doubt disappointed at any de- lay, the packet of May 25 hav- ing carried their countermands of orders from England.
The king's birthday was this year celebrated with hardly more than official ceremonies; there was no festivity, and but few houses were illuminated. The idea of a congress was fast spreading, and it was believed that a total suspension of com- mercial intercourse with Great Britain would soon take place. On Wednesday, June 25, the ST. MARK'S CHURCH. harbor at Boston was finally closed, and the day was celebrated in New-York by a great demon- stration, with effigy-hanging and other marks of reprobation for the English enemies of America. On the 17th General Gage dis- solved the Massachusetts assembly; the province was under mili- tary rule. The immediate cause of this summary proceeding was the appointment by the representatives of Massachusetts Bay, that day, of delegates to meet the delegates of other colonies in general congress, however appointed, at Philadelphia, on September 1. As the New-York assembly was not sitting, the committee of cor- respondence, on July 4, proceeded to nominate five delegates, the number chosen by Massachusetts, for recommendation to the free- holders of the city. Captain Sears, seconded by Peter V. B. Living- ston, proposed Isaac Low, James Duane, Philip Livingston, John Morin Scott, and Alexander McDougall. A vote being taken, the gentlemen having the greatest number of voices for their nomina- tion were Philip Livingston, John Alsop, Isaac Low, James Duane, and John Jay, the three first named merchants, the others lawyers. There was evidently dissension, for it was also ordered that a call be issued to the inhabitants to meet at the City Hall on Wednesday, July 7, at noon, "to concurr in the nomination or choose others." On
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THE SECOND NON-IMPORTATION AGREEMENT
the 5th a call was issued for a meeting in the Fields for the next day. From the journal of the proceedings it appears that a member of the committee of correspondence, McDougall, had presided over the pre-
THE PATRIOTIC BARBER OF NEW-YORK.1
liminary meeting which issued the call. The call was couched in such significant terms that a great gathering met in the Fields; Mc- Dougall was called to the chair, and resolutions were adopted rec- ommending non-intercourse with Great Britain and instructing the
1 The full title of the above quaint picture ran as follows : "The Patriotick Barber of New-York, or the Captain in the Suds." Beneath this were printed the following lines :
" Then Patriot grand maintain thy stand, And whilst thou sav'st Americ's Land, Preserve the Golden Rule; Forbid the Captains there to roam, Half-shave them first, then send them home- Objects of ridicule." EDITOR.
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
deputies to the congress to agree for this city upon a non-importa- tion agreement. They voted a subscription in aid of the suffering inhabitants of Boston, and directed their city committee of corre- spondence to carry out their resolutions.
As before in pledging the committee of correspondence, so now they proposed to instruct their deputies before they were chosen. Naturally there was a storm in the committee, who disavowed the proceedings as "calculated to throw an odium on themselves"; which culminated in the withdrawal of Lewis, Hallett, McDougall, Peter V. B. Livingston, Isaac Sears, Thomas Randall, Abraham P. Lott, Leon- ard Lispenard, John Broome, Abraham Brasher, and Jacobus Van Zandt from the committee of fifty-one. The meeting called at the City Hall for the 7th was duly held, and it was resolved that the com- mittee of correspondence appoint a committee to meet a similar committee from the mechanics at Fraunces' Tavern the next morn- ing to take a poll in the several wards upon the lists of the five dele- gates respectively proposed by each for their legislature. Handbills were circulated, one even signed "Son of Liberty," urging their election and deprecating discord between the merchants and the mechanic class. On the 19th the committee published a series of patriotic resolutions, of which one was pertinent and italicized, viz., that the delegates ought to be so chosen or instructed that they may "be able not only to speak the sentiments but to pledge themselves for the good conduct of the people of the colonies they respectively represent." The same day a conference was had at the Coffee-House between the merchants' and mechanics' committees, but there was so much division that Messrs. Low and Jay the next day published a card declaring that they considered there had been as yet no choice of delegates. On July 24, the New-York committee ordered an election in the ordinary manner by a poll at the several wards on the 28th. This was signed by Abraham Brasher, Theophilus An- thony, Francis Van Dyck, Jeremiah Platt, Christopher Duyckinck; to which four of the gentlemen named, Livingston, Alsop, Low, and Jay, made answer that they were "at present of opinion that a general non-importation agreement faithfully observed [the italics are in the original] would prove the most efficacious means to procure a redress of grievances." They added that they made the declaration because they thought it right, but that they had no objection to the election of any one in whom there was greater confidence. On receiving the letters, the meeting at Marriner's Tavern unanimously acquiesced in their nomination. The election was held on the 28th, and the five delegates were unanimously chosen. They were held to favor non- importation, but to be left free to conform to the general opinion of the congress.
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THE SECOND NON-IMPORTATION AGREEMENT
On August 29 Mr. Jay set out quietly for Philadelphia. On Sep- tember 1 he was followed by Livingston, Alsop, and Duane. They were accompanied to the place of their departure by a large number of the citizens with colors flying and music. Duane made a farewell speech, and they were saluted with cannon. Mr. Low left the same day by way of Powles' Hook. He was escorted to the ferry stairs with the same ceremony, and greeted with huzzas at each street corner. John Adams, of the Massachusetts delegates, left in his diary an in- teresting account of the courtesy with which they were received; amusing, because of his naïve astonishment at the luxury of New- York life, which he for the first time enjoyed. The congress met at Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, on September 5. Two committees were appointed : one on the rights of the colonies, the other on trade and manufactures. From a want of uniformity in their choice the congress was ill fitted to assume the functions of government, yet it was a great step toward union. They modestly styled themselves " the guardians of the rights and liberties of the colonies." They walked the beaten track of 1765. They put forth a declaration of rights, and their sole measures of redress were the non-exportation act to take effect after September 15, and the non-importation act to be put in force on December 1 following. The congress dissolved on October 26. Of its papers Lord Chatham spoke as "not inferior to the finest productions of the Master States of the world." Before dissolving, the congress recommended the election of a committee in each county, city, or town of every colony, to secure obedience to the association entered into by the congress. They ordered the elec- tion of delegates to meet in congress May 14, 1775.
After a conference with the committee of the mechanics, the com- mittee of correspondence ordered a poll to be held at the City Hall on November 22 for the election of sixty persons as a committee of obser- vation. The following were unanimously chosen : Isaac Low, chair- man; Philip Livingston, James Duane, John Alsop, John Jay, Peter V. B. Livingston, Isaac Sears, David Johnston, Charles Nicoll, Alex- ander McDougall, Thomas Randall, Leonard Lispenard, Edward Laight, William Walton, John Broome, Joseph Hallett, Charles Shaw, Nicholas Hoffman, Abraham Walton, Peter Van Schaack, Henry Remsen, Peter T. Curtenius, Abraham Brasher, Abraham P. Lott, Abraham Duryee, Joseph Bull, Francis Lewis, John Lasher, John Roome, Joseph Totten, Thomas Ivers, Hercules Mulligan, John Anthony, Francis Basset, Victor Hicker, John White, Theophilus Anthony, William Goforth, William Denning, Isaac Roosevelt, Jacob Van Voorhees, Jeremiah Platt, William Ustick,' Comfort Sands, Robert Benson, William W. Gilbert, John Berrian, Gabriel W. Lud- low, Nicholas Roosevelt, Edward Flemming, Lawrence Embree,
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Samuel Jones, John De Lancey, Frederick Jay, William W. Ludlow, John B. Moore, George Janeway, Rudolphus Ritzema, Lindley Murray, and Lancaster Burlong.
This was the last act of the committee of correspondence. Their path had not been strewn with roses since the split in their ranks of July 7. Mr. McDougall seems to have been the leader of the opposi- tion. The committee of observation, in- quiring into the private affairs of their neighbors, aroused resentment, and the committee of correspondence was called upon to intervene, which they did by calling a public meeting at the City Hall on the 20th. When Mr. Henry Remsen was about to speak for the committee, the meeting was interrupted by the clamor of the malcontents. They ad- journed to the Coffee House, where the committee disavowed and condemned the irregular proceedings complained of. Advances having been made on several imported articles, the public were dis- contented; thereupon the committee Geo: Clinton called a meeting of all the importers, who agreed on October 13 to refrain from any unreasonable advance on such articles. The action of the congress seems to have restored harmony; the committee of mechanics even addressed a letter of thanks to the city delegates. The committee of inspection or observation at once en- tered on its business, and non-importation was soon rigidly enforced in all of the colonies.
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