The Memorial History of the City of New York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892, Volume II, Part 5

Author: Wilson, James Grant, 1832-1914
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: [New York] New York History Co.
Number of Pages: 705

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A brief glance at the grants specially named in the assembly bill will best of all show the nature of the question. First of all was one to Colonel Nicholas Bayard, for which he paid Fletcher one hundred and fifty pounds, of lands on both sides of the Schoharie Creek, in Mont- gomery and Schoharie counties, some thirty miles in length-a grant not made in acres, but "in the lump by miles," and as exactly measur- able as a flock of wild pigeons! Another was to Colonel Henry Beek- man, of Kingston, called the "great patentee." When a boy asked a Dutch farmer if there was "any land in the moon," he replied, "Colonel Beekman can tell you; for if there is any there, you may be sure he has got a patent for the bigger part of it!" This special

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grant was of sixteen miles square in Duchess County, with lands on the Hudson eight miles in breadth by twenty in length. Another was to Captain John Evans of his Majesty's frigate Richmond, which lay in the bay but did no service in improving the revenue: viz., lands forty miles in length by twenty in breadth, and which included the southern tier of towns in Ulster County, two thirds of Orange County, and part of Haverstraw in Rockland County! Colonel William Smith of the council received about fifty miles of Nassau (Long) Island-"all the vacant lands" not covered by "former pat- ents"! William Pinhorne, Colonel Peter Charles LBach Schuyler, Domine Dellius, and two others obtained fifty miles of the Mohawk Valley from Amsterdam to West Canada Creek in Herkimer County; whilst Domine Dellius individually secured on the east of the Hudson in Washington County a tract seventy miles long by twelve in breadth, and which extended into Vermont! For these they gave Fletcher something like fifty pounds apiece, and valued them at from five thousand pounds to twenty-five thousand pounds! A partial list merely of great grants, which yet left untouched eight or nine more. So had they parceled out the province among them! Familiar names in these troubles, some of them,-Bayard, Pinhorne, Smith. The bill, however, connected with these two other small but im- portant pieces of land. After the earl's appointment to succeed Governor Fletcher, the latter leased to Colonel Caleb Heathcote, his special friend, "the pleasantest part of the King's garden," and to Trinity Church (for seven years) the "King's farm," a demesne of the fort and a perquisite of the governor attached to and around his residence. Thus we have in view the main elements of the com- ing struggle in England - the same old party, most of the great landholders, an abundance of money, with names known and influen- tial, but now reinforced actively by Trinity Church and the Rev. Wil- liam Vesey and Domine Dellius. Bayard and Brooke were already there; Domine Dellius (who had also been virtually deposed by the bill) was soon on his way, with commendatory letters and seven hun- dred pounds in his pocket, and was expected to obtain the coopera- tion of the Classis of Amsterdam; whilst Mr. Vesey, in behalf of Trinity Church, invoked the aid of the Bishop of London, to secure, if pos- sible, the recall of Lord Bellomont! Verily might he at this time be likened to a noble bull at bay teased and tormented by no inconsider- able adversaries !

Domine Dellius had often been among the Mohawk and River In- dians on missionary work, and undoubtedly had an influence among them. His description of them we have already given. Peter Schuy- ler, the great diplomatist in Indian matters, had yet more influence;

HISTORY OF NEW-YORK

Pinhorne certainly had none. It was not gratitude for services ren- dered which induced the Mohawks to give away the best part of their lands to the five mentioned in that grant, and it should be enough to con- demn the whole thing that Peter Schuyler and Major Wessels very soon resigned their share because of frauds in the purchase. Peter Schuy- ler has come down to us as one of the few men of standing in his day whose names were unspotted with dishonesty. Nor, in addition to that grant, can Domine Dellius be justified in his acquisition, individually, for a few knives and tobacco-pouches, of that other immense tract, covering so much of the northern part of the State. He had no family to leave it to ; he had already traded with the Indians; and the indica- tions are of a speculation of which not the province, but he, would reap the profit. Nevertheless, he was now on his way to add his clerical character and grievances to the weight of testimony against the Earl of Bellomont.

The Rev. Mr. Vesey's course might seem strange. A young man of twenty-five, only two years rector of Trinity, who had dined often with the earl and ridden with him in his coach-and-six, to whom and his church, of which he was a communicant and constant attendant, the governor had done substantial favors; nevertheless, immediately after the passage of that bill he turned against him. Let it be recalled that the lease of that farm to Trinity Church was merely for seven years. The church was to pay twelve pounds a year, and it sublet it for twenty- five; but it was no part of its property taken away from it by the bill. Yet Mr. Vesey immediately left the earl and his family out of the prayers; more than this, he prayed each Sunday for Domine Dellius by name, desiring God to give him a safe and prosperous voy- age and great success with the king. Astonishing course for such a matter! The vestry, also, wrote to Archbishop Tenison, mentioning this very lease, and only this, as an evidence of Bellomont's intention to destroy the church. Mr. Vesey himself had been brought there by Governor Fletcher and Colonel Heathcote, great patrons of the church. This, to him, was an attack on them and on Trinity; he took fire at once and vehemently, as was his nature-a match that only needed rubbing; but principal, with Willett and others of the party, in the vestry was the inevitable, indefatigable Nicolls.

It will bring this topic to a close to say that they did not succeed in their principal object. They did delay and for the time prevent the approval of the bill. The earl himself did not live to see it approved. In 1705 Lord Cornbury induced the assembly to repeal the action of 1699, and to donate this land to Trinity Church. Again, however, it lacked the royal approval; and in 1708, Queen Anne "repealed and declared it null and void," and restored, with her approval, the Bello- mont bill as he had framed it. That bill showed his nobleness-it for-

EARL OF BELLOMONT AND SUPPRESSION OF PIRACY

bade himself or any other governor to lease that particular farm and garden property for longer than his own term to the prejudice of his successor. Also, whilst the bill was under fire in England, and bad man as he thought Domine Dellius to be, he wrote that he did not wish his claim vacated unless all were vacated; it would not be just. The result to Mr. Vesey was that in 1700 the Bishop of London advised him to make his submission to the earl. He did it, and the

latter promised to be his friend, "provided he behaved himself peaceably and discreetly for the future."

On May 16, 1699, Bellomont pro- rogued the assembly, embarked for Boston on board a "little gal- ley" which Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton had sent, and arrived the 26th-not a modern or model yacht. Another cold caught at sea, another fit of the gout, and long letters to write! But the Bostonians received him hand- somely. An immense procession of military and citizens accom- panied him-"such a vast con- course of people," says John Mar- Will. Vesey. shall in his diary, "as my poor eyes never saw the like before"; and, "to end all, fireworks and good drink all night"! Not "to end all," for on the 31st Rev. Increase Mather, for his brethren,- better representing Boston,-made him a fine address. It is not necessary to particularize this visit, but the contrast may serve as a side-light upon matters in New-York. The earl had been a year in New-York; he was fourteen months in Bos- ton. Parties existed there as in New-York, the same trade laws pre- vailed, the merchants were a bold and outspoken class, there was a governor's council and a general court or assembly-to this extent the conditions were the same. Hutchinson says that as a presiding officer of the general court he was unparliamentary, would mingle in the debates, propose business, and frequently recommend bills he wished passed. Some of these the court refused to pass, saying "they were too much cramped in their liberties already, and they would be great fools to abridge, by a law of their own, the little that was left them." Such was their spirit. They would not increase by an iota the prerogatives of the crown. "Yet all was done good-naturedly, without giving offense," says Barry. And so popular was his Excel-

HISTORY OF NEW-YORK

lency that during his stay the general court granted him twenty-five hundred pounds (about $8,000), a much larger sum than his predeces- sors had received or than fell to the lot of some who came after him. Hutchinson calls him a "hypocrite" in religion. Why? It was the custom of the general court to adjourn and attend in a body the "Boston weekly lecture," and he, although an Episcopalian, went with them and apparently enjoyed it. Moreover, he treated the minis- ters with marked attention and regard. In a word, the earl showed himself throughout affable, polite, and liberal; although he was too English and too good a servant of the crown to like all their ways. In return, rigid as they were, and sensitive to intrusion upon their liber- ties, he did not find "the hearts of the male inhabitants" (to quote scur- rilous John Ward) "like their streets, paved with pebbles." What made the difference in his case between the two cities? Was the earl a different man in New-York; or was it that selfish greed of a class with whom he was obliged to interfere, and for which interference they hated and maligned him? Is it wonderful that, with consciously failing health, and until he knew whether he was to be sustained in England, he preferred to return to Boston, after a duty discharged in Rhode Island, rather than to go on to new conflicts in New-York ?

Soon after his arrival in Boston, the governor was fortunate enough to capture the noted pirate Captain William Kidd, on July 6, 1699; and it permits us to return to the earlier subject of "privateers" and piracy, so closely connected with this history. And especially does Kidd's connection with Bellomont and the completeness of his history require a proper statement. In these days piracy had transferred itself from the older bucaneering centers to the Indian Ocean. One of the principal retreats of pirates was Madagascar. There they con- sorted with the dusky daughters of the island, and the descendants of such were there accidentally discovered many years ago. From this and other resorts they sallied out in search of plunder. Several of the Oriental nations had a marine of their own, and these they plundered, Moors, Armenians, and others; returning in due time to their island nests with the spoils thus accumulated, "Arabian gold and East India goods." How convenient to have rum and other necessities of their calling brought for them to Madagascar; in exchange for which, being sailors and not traders, they would, of course, give free- handed measures of gold and goods! For the trader, as things were with the officials, a few salable negroes, picked up on the way, would be tarpaulin enough to cover a cargo; the whole transaction was black. Evidently a ship loading for Madagascar was justly to be sus- pected, whatever the pretext made. Sometimes, however, the pirates themselves came boldly upon the coast. Even Penn's Quakers toler- ated occasional visits because they spent their money freely. The

EARL OF BELLOMONT AND SUPPRESSION OF PIRACY

whole coast, from Rhode Island to the Carolinas, was honeycombed with places of stowage or markets for their goods. Sometimes they came to the city itself. So did Captain Thomas Tew, whom Fletcher found so companionable that he took him to drive in his coach, and whom he was so anx- ious to convert, and to whom he gave a book on the "vile habit of swearing"! This man was one of the worst, most daring and suc- cessful of all; he made a fortune and retired to Rhode Island, but again returned to his old pursuits and succeeded in getting himself killed. Ultimately, others of them settled down in Rhode Island, upon the south side SMITH ARMS. of Long Island and in the Carolinas, and left reputable descendants.

Out-and-out, unblushing piracy of this sort the merchants of New- York, or such of them as engaged in the Madagascar trade, did not commit; and the council were perfectly willing to condemn it. Had they thought of it sooner,-in 1696 instead of in 1698,-Tew might have been arrested, instead of walking their streets and dining so often at the governor's table. What the merchants did was to send traders under the name and style of "privateers," sanctioned by the governor, to Madagascar and the adjacent seas. Privateering against an enemy's shipping in war time has been practised by ourselves and other nations, but under conditions of proper adjudication of prizes, goods, and money. Outside of these restrictions it would be piracy. But the ships that went out from New-York were not in search of an enemy; they were bound regularly to Madagascar. And why were they not themselves molested in those seas, from which they invari- ably returned with rich cargoes? Their methods, upon reaching the coast, have been given in the preceding chapter, and we need not re- peat them. We may say, however, that at the east end of Long Island, where lived Chief Justice William Smith (known by the sobriquet of " Tangier Smith," as he had been governor of Tangier, and to dis- tinguish him from the later chief justice of the same name but dif- ferent family), the revenue was clipped through loose practices even worse than in New-York. Yet these merchants, in and out of the council, with Colonel Bayard at their head, were highly indignant when Bellomont, who never minced words, bluntly called the trans- action "piracy," "dealing with pirates"; and they declared that he "had vilely slandered eminent and respectable persons"! Of course it was an outrage and an insult to suspect such people, however evi- dent the circumstances! But the earl himself must have thought that one company of these very merchants would hardly have offered him a large bribe to let them alone without good reason for so doing.

HISTORY OF NEW-YORK

Once in the council, they turned upon him with the charge that he had actually set Captain Kidd afloat. He felt it keenly, for in a mea- sure it was true. It was an argumentum ad hominem which, however, could not prevent his doing his duty. The earl's agreement in 1695 with Livingston and Kidd (who afterward turned pirate) has been in- troduced into a preceding chapter, but the full history belongs here. We may premise, then, that when he was captured that 6th of July, 1699, Kidd had not always nor for long been a pirate, not till that last fatal voyage which he began in 1696. In 1691 the assembly had paid him one hundred and fifty pounds for good public services, and he had distinguished himself in the West Indies. He had a comfortable home in Liberty street, New-York, an estimable wife, and a little daugh- ter. He was himself a man of some culture, and up to the time of his disgraceful lapse there had been no manifest reason to suspect him. In 1695 he sailed for London. The Admiralty were in urgent need of a vessel to send against the pirates, whose depredations were causing them trouble; but the French war absorbed every ship. Some of them were understood to be from New-York, Rhode Island, and other colonies, and it was this that brought Robert Livingston and William Kidd so prominently into the scene. Livingston was at the time in London on his own business-a man whose Scotch pedi- gree gave him access to court circles, a man shrewd and capable of influence wherever he was. When Bellomont spoke to him of their difficulty and of the connection of these men with it, he suggested a privateer and Kidd as a suitable man to command it. After dis- cussion by the king, Lord Somers, the Earls of Oxford, Romney, and Bellomont, his suggestion was adopted, the king himself offer- ing to be one of the parties. These were the circumstances that preceded that agreement of Bellomont with Livingston and Kidd. By its terms it was to be a privateer expedition, commissioned un- der the great seal, against the king's enemies and pirates; Boston was to be the place for adjudicating prize-claims; and a regular bond was taken from Livingston and Kidd. Apparently Kidd was as strongly bound to fidelity as a naval officer, and, had he remained faithful, nothing would have been heard of it. Even as experienced statesmen, watched by adverse parties, they evidently saw nothing objectionable about the transaction. It was Livingston who by his strong indorsement of Kidd brought them into trouble. Perhaps had Bellomont known him better he would not so readily have trusted to it. Colonel Fletcher attributed to him the remark that "he had rather be called knave Livingston than poor Livingston." Cer- tainly he kept industriously out of reach of the latter opprobrious epithet. He began as town clerk of Albany and Indian agent; and in twenty years, by loans to government, by contracts, by purchase

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from the Indians and such means, had accumulated one hundred and sixty thousand acres of the best lands on the Hudson. In politics he was shrewdly variable : against Leisler; helping his son in England; for Bellomont, or against him, as the wind blew, as it might suit his interests. Not a man to trust implicitly. But, in this case, he was probably himself deceived in Kidd. He hoped to make money, and in the end, with the rest, lost his venture.

Captain Kidd started upon his voyage in October, 1696. Perhaps he distrusted himself; it is said he did not want to go. He sailed for New-York, where he increased his force by about a hundred men, but loitered for nearly three months. In an article published in Hunt's "Merchant's Magazine" for January, 1846, Mr. Henry C. Murphy has minutely traced his course. For a year no vessel was captured. He told his men he was lying in wait for the Mocha fleet. When it ap- peared it was convoyed by an English and a Dutch ship, and his attack was unsuccessful-his first leap into piracy! After a few less impor- tant captures, in December, 1697, he took an Armenian vessel of four hundred tons, the Quedagh Merchant, a prize worth £64,000, of which his own share was £16,000. Afterward he plundered the Banian merchants, and in May, 1698, took the Quedagh Merchant to Madagas- car. For these outrages he was now publicly declared a pirate. From Madagascar he sailed, in a sloop he had bought, with forty men for New-York, evidently hoping to make a successful plea that some of his captures were French and that what was wrong his crew had made him do. He first put into Delaware Bay, June, 1699; then sailed round the east end of Long Island into the sound as far as Oyster Bay, and communicated with his family. Nearer to New-York he never came after turning pirate. There Mr. James Emott joined him, one of the counsel against Leisler, counsel for Bayard on his subsequent trial, a vestryman of Trinity, a person of standing. Kidd carried him to Rhode Island and landed him, with a mission to the earl at Boston for a safe-conduct. At Block Island his wife and little daughter came aboard. Thence he went over to Gardiner's Island, with whose owner he left part of his treasure, which was afterward given up to the au- thorities. Then he sailed for Boston, arriving off the coast on July 1. The earl's message to him was, that if "what Mr. Emott said was true," he might come ashore. with Morros It was his only way to get him ashore. He came at last, but could not clear himself; was arrested, and, after long wait- ing for a ship, was carried to London, where, a year afterward, he was tried and executed, May, 1701. Such is, in brief, the story of his really unsuccessful piratical career, out of which have grown ballads and many diggings for mythical "buried treasures" along our Atlantic coast, and in various rivers and bays. VOL. II .- 3.

HISTORY OF NEW-YORK

How important to the earl his capture was becomes apparent from what was going on in England. There a fierce political battle was raging. Their enemies were trying to ruin Lord Chancellor Somers and the Earl of Oxford, Lord High Admiral, by impeachment before the Commons. One of the charges was passing Kidd's commission under the great seal. The delay of a week in apprehending him at Boston, the delay in getting him to London, were both made use of- they indicated partnership. Bellomont's name was freely used. The New-York agents seized the opportu- nity to press for his removal. But Bello- A two Years JOURNAL IN New-York : mont himself sent the agreement and other papers relating to the case; and when it came to the vote, it stood 56 for acquittal to 23 against. We surely are entitled to quote as conclusive Lord Macaulay's deliberate judgment that none of the parties concerned "deserved And part of its serious blame"; that "their conduct was TERRITORIES the very opposite of corrupt"; that they had "disbursed money largely" in the IN enterprise, "with the certainty that AMERICA. they should never be reimbursed un- less the outlay proved beneficial to the public"; and that "on this subject there By C. W. A. M. would probably have been no difference of opinion had not Somers been one of the contributors." As if, however, to LONDON, Printed for Dickenfan Boys in Lowib, and George Barson in Doften, MDCC1: try the metal and mechanism of his mind to the utmost, an unexpected blow fell upon Bellomont. Parliament was in a bad humor with the king. He FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE.1 had dispensed the Irish confiscated es- tates too freely among his favorites. Without any distinction between those enriched by "injudicious par- tiality" and those "sparingly rewarded" for services, they abolished all the grants. It nearly made a rupture with the king, but he at last yielded. This deprived the earl of one thousand pounds a year out of his income. It was a serious loss to him, but one borne with his usual reserve of feeling and uncomplaining dignity.

Stories from the other side, sent home and circulated, had their effect in elating his opponents with hopes of his speedy removal and in making the Leislerians timid. They were not sustaining him, as he

1 The Rev. Charles Woolley published his journal of a residence of nearly two years in New-York city for the first time, it is believed, in the summer of 1701. EDITOR.

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thought they should do, by representations counter to Dellius and the others in England. When he returned from Boston (by sea July 24, 1700) it was not a pleasant exchange of cities to him. It was a regular spinning-bee he had dropped into, where they spun all sorts of stories against him for the English market and kept their tongues buzzing spitefully at the same time. During a visit which Colonel Nicholson and Governor Penn made to him, they tried to reconcile matters between him and the merchants; but he said he had no advances to make unless they could J Bremer prove that he had oppressed them in their trade contrary to law; and if the terms of reconciliation were to be his indulging them in unlawful trade and piracy, on those points he should be as "steady as a rock." So they continued implacable; but he had gained this much, that the Madagascar trade was apparently at a standstill and piracy on the wane-much to do for one man who had no ships to help him and so few reliable officials. The Admiralty sent no men-of-war to the East, nor any to the coast; the lords of trade or the lords justices gave him their orders, but as to the means left him practically unsupported. He had to create them as he could, without illegality or force, in the face of the most influential and strenuous opposition at home and abroad. Just at this time, as he wrote to the king, he would much prefer an honest judge and a trust- worthy attorney-general to two ships of war. From Chief Justice Smith he could get little aid; he lived one hundred miles away, was rarely present at the council, and, thoroughly indisposed to whatever touched the late order of things. His natural adviser in matters of pro- cedure was the attorney-general; but in his opinions Mr. Graham was as unsteady as a weathercock, one thing in the morning, another in the afternoon, and in him the earl had utterly lost his old confidence. Besides, although the earl was not aware of it, since Mr. Graham lived eight miles away and did not come to town, he was now really sick and near his end. Not knowing this, he removed him in Jan- uary, only a few days before his death. But already the lords of trade had commissioned Mr. Atwood for the place of judge and Mr. Broughton to be attorney-general, although they did not leave Eng- land till after the earl's death. Just at this time, also, the lieutenant- governor was absent in Barbados; and, above all, in November he lost his best assistant as a public officer, the collector Stephanus Van Cortlandt. Under his good management the revenue had doubled. Although himself a great landowner, one allied by everything in and around him to his party, and therefore often opposed to the earl, yet of those who took part in Leisler's death, and with that one thing excepted, none has left so fair and honorable a record as Stephanus Van Cortlandt. By one of time's strange changes, with him in the

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The Memorial History of the City of New York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892, Volume II, Part 5

Author: Wilson, James Grant, 1832-1914 Publication date: 1892 Publisher: [New York] New York History Co. Number of Pages: 705

Author: Wilson, James Grant, 1832-1914
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: [New York] New York History Co.
Number of Pages: 705