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 8
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CHARLES LODOWICK was mayor in 1694. His name, too, recalls the Leisler agitation, he being one of the six captains who commanded the fort in turn before sole authority was placed upon Leisler. He took a bold and active part in the earlier stages of the dispute. When it came to his turn to guard the fort, he sent a sergeant to demand the keys from Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson. On the latter's refusal Lodowick marched his company to the City Hall, where the council was in session, and the keys were sur- rendered. Though his participation in affairs was less prominent further on, he re- mained loyal to Leisler. It speaks well for him therefore that under Fletcher he received the appointment of mayor of the city. His father was captain of a ship engaged in distant foreign trade. The mayor established a mercantile business in New-York, and his connections extended to almost every foreign port of prominence at that time. In the militia he rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and took part in Fletcher's Canadian campaign of 1697. Some time after his occupancy of the mayor's chair he removed to England, where he died.
WILLIAM MERRITT was mayor in the years 1695, 1696, and 1697. He was originally captain of a ship, but settled in this city while still a young man in 1671. He was able to purchase a house and lot, situated on Broad street, between Stone and Marketfield streets. Here he opened a store for the sale of general merchandise, was successful in business, extended it continually, and attained wealth. He purchased a large parcel of land near the present Chatham Square, and he must have made his residence there,
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for after the Dongan charter had divided the city into wards, he was elected alderman for the Out Ward, in 1687. He returned to the lower part of the city, however; for later (1691) he represented the Dock Ward. His house there was one of the finest at that day, but its location is not exactly stated. He took the opposite side in politics to Leisler, and this may account for his superseding Mayor Lodowick, and holding the place by Fletcher's appointment three years in succession. Leisler caused him and his son to be imprisoned for twenty-one days. He took part in Fletcher's Canadian cam- paign. We find his name among the petitioners for the building of Trinity Church, and he and his son were chosen vestrymen in 1697. He removed to Orange County, and in 1702 was a justice of the peace there. He seems late in life to have once more followed the sea, as he was appointed to pilot duty in 1706. In 1708 he died, at the age of sixty-eight.
JOHANNES DE PEYSTER was mayor in 1698. As already seen, he was a younger brother of Abraham De Peyster. He married a daughter of Gerrit Bancker, a rich Indian trader and fur merchant of Albany. After Mr. Bancker's death his widow moved to New-York, and on her decease an inventory of the estate was made, and is still on record. It is interesting to note the list of books: "One Bible with silver clasps; two Dutch Bibles; one other small Bible with silver clasp ; one New Testament with silver clasp; two Catechisms; one Isaac Ambrosius; one House Wifery; one Horin's Church History ; one Flock of Israel, in French; one Coelman's Christian's In- terest; three volumes Christ's Way and Works; one De Witt's Catechism; two Duyck- er's Church History ; one Cudemans on Holiness." It was Mayor De Peyster's duty to do the honors of the city for the Earl of Bellomont on his arrival in New-York, and he no doubt shared the sentiments in favor of the latter entertained by his more promi- nent elder brother. His residence was situated in the Dock Ward, which he had rep- resented in the common council before his appointment to the chief magistracy. He died in 1719, or nine years before Abraham De Peyster.
DAVID PROVOOST was mayor in the year 1699. His father came to New Amsterdam as a clerk in the employ of the West India Company. Under Kieft's administration a grant of land was made to him, situated on the line of what is now Pearl street, then the East River shore, and near the present Fulton street. He lived on Long Island toward the close of his life; but his son and namesake, the mayor, lived on the prop- erty on Pearl street. The latter engaged in mercantile business, and was very success- ful. He married the only daughter of Johannes De Peyster the elder, and was thus the brother-in-law of the mayor who immediately preceded him. His son David Pro- voost, Jr., was also prominent in municipal affairs. The name has been made illustrious by the first Bishop of New-York, who was fifth in descent from the West India Com- pany's able representative. The original home of the Provoosts was France, but as adherents of the Huguenot faith and politics, they had sought a refuge in Holland.
ISAAC DE RIEMER was mayor in 1700, the closing year of the seventeenth century. The wife of Mayor Cornelius Steenwyck, who a second time married the Rev. Henricus Selyns, was Margaret De Riemer. Her father was one of the early settlers in New Amsterdam. A sister married Nicholas Gouverneur, a name frequently met with in colonial history and in Revolutionary history in connection with another historic name, forming the combination Gouverneur Morris. Her brother Hubert De Riemer was the father of the mayor. The latter engaged in mercantile business, and before his may- oralty does not seem to have entered official life at all; but afterward he is found occupying several positions at various periods. He was collector of the South Ward, alderman, and in 1708 was constable. When he felt that the state of his finances warranted it he built a mansion "out of town," on the hill south of Canal street and west of Broadway. In 1714, after a contest regarding returns, he was seated as alder- man for the Out Ward. The city at the time that he was mayor counted 4200 souls.
EDITOR.
BIRTHPLACE OF LORD CORNBURY, OXFORDSHIRE.
CHAPTER II
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNBURY 1702-1708
HARLES READE begins one of his entertaining stories with the following sentence : "In Charles the Second's day, the 'Swan' was denounced by the dramatists as a house where unfaithful wives and mistresses met their
gallants." In this same "Swan " Inn, a "rakehelly " of London con- cocted treason against his relative and king, James II. This man was Edward, Viscount Cornbury, afterward colonial governor of New- York; and that he should have been at home amid such vile surround- ings is typical of his entire subsequent career.
Edward Hyde, Viscount Cornbury, was the grandson of the first Earl of Clarendon, prime minister and lord chancellor of Charles II., and a son of the Earl of Clarendon, the brother-in-law of James II. He was therefore the own cousin of the Princess Anne, afterward queen, and the nephew by marriage of her father the king. He was educated at Geneva, and in 1688 married a daughter of Lord O'Brian. He was a young man, says Macaulay, "of abilities so slender as almost to verge on intellectual imbecility "; of loose principles, and of an arrogant and violent temper. "He had been early taught," continues that same writer, "to consider his relationship to the Princess Anne as the groundwork of his fortunes, and had been ex- horted to pay her assiduous court." Thus it happened that the first act which brought him into notice was, under the instructions of Churchill (afterward Duke of Marlborough), to lead over into the camp of William of Orange, on the latter's approach to Salisbury,
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three regiments of cavalry. That this act of treachery, even for that day, was considered more than usually despicable, is shown by the confidence that had been placed in him by his uncle, James; for we are told that as that monarch. was on the point of sitting down to dinner he learned of his nephew's defection, upon which James "turned away from his untasted meal, swallowed a crust of bread and a glass of wine, and retired to his closet." The same principles, moreover, which could thus reconcile a young officer of high birth to desertion, aggravated by breach of trust and by gross falsehood, seem to have governed his con- duct through life. In reward for this act of treachery,-an act brought about by no high, patri- otic, Brutus-like feeling, but sim- ply by innate baseness of char- acter, - William appointed him, in September, 1701, governor of the province of New-York; and the newly appointed governor sailed for his post two days be- fore the death of that king.
His first official action, taken on the eve of his departure from England, and which well illus- VISCOUNT CORNBURY. trates the character of the man, was the appointment of Daniel Homan as secretary of the province of New-York. This was an appointment which, even in that age of low and venal standards of morality, drew upon him a stern reprimand from the lords of trade, who, in administering it, reminded him that "the Secretary of the Province should be a person of unblemished credit and repute." This Homan was a man of notoriously low tastes, a thorough scamp, and one who appears to have possessed not a single redeeming trait. He had been accountant-general of the province and private secretary to Governor Fletcher, under whose administration he became infamous for receiving bribes from pirates for granting them "protections." He had also been instrumental in carrying through extravagant land grants, on numerous occasions had been guilty of perjury, had re- sorted to disgraceful and criminal practices in obtaining recruits for the army, and, in short, was what at the present day would be called a corrupt "lobbyist " and "bounty-jumper broker." In reply to this reprimand from his superiors, Cornbury wrote them an obsequious letter, in which he stated that the character of his appointee had been
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THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNBURY
unknown to him, and promised at once to dismiss him from his em- ploy. But notwithstanding this promise, Cornbury found means to evade the commands of the lords of trade, and Homan remained secretary of the province to the end of his administration.
At length, on March 15, 1702, Cornbury sailed from Spithead in the ship Jersey. The same vessel carried out one hundred mus- keteers, fifty barrels of powder with ball in proportion, six thousand flints, and six drums and corps "in proportion " for the defense of the frontiers; all of which troops and munitions of war were designed to propitiate the inhabitants of the province, who were beginning to grumble at receiving so little aid in these matters from the home government. After a voyage of seven weeks, Cornbury, on the morn- ing of May 3, anchored in the Bay of New-York off Fort William Henry, the name of which was changed a few weeks afterward to Fort Anne. His first action, after landing the same afternoon, was to proceed, attended by the members of his council, to the fort and the City Hall, where his Majesty's letters and patents, constituting him "Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief and Vice-Admiral of New-York and its dependent territories," were publicly read by the clerk of the council-board. Thereupon, having taken the usual of- ficial oaths before Chief Justice Atwood, and received the seal of the province from the late Lieutenant-Governor Nanfan, he, in turn, administered the oaths of office to those members of his council who had been appointed in his instructions. He also issued two proclama- tions : one declaring that all civil and military officers should hold their several positions until further orders, and the other dissolving the assembly, which had been in session only a few days previous to his arrival. In the evening he was entertained at a public dinner given in honor of his arrival, and presented with the freedom of the city in a magnificent gold box, on which occasion a congratulatory address was also tendered him by the municipal authorities.
The new governor received these civilities and courtesies in an exceedingly urbane manner, and seemed only desirous of adopting a wise and conciliatory policy. Nothing, indeed, could, on the surface, have been more auspicious for Cornbury's own fame than the condi- tion of the province on his arrival. New-York, at this time, was torn by intestinal feuds; and, upon learning that the king contemplated sending over a new governor, a petition had been forwarded to the lords of trade praying that whomsoever the king should appoint might be one who " would use temper and moderation upon coming to us, and treat each party with like favor and respect. By which means, after he hath run some course in such a management, he will be able clearly to discern who are the true friends of his Majesty and his Government here; and then it will not be difficult to determine
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how to steare [steer] himself for the future." Quaint as this language is, it yet shows the kindness and consideration with which all factions were disposed to treat their new governor. On the one hand, the royalists anticipated his arrival "with the incense of flattery"; and on the other, the hospitality of the colony, not yet provoked to defiance, had elected an assembly - the one he had dissolved on the first day of his arrival -" disposed to confide in the integrity of one who had been represented as a friend to Presbyterians." A wise ad- ministrator like Andros would have been quick to feel the pulse of the people and discern the signs of the times, and have shaped his policy accordingly. Not so, however, with Cornbury, as the sequel will show.
The new governor signalized his arrival by several acts which gave great satisfaction, and the spirit of which is still seen in Massachu- setts, where, upon the election of a new governor, the prison doors are thrown open to certain offenders. Thus, his suite, the soldiers of the garrison, and all citizens unable to purchase their liberty, were made freemen with rights of suffrage, trade, and holding office.' It proved, however, apparent later that this seeming gen- erosity was only a blind to his real intentions. Nor was it long before his true character ap- peared, showing him to be not only a savage bigot, THE CLARENDON ARMS. but an ungentlemanly tyrant. Having no sym- pathy with popular rights and looking upon the assembly of the prov- ince as having been originally extorted from James in a moment of weakness by his friend, William Penn, and being, moreover, an intense partizan and, notwithstanding his Geneva education, an upholder of the Church of England, he, very soon after taking into his hands the reins of government,- to use a popular metaphor,- " showed his teeth." The first instance of this was his taking sides with the anti- Leislerian party and his condemning the conduct of, and releasing, Col- onel Nicholas Bayard. To understand this action, it should be remem- bered that the people of the province of New-York, at this time, were divided into two factions-the aristocratic, represented by Bayard, and the democratic, or, as it would be termed at the present day, the " People's Party," represented by the followers of the late Jacob Leis- ler. The latter, who had administered the government after a fashion
! To expliun whing at first muy ever strange to the mintern reuter. that there should have been white davon in the study of New York at the amo. it should be burnu in mind that political and
founded on this more : and Lord Macaulay has bwva wreevir criticized for staring that William Pra was guilty of urging this practice upon the Lung Atwee the rebellion of Monmouth, many of sover asken in arms squinst James, together with their wives and innichours were thuy sold to the Azeruma culvoies, especially to Virginia.
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since the departure of Governor Dongan, the successor of Andros, had refused to surrender the government into the hands of Major Ingoldesby until Colonel Sloughter, who had been sent over to suc- ceed Dongan, had arrived. Upon Sloughter's arrival, however, he had soon abandoned the fort, was arrested, and, with his son-in-law, Jacob Milborne, was tried and executed for treason. Still the con- duct of Leisler during the revolu- tion had been considered on the whole patriotic, and his sentence was thought to have been both un- just and cruel. Indeed, his enemies could not prevail upon Governor Sloughter to sign the warrant for his execution until for that purpose they had induced him to drink too much wine.1 It was, in truth, al- together a brutal affair, and adds one more to the list of the so-called (and properly) "judicial murders."
In the prosecution of Leisler, Bayard, as related in the previous volume, had been particularly ac- tive. He had sent numerous insidi- Marlborough ous addresses both to the king and to the newly appointed governor, Cornbury, before the latter left England for New-York, in which were made the most infamous and unjust charges against Leisler and the administration of Bellomont and his lieutenant-governor, Nanfan.2
To make Leisler's conviction the more certain, he had, in the spring of 1691, procured the passage of a law the effect of which was in- tended for the special punishment of Leisler.3 Bayard now fell into the very trap he had set for Leisler; for, insisting that this unre- pealed law should be put into force, Nanfan, the lieutenant-governor, caused the arrest of Bayard on the charge of treason. Accordingly, the latter was tried before Chief Justice Atwood in February, 1702, and, being found guilty, was, in keeping with the harshness of the times, sentenced to be "hanged, drawn, and quartered in accordance with British law." He was, however, on a virtual confession of his
1 "Sloughter was invited to a wedding feast, and when overcome with wine was prevailed upon to sign the death-warrant, and before he recovered his senses the prisoners were executed." Smith's "History of New-York."
" One of these addresses alone contained no less than thirty-two "heads of accusation of the Earl of Bellomont." It was a tissue of falsehoods from
beginning to end, and was well calculated to stir up revolt in the colony. This seditious paper was signed "John Key "; and it is asserted by some that Bayard, not daring to send it out over his own name, signed it with this fictitious one. But Bellomont himself speaks of a Scotchman by that name.
3 See the previous chapter. EDITOR.
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guilt, reprieved by the lieutenant-governor "until his Majesty's pleasure could be known." This was the state of affairs when Corn- bury arrived to assume the governorship. The latter reversed all of the proceedings against Bayard, and set him at liberty. No sooner was this action of the governor known than all of those who had espoused the cause of the Leislerian party fled in dismay from the province; while at the same time many merchants and property- holders of the anti-Leislerian faction who had removed to New Jer- sey, encouraged by this same action, returned to New-York city and resumed their citizenship.
An outcome of this affair of Bayard was a petition of the anti- Leislerians to the governor, reciting that as Abraham De Peyster Dr. Samuel Staats, and Robert Walters, members of Bellomont's council, had been especially active in the "late troubles," they should be proceeded against "even to the extreme penalty of the law." A wise governor, at this juncture, one who sought to promote harmony in his government, would have endeavored to throw oil on the troubled political waters by adopting a conciliatory policy having for its aim at least a compromise. Such a policy, however, did not suit Corn- bury, who, immediately hastening again to take sides, suspended without a hearing those influential citizens from his council-board, and appointed in their place Dr. Gerardus Beeckman, Rip Van Dam, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, and Thomas Wenham. The New-York assembly, however, were not so complaisant. Smarting under this assumption of power on the part of the governor, they at once passed an act for indemnifying those who had sustained loss during the revolution. This act, called the "Leisler Act," gave great offense to the lords of trade, and they immediately sent to Cornbury similar instructions to those they had previously given on this same subject to Lord Bellomont, ordering peremptorily that such action on the part of the legislature should not be allowed. But this order fell harm- lessly on the assembly; and for a while, as Cornbury did not have sufficient strength of character effectually to protest, the matter remained in abeyance.
As we have before said, the time of Cornbury's arrival was most opportune for any one desirous of making a good record. The con- dition both of the city and province of New-York at this period was most wretched; and of the many improvements instituted and carried out by Andros, owing to the supine management of his successors, scarcely any trace remained. The fort was in a sad state, not a penny having been expended upon it since the administration of Colonel Fletcher : the parapet, composed only of sods, had fallen down ; most of the gun-carriages and their platforms were rotten; nearly all of the guns were not only dismounted, but so "honeycombed " as to
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THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNBURY
render their firing unsafe; and the military stores were unfit to be used. Of the regulars, moreover, which constituted the four foot companies (one hundred to each company), only seventy remained ; while none of the men had either decent clothes or accoutrements. The militia of the province, like- wise, which, under the administra- tion of Andros, had, it will be re- membered, been brought up to the highest grade of efficiency,1 was in a deplorable state, not having been called out or drilled for many years past. In addition to all this, the forts at Albany, Schenectady, and Half-Moon (Waterford, N. Y.) were in the same ruinous condition; while, to cap the climax, the Five Nations were already wavering in their attachment to the British crown. Now was the time, there- fore, for a man of ability to make his influence felt. As the reader will recall, Andros, confronted by Leurs Morris a similar state of affairs, had by personal supervision and intense individual energy brought order out of chaos. The present governor, however, was a man of very differ- ent caliber. Utterly devoid of executive ability, only energetic while in pursuit of his sensual pleasures, and notwithstanding repeated severe reprimands by the lords of trade, he allowed the condition of the city and province (with the exception of a few repairs on the fort) to remain the same at the end of his administration as he had found it.
On June 17, 1702, Cornbury received from Queen Anne a confir- mation of his commission as governor, together with orders to pro- claim her Majesty queen; and also to assure those provinces of her "especial care and protection"-exhorting them, moreover, "to do, on their parts, what is necessary for their security and defense." This duty was discharged the following morning in the presence of the troops of the garrison, the members of the council, and the mayor, aldermen, clergy, and citizens. "This solemnity," wrote Cornbury to the lords of trade, "was performed with all the duty and respect imaginable to the Queen, and the people showed all the cheerfulness and loyalty that could be wished for or desired from good subjects
1 See preceding volume, on the administration of Sir Edmund Andros.
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upon that occasion." The next day (Friday, the 19th) Cornbury, hav- ing previously notified by express Colonel Hamilton, the governor of the New Jersey proprietors, of his intention, set out for Burlington, the principal town in West Jersey, where, on his arrival the following Monday, he went through the same ceremony. It had been his pur- pose to go directly to Amboy, but the bridges having been washed away by recent rains, he was prevented from so doing. From Bur- lington he journeyed to the present site of Trenton, N. J., where, tak- ing a boat, he proceeded to Philadelphia, which he reached on June 23.1 Finding, on his arrival, a vessel on the point of sailing for England, he availed himself of this opportunity to send to the lords of trade a long and somewhat grandiloquent account of the manner in which he had proclaimed the queen.
On his return to New-York he found that a malignant epidemic strongly resembling the yellow fever was raging in the city, and that many of her terror-stricken citizens had already fled to New Jersey and Staten Island. Accordingly he lost no time in adjourning the assembly, which he had called immediately after his dissolution of the previous one, and took his family to Jamaica, L. I., whither he was followed shortly after by his council. As there was a scarcity of eligible houses in that village, and the best one was the dwelling of the Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Mr. Hubbard, built for him by his congregation, Cornbury begged the latter to allow him the loan of it for himself and family. This request was cheerfully granted by the clergyman, who, with his large family, moved into narrower quarters, a hospitality which was requited by its mean-spirited recip- ient in a remarkable manner. This was no less than the seizure, on July 4, 1704,2 by the sheriff, on an order from Cornbury, of the par- sonage-house, meeting-house, and glebe, for the use of the members of the Church of England residing there (and who amounted to a mere " corporal's guard "), on the plea that the property belonged to the Anglican Church at Jamaica, "since the Church and Parsonage having been built by Public Act, it could belong to none but the Church of England."" This plea was most specious. During the administration of Colonel Fletcher, the people of Jamaica, being
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