USA > New York > Ulster County > Kingston > The history of Kingston, New York : from its early settlement to the year 1820 > Part 13
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Rip van Dam, then the oldest member of the council, suc- ceeded to the governorship, and administered the affairs of the province until the arrival of the new governor.
William Cosby, a colonel by title, and in search of a fortune, received the usual commission as governor, but did not arrive until the 1st of August, 1732, when he immediately assumed the reins of government. The Assembly were in session at the time, and soon after granted a revenue to support the government for six years, including a salary to the governor of fifteen hundred and sixty . pounds, with some emoluments. Cosby very soon after gave an in- dex to his character. When informed by Mr. Morris, a member of the Assembly, that it had granted to him a gratuity of seven hun- dred and fifty pounds, his contemptuous exclamation in reply was, "Damn them ; why did they not add shillings and pence !"
On the 14th of October, 1732, a law was passed authorizing the justices of the peace of the county of Ulster to build a court-house and jail for the county, and dispose of the old one.
Very soon after the commencement of his term the governor had a controversy with his predecessor, Van Dam, in regard to the . division of the salary. That controversy culminated in the trial of a libel suit in 1735, the proceedings and result of which that dis-
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tinguished patriot, Gouverneur Morris, in after years declared to have been "the germ of American freedom, the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America." Such being its effect, it cannot be considered a digression to give a brief narration thereof.
The king gave Cosby before he left England an order for an equal partition between himself and Van Dam of the salary, emol- uments, and perquisites of the office during the time Van Dam administered the government.
Under that order Cosby demanded that Van Dam should pay one half the salary he had received, £1975 78. 10d. Van Dam con- tended that the order included " emoluments and perquisites," and as Cosby had received, in " emoluments and perquisites," £6407 18s. 10d., the division made, if any, must include the whole, accord- ing to the king's order. That would give a balance of twenty-four hundred pounds to be paid by Cosby to Van Dam. Van Dam was willing to let it stand as it was-each keep what he had.
The governor brought suit against Van Dam in the exchequer. Chief-Justice Morris and second and third Judges Delancey and Phillipse formed the court. The two latter were the governor's most intimate friends. Two of the most eminent lawyers in the colony, William Smith and James Alexander, appeared as counsel for Van Dam. They excepted to the jurisdiction of the court. Chief-Justice Morris supported the exceptions, but Delancey and Phillipse overruled the plea. Governor Cosby then removed Jus- tice Morris from office, and appointed Delancey chief-justice in his place, without consulting or advising with his council. He subse- quently, at a meeting of the council, when no quorum was in at- tendance, presented the names of James Delancey as chief-justice and Phillipse as second judge.
Party feeling now became terribly bitter. The democratic, or popular branch, sided with Van Dam ; the aristocratic, with the governor, who was also still supported by a majority in the As- sembly. There were at that time two newspapers published in New York-one by Bradford, the public printer, a weekly issue, and the mouthpiece of the governor. The other was also a weekly paper, published by John Peter Zenger, who supported the oppo- sition.
Zenger, in one of his issues, charged Mr. Harrison, one of the governor's council, with an effort to blackmail Mr. Alexander by a threatening letter against himself and family unless money was deposited in a specified place for the writer. The paper was brought before the grand jury ; they ignored the complaint. This being followed by the discovery of other malpractices of Harrison, he left the country. 8
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Zenger continued his attacks upon the government without ces- sation, and in almost every form. He made serious charges, and printed home truths mingled with squibs and ballads. Governor Cosby and his council became desperate. Aided by Chief-Justice Delancey, they attempted in vain to get Zenger indicted. The grand jury ignored all their complaints. They presented the papers to the Assembly ; it ordered them to lie on the table.
On the 2d of November the council ordered the offensive papers to be burned by the common hangman or whipper, and that the mayor and magistrates of the city attend to such burning. When the sheriff presented the order at the quarter sessions, and moved for the compliance of the magistrates, the court would not suffer the order to be entered ; the magistrates protested against it as arbitrary and illegal, and ordered the whipper not to obey. The burning was eventually done by a negro slave of the sheriff, and was attended by the sheriff, the recorder, and a few dependents upon the governor.
Failing to procure an indictment against Zenger, they proceeded against him by information, and had him lodged in prison. That proceeding was one of the relics of despotism. It was an accusa- tion or complaint exhibited against a person for some criminal offence. It differed from an indictment in this : an indictment was an accusation found by the oath of twelve men upon the testimony of witnesses examined under oath ; an information was the simple allegation of the officer who exhibited it.
In 1735, at the April term of the court, Messrs. Alexander and Smith, as counsel for Zenger, filed exceptions to the commission of the Judges Delancey and Phillipse on the following grounds : (1) To the term, which was at will and pleasure ; (2) to the investi- ture ; (3) to the form ; and (4) to the want of evidence that the council concurred with the governor in their appointment.
The judges repelled the attack, and the chief-justice, addressing the counsel, said : " You have brought matters to this pass, that we must either go from the bench or you from the bar ;" and the counsel were silenced and disbarred.
The court organized by the governor, with his bosom friends on the bench and the selected counsel for the prisoner silenced and turned out of the bar, was ready to proceed with the trial, and designated Mr. Chambers, as counsel, to manage the defence. He, preparatory to the trial, demanded a struck jury, and it was ordered, and caused necessarily a short postponement.
When the trial was moved on and the jury sworn, Mr. Hamil- ton, a distinguished counsellor from Philadelphia, unexpectedly to the court and prosecution entered the court-room, and appeared as counsel for the defence.
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At the commencement of the trial Mr. Hamilton admitted the printing and publication. The attorney-general demanded that the jury must then render a verdict of guilty. Hamilton alleged that the charges were true, and therefore no libel. He ridiculed the position assumed by the judges, that a libel was "the more dangerous for being true." In his discussion of the question of law with the court, he convinced the jury, before addressing them, that the refusal to permit evidence of the truth of the publication added to the tyranny under which the people suffered. Then, turning to the jury and addressing them, he recapitulated the pas- sages complained of, alleged them to be true, asserted that in crim- inal cases the jurors were judges of the law as well as the fact, and closed his address to the jury as follows : " I make no doubt but your upright conduct this day will not only entitle you to the love and esteem of your fellow-citizens, but every man who prefers freedom to a life of slavery will bless and honor you as men who have baffled the attempt of tyranny, and by an impartial and in- corrupt verdict have laid a noble foundation for securing to our- selves, our posterity, and our neighbors that to which nature and the laws of our country have given as a right, the liberty both of opposing and exposing arbitrary power (in these parts of the world, at least) by speaking and writing the TRUTH."
The jury rendered a verdict of not guilty.
Shout upon shout shook the hall, which the court labored in vain to suppress. Mr. Hamilton was conducted by the crowd from the hall to a splendid entertainment. The next day the citizens were out en masse at his departure. He entered his barge with a salute of cannon, and was presented by the Common Council of the city with the freedom of the city in a gold box handsomely chased, and engraved with appropriate inscriptions.
Thus was tyranny baffled, the liberty of the press asserted, and even in those days of kingly and aristocratic rule the principle maintained, by a jury of the country, that truth is grander than fiction ; that in libel it is not an aggravation, but, stripped of malice, a justification, as now proclaimed and set forth in the fun- damental law of this State.
Governor Cosby died the next year after the Zenger trial. Mr. Van Dam was the oldest member of the council, and therefore re- garded by the people as entitled to the temporary succession. But he belonged to the opposition, and besides it was announced that he had been suspended by the governor before his death. It does not appear ever to have been fairly settled whether that suspen- sion was the act of a dying man, as some alleged, or had been done secretly and kept a secret for several months previous to his death. At any rate, whenever executed it was intended as a legacy, to take
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effect at death. On account of the conflicting views between him- self and the governor, Van Dam had absented himself from the meetings of the council during the Zenger trial.
The council met after the death of Governor Cosby, and a ma- jority, against the protest of Mr. Alexander, administered the oath to Councilman Clarke. Van Dam disputed the validity of the death-bed suspension, and demanded the seals, claiming the gov- ernment as the oldest counsellor. He was encouraged and sus- tained in this by the voice of the people. But Clarke, having the support of the council, officiated as their president.
On the 14th of October, 1736, the day for appointing officers, both incumbents assumed to act. The contest between the two parties or factions had become very bitter, and a resort to violence was threatened. While matters were in this excited state, declara- . tory orders came from England in favor of Clarke, and he very soon thereafter received.the appointment of lieutenant-governor.
The Assembly had been adjourned from time to time, until it met in its ninth session on the 14th of October, 1736. The presi- dent, Clarke, opened the Assembly in a very lengthy speech upon the condition and necessities of the province. The council and Assem- bly made a brief reply, in which they lamented the unhappy division which had sprung up in the province and been industri- ously fomented " by the wicked artifice of some factious and im- placable spirits, who, in order to gratify their own private piques and resentments, have put all at stake, and done their utmost to throw this Colony into the most fatal convulsions."
On the 3d of May, 1737, the Assembly, having failed to pass the appropriation bills desired by Governor Clarke in the form de- manded by him, but had "passed some Resolves highly deroga- tory to his Majesty's Honor and just Prerogatives," he dissolved the Assembly.
Writs were issued for the election of a new assembly, return- able the 15th of June, 1737. The new Assembly met on that day. The delegates returned from Ulster County were Abraham Gaasbeek Chambers and John Hardenbergh. The governor, desiring to go to Albany to have a conference with the Indians, the Assembly was prorogued until the 3d of September.
The People's Party were in the majority, and the session at its opening threatened to be very stormy. The opening address of the lieutenant governor was very mild and conciliatory. The an- swer of the house was threatening, and sprinkled with war clouds. They found much fault with the action of their predecessors, alleg- ing prodigality and misappropriation of. funds, and announced in strong terms what they would do and what they would not do.
Clarke, however, appears to have been equal to the emergency,
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and in tactics to have equalled some of the astute politicians of the present day. He seemed to know when and where to adopt the maxim, " A soft answer turneth away wrath," and where and how official patronage could be turned to the best account ; how oppos- ing leaders could be led astray and their influence destroyed by holding up to their expectation glittering baubles of office, until the purpose had been served, and then denying their enjoyment. With shrewdness, therefore, he managed to work with the opposi- tion Legislature harmoniously. He succeeded substantially in what he wanted, and at the same time many popular bills were passed and much business was accomplished. Among the local acts passed was one "to enable the Justices of the Peace of the County of Ulster to defray the charges of building a court-house and gaol, for the said county, and to enable them to furnish the same, and for defraying other charges therein mentioned." Among the general acts was one "lowering the interest of money to seven per cent ;" also one "to defray the necessary and contingent charges of the Garrison of Oswego, repairing the same, and for bet- ter regulating the fur trade." The most important act was one "for emitting bills of credit for the payment of the debts, and for the better support of the Government of this Colony and other purposes therein mentioned." This act provided for the issue of " bills of credit to the value of £48,350 current money in New York," in different denominations, from ten pounds down to five shillings. The bills were declared to pass current as currency. Eighty-three hundred and fifty pounds in amount were to be paid over to the treasurer of the colony, and the balance paid over to the loan officers in the several counties in the proportions pre- scribed in the act, to be loaned to the people on bond and mortgage, at five per cent interest, in sums not less than twenty-five pounds nor more than one hundred pounds ; interest payable annually, and principal in four annual instalments in the years 1747 to 1750, inclusive. The proportion of Ulster County was four thousand pounds. This was the first creation of loan officers and govern- mental loans in this country.
It was during the administration of Governor Clarke that the great panic prevailed in the city of New York in regard to a negro or rather slave insurrection. Although it proved the death of many poor negroes, the insurrection existed more in the excited imaginations of the people than in the reality. It originated from some petty thefts and accidental fires, which exaggerated from mole-hills into mountains, dethroned reason, and gave un- founded suspicions and excited fancies full sway. It will be seen, when reference is had more particularly to local matters in Kings- ton, that the alarm reached even there. The negroes were restricted
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in their privileges, and a call made for a double night watch in that place.
The year 1742 is memorable in the annals of the city of New York on account of the great and fatal prevalence of the yellow- fever in that city.
In 1743 the administration of Lieutenant-Governor Clarke closed, and he was succeeded by Admiral George Clinton.
Admiral George Clinton arrived at New York on the 22d day of September, 1743, and at once assumed the reins of government. The inhabitants of the colony were very strongly impressed in his favor, very flattering accounts of his talents and liberality having reached here in advance of his arrival. In his opening address to the Legislature he gave the strongest assurances that the welfare of the province would be his chief care and study, which tended greatly to confirm such favorable impressions.
One of the first acts of his administration was the dissolution of the Assembly, and an order for a new election. The frequent return of the representatives to their constituents was popular with the people. The retention by some former governors of an As- sembly for a long series of years, on account of their favorable support of the administration, met with strong remonstrances, and indications of disapproval from the people. Some of the former governors had also excited against themselves bitter feeling and hatred on the part of the people by their efforts, through frequent . proroguing or dissolutions, to annoy and force the assent of the Assembly to distasteful measures.
About that time the French ministry were making great prep- arations to invade England, and to place the pretender. Chevalier de St. George, upon the throne. The Protestant feeling and prej- udices of the colonists were readily aroused against the Pretender, as a Roman Catholic and creature of the pope. As a result, we find that when the Assembly met, in its reply to the governor's speech all former subjects of difference between the executive and the Assembly were entirely ignored, and it was replete with the strongest assurances of loyalty and adherence to the Protestant faith. The delegates from Ulster County were Colonel Gaasbeek Chambers and Abraham Hasbrouck.
At the first session of the Assembly, in the fall of 1743. a law was passed limiting the continuance of the general Assembly to seven years ; it received the approval of the governor, and con- tinued in force until the Revolution. The Legislature at that ses- sion passed an act for the regulation of prosecutions by informa- tion, in order to reform such abuses as had been practised in the case of Zenger and others ; but through the influence of the at- torney-general it was not acted upon by the council. The passage
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of such a law would have interfered too much with that official's perquisites and arbitrary powers. This proceeding by information was one of the royal prerogatives, which had its rise in the days when despotism was in the ascendent, and the people were serfs, apparently without rights and without privileges. It was a right, vested in the king's attorney-general, to commence a criminal pros- ecution against and arrest any citizen upon his own motion or the request of an individual by filing a suggestion or information in court, charging the defendant with any crime short of a capital offence. The citizen could be thus subjected to the odium, annoy- ance, and expense of defending a prosecution instituted perhaps upon mere suspicion, without probable cause, actuated by malice, and not supported by the solemnity of an oath. It was a tremen- dous power for oppression, ill-use, and extortion, at the mere beck or will of the attorney-general. Our ancestors demanded protec- tion against the abuse of such power. The council considered their demand unworthy of notice.
At the April session the Assembly assured the governor that it would cheerfully concur in every measure for the security of the colony. At that session an appropriation of four thousand pounds was made for fortifications and military operations, and a tax ordered to defray the expense.
The Assembly, after a short recess, reassembled in July. The governor called its attention to the existence of the war of England with France and Spain, and the necessity of immediate prepara- tions for defence against their northern neighbors and the Indians. The Assembly in response voted liberal supplies.
The English Government was not satisfied with the colonies placing themselves on the defensive, but convinced of the great value of the acquisition of Canada, it sent peremptory orders to Governor Clinton to carry hostilities into the Canadas and accom- plish their capture-thus seeking its own aggrandizement at the expense of the blood and treasure of the colonies.
At the March session of the Assembly, in 1745, the governor directed the attention of the house to the contemplated attack upon Canada, and demanded its favorable action. The house made no response to the governor's speech. It was determined to do all that was necessary for defence, and to secure the friendship of the Indians ; but the Assembly considered it the business of the English Government, and not that of the colonies, to add another jewel to the British crown. They were already burdened and ground to the earth with enormous taxes, and could do no more than was necessary for self-protection. Information came also from England that a bill was pending in Parliament to prevent the issuing of colonial bills of credit, and their use as money. The colonists felt
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that the passage of such a law would be knocking their last prop from under them. This had been their great relief in the enor- mous expenditures they had theretofore incurred in their previous offensive as well as defensive wars with the French and Indians.
The governor was very indignant at the non-action of the As- sembly, summoned them before him, and after giving them a severe reprimand, dissolved them. Writs were issued for the elec- tion of a new assembly, to meet on the 25th day of June, 1745. The Assembly convened on that day, and Albert Pawling and John Hardenbergh appeared as delegates from the county of Ulster.
The new Assembly contributed five thousand pounds toward the expenses of the expedition organized in Massachusetts and the eastern provinces for the capture of Cape Breton, but contributed no men.
New York was kept in constant activity and alarm with incur- sions by the French and Indians upon her northern borders. Sar- atoga was surprised, some of its inhabitants slain, others carried off as captives, and destruction spread over the neighborhood, at- tended with the most brutal and horrible cruelties on the part of the French and Indians.
Ulster County was panic-stricken, lest the marauders should be able to extend their ravages that far into the interior. Besides contributing its quota of men for the defence of the most exposed frontier at the north, Ulster was obliged to keep a constant patrol and watch for the protection of its outside settlements.
In July, 1745, the Assembly passed an act to raise forty thou- sand pounds by tax, and it received the approval of the governor and council. On the 26th day of February, 1746, a day of fasting and prayer was directed to be observed throughout the colony, in order "to implore the Divine goodness, to crown his Majesty's arms with success, and to protect the inhabitants from the barbar- ous incursions of the Indians, and the detestable plots of the . French and the Pretender."
In the beginning of the year 1746, the French and their Indian allies had become so bold that they ventured with their marauding parties to within a very short distance of Albany, took and carried off prisoners, plundered and set fire to houses and murdered in- mates. These bands, when pursued, eluded capture and escaped. The whole country was in a state of great fear and excitement.
A refusal on the part of Pennsylvania and Connecticut to con- tribute anything toward supplying the Six Nations of Indians with the provisions of war was productive of very bitter feeling on the part of the New York colonists toward their neighbors, and justly so ; it stirred up afresh the jealousy which had for some time ex- isted between them.
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In June, 1746, the Assembly resolved that provision should be made for sending four hundred and fifty men and fifty Indians to the northern frontier. About the same time the Assembly received a message from the governor, advising it that the British min- istry had proposed an expedition against Canada, to be organized in the provinces, and to be aided by a naval force from Great Britain. The house concurred in the proposition with great una- nimity, and immediately voted a bounty of six pounds, over and above regular pay, to each able-bodied volunteer for service in the expedition. They also appropriated six thousand pounds for the immediate purchase of supplies for victualling the forces that might be raised in the colony for the proposed expedition.
Notwithstanding the enormous pecuniary and other sacrifices entailed upon the colony by the proposed expedition, every meas- ure was cheerfully adopted for its advancement.
A disease similar to yellow-fever broke out in Albany that summer, which proved fatal to many in the city ; it also attacked the Indians encamped in the vicinity to such an extent that the governor felt compelled to dismiss them from further attendance. As cold weather advanced the disease subsided, and in the winter it wholly disappeared.
The English Government, in reference to the proposed attack upon Canada, appeared to have had all its objects fully answered by arousing the colonies to raise troops and expend large amounts of money. The promised fleet for the expedition, to co-operate with the land forces, never was sent, nor were any steps taken on the part of the home government for the protection of the colonists.
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