USA > New York > The history of the late province of New-York, from its discovery, to the appointment of Governor Colden, in 1762. Vol. I > Part 12
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The pretence was, that he refused to account for the public moneys he had formerly received out of the excise ; upon which a committee of both houses advised the passing a bill to confiscate his estate, unless he agreed to account by a certain day. Bụt
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instead of this, an act was afterwards passed to oblige him to account for a sum amounting to near eighteen thousand pounds. While this matter was transacting, a new complaint was forged, and he was summoned before another committee of both houses, relating to his procuring the Five Nations to signify their desire that he should be sent home to solicit their affairs. The criminality of this charge can be seen only through the partial optics with which his enemies then scanned his behaviour : be- sides there was no evidence to support it, and there- fore the committee required him to purge himself by his own oath. Mr. Livingston, who was better acquainted with English law and liberty than to countenance a practice so odious, rejected the inso- lent demand with disdain ; upon which the house, by advice of the committee, addressed the lieutenant- governor, to pray his majesty to remove him from his office of secretary of Indian affairs, and that the governor in the mean time would suspend him from the exercise of his commission .*
It was at this favourable conjuncture that Jacob Leisler's petition to the king, and his majesty's letter to the late earl of Bellomont, were laid before the assembly. Leisler displeased with the report of the lords of trade, that his father and his brother Milborne had suffered according to law, laid his case before the parliament, and obtained an act to reverse the attainder.t After which he applied to the king,
* Mr. Livingston's reason for not accounting was truly unanswerable; his books and vouchers were taken into the hands of the government, and detained from him.
i See Note K.
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complaining that his father had disbursed about four thousand pounds, in purchasing arms and for- warding the revolution ; in consequence of which he procured the following letter to lord Bellomont, dated at Whitehall, the 6th of February, 1988.
" MY LORD,
" The king being moved upon the petition of Mr. Jacob Leisler, and having a gracious sense of his father's services and sufferings, and the ill circum- stances the petitioner is thereby reduced to, his majesty is pleased to direct, that the same be trans- mitted to your lordship, and that you recommend his case to the general assembly of New-York, being the only place where he can be relieved, and the prayer of his petition complied with.
" I am, my lord. your lordship's " Most obedient and humble servant,
" JERSEY."
As soon as this letter and the petition were brought into the house, a thousand pounds were ordered to be levied for the benefit of Mr. Leisler, as well as several sums for other persons, by a bill for paying the debts of the government, which never- theless did not pass into a law till the next session. Every thing that was done at this meeting of the assembly, which continued till the 18th of October, was under the influence of a party spirit ; and nothing can be a fuller evidence of it, than an incor- rect, impertinent address to his majesty, which was drawn up by the house at the close of the session, and signed by fourteen of the members. It contains
:
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a tedious narrative of their proceedings relating to the disputed elections, and concludes with a little incense, to regale some of the then principal agents in the public affairs, in these words :
" This necessary account of ourselves and our unhappy divisions, which we hope the moderation of our lieutenant-governor, the wisdom and prudence . of William Atwood, esq. our chief justice, and Tho-' mas Weaver, esq. your majesty's collector and receiver-general, might have healed, we lay before your majesty with all humility, and a deep sense of your majesty's goodness to us, lately expressed in sending over so excellent a person to be our chief justice."
The news of the king's having appointed lord Cornbury to succeed the earl of Bellomont, so strongly animated the hopes of the Anti-Leislerian party, that about the commencement of the year 1702, Nicholas Bayard promoted several addresses to the king, the parliament, and lord Cornbury, which were subscribed at a tavern kept by one Hutchins, an alderman of the city of New-York. In that to his majesty, they assure him " that the late differences were not grounded on a regard to his interest, but the corrupt designs of those who laid hold on an opportunity to enrich themselves by the spoils of their neighbours." The petition to the parliament says that Leisler and his adherents gained the fort at the revolution without any opposition ; that he oppressed and imprisoned the people without cause, plundered them of their goods and compelled them to flee their country, though they were well affected to the prince of Orange. That the earl of Bellomont appointed
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indigent sheriffs, who returned such members to the assembly as were unduly elected, and in his lord- ship's esteem. That he suspended many from the board of council, who were faithful servants of the crown, introducing his own tools in their stead. Nay they denied the authority of the late assembly, and added that the house had bribed both the lieutenant- governor and the chief justice ; the one to pass their bills, and the other to defend the legality of their proceedings. A third address was prepared to be presented to lord Cornbury, to congratulate his arrival, as well to prepossess him in their favour as to prejudice him against the opposite party.
Nothing could have a more natural tendency to excite the wrath of the lieutenant-governor and the revenge of the council and assembly, than the reflec- tions contained in those several addresses. Nanfan had no sooner received intelligence of them than he summoned Hutchins to deliver them up to him, and upon his refusal committed him to jail on the 19th of January ; the next day Nicholas Bayard, Rip Van Dam, Philip French, and Thomas Wenham, hot with party zeal, sent an imprudent address to the lieu- tenant-governor, boldly justifying the legality of the address, and demanding his discharge out of custody. I have before taken notice that upon Sloughter's arrival in 1691, an act was passed to recognize the right of king William and queen Mary to the sove- reignty of this province. At the end of that law, a clause was added in these words : " That whatsoever person or persons shall by any manner of ways, or upon any pretence whatsoever, endeavour by force of arms or otherwise to disturb the peace, good, and
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quiet of their majesties' government as it is now established, shall be deemed and esteemed as rebels and traitors unto their majesties, and incur the pains, penalties, and forfeitures as the laws of England have for such offences made and provided." Under pretext of this law, which Bayard himself had been personally concerned in enacting, Mr. Nanfan issued a warrant for committing him to jail as a traitor, on the 21st of January, and lest the mob should inter- pose, a company of soldiers for a week after con- stantly guarded the prison.
Through the uncertainty of the time of lord Corn- bury's arrival, Mr. Nanfan chose to bring the prisoner to his trial as soon as possible, and for that purpose . issued a commission of oyer and terminer on the 12th of February, to William Atwood, the chief justice, and Abraham Depeyster and Robert Walters, who were the puisne judges of the supreme court ; and not long after Bayard was arraigned, indicted, tried, and convicted of high treason. Several reasons were afterwards offered in arrest of judgment, but as the prisoner was unfortunately in the hands of an enraged party, Atwood overruled what was offered, and condemned him to death on the 16th of March. As the process of his trial has been long since printed in the state trials at large, I leave the reader to his own remarks upon the conduct of the judges, who are generally accused of partiality.
Atwood, the chief justice, stimulated these prose- cutions. Lord Cornbury's speech of 13th April, 1704, proves this :
"I must acquaint you, gentlemen, that her most sacred majesty, the queen, who is always watchful
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for the good of her subjects, and considering the danger that some of her subjects of this colony were exposed to, by the wicked construction put by the then chief justice upon an act of assembly passed in 1691, intitled "An act &c." has been pleased to com- mand me, and to recommend to you the repealing the last clause in the said act, her majesty being satisfied that no laws now in force in England are sufficient to punish any person who shall offend in that manner in these parts. The assembly express the highest gratitude, impute the queen's order to the misrepresentations of the governor, and rejoice that her goodness will put it "out of the power of vile, crafty, designing men, to vent their own wicked passions under the specious colours of law and justice."
Bayard applied to Mr. Nanfan for a reprieve till his majesty's pleasure might be known, and obtained it, not without great difficulty, nor till after a seeming confession of guilt was extorted. Hutchins, who was also convicted, was bailed upon the payment of forty pieces of Eight to the sheriff ; but Bayard, who refused to procure him the gift of a farm of about fifteen hundred pounds value, was not released from his confinement till after the arrival of lord Cornbury, who not only gave his consent to an act for reversing the late attainders, but procured the queen's confir- mation of it, upon their giving security according to the advice of Sir Edward Northey, not to bring any suits against those who were concerned in their pro- secution; which the attorney - general thought proper, as the act ordained all the proceedings to be oblite- rated. Prior to the passing of that act Mr. Bayard
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I
preferred what he entitled his petition and appeal to queen Anne ; in which he alleges that the indict- ment against him was found but by eleven jurors, several of whom were aliens. That the addresses charged to be treasonable were not read at the trial ; that the petty jury were aliens unduly returned and ignorant of the English language ; this request is for a day to be heard, and that copies of records and minutes, and depositions attested by lord Cornbury, may be received as evidences at the hearing ; that the attorney-general may be ordered to attend with Atwood and Weaver, who are both fled to London.
It is some confirmation of the petitioner's alle- gations, that the minutes of the privy council of 22d January, 1702, recites that the queen had that day heard counsel for the petitioner and alderman Hutchins ; and Atwood, the chief justice, and Wea- ver, the solicitor-general, by themselves and their counsels ; and that her majesty having considered this matter, was sensible of the undue and illegal prosecutions against the said Bayard and Hutchins ; and lord Cornbury was ordered to direct the attor- ney-general of the province "to consent to the re- versal of the sentences against them and all issues and proceedings thereupon, and to do whatever else may be requisite in the laws, for reinstating the said Bayard and Hutchins in their honour and property, as if no such prosecution or trial had been." This is taken from the order under seal of the council sign- ed Edward Southwell ; and in the minutes of the supreme court for October term, 1703, there is an entry in the following words, though it is not known how the records of the court of over and terminer
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got there : "Dom. Regina vs. Col. Nicholas Bayard. Jamison, for defendant, moves to have judgment reversed that was given against the defendant for high treason, upon several errors brought by the direction of the queen in council ; which errors being read and allowed by the court, and consented to by the attorney-general, it is ordered that judgment be reversed accordingly, and that the defendant Bayard be restored."
After Bayard's trial, Nanfan erected a court of exchequer, and again convened the assembly, who thanked him for his late measures, and passed an act to outlaw Philip French and Thomas Wenham, who absconded upon Bayard's commitment; another to augment the number of representatives ; and several others, which were all but one afterwards repealed by queen Anne. During this session, lord Cornbury being daily expected, the lieutenant- governor suspended Mr. Livingston from his seat in council, and thus continued to abet Leisler's party to the end of his administration.
Lord Cornbury's arrival quite opened a new scene. His father, the earl of Clarendon, adhered to the cause of the late abdicated king, and always refused the oaths both to king William and queen Anne ; but the son recommended himself at the revolution by appearing very early for the prince of Orange, being one of the first officers that deserted king James's army. King William in gratitude for his services gave him a commission for this government, which, upon the death of the king, was renewed by queen Anne, who at the same time appointed him to the chief command of New-Jersey, the govern-
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ment of which the proprietors had lately surrendered into her hands. As lord Cornbury came to this province in very indigent circumstances, hunted out of England by a host of hungry creditors, he' was bent upon getting as much money as he could squeeze out of the purses of an impoverished people. His talents were perhaps not superior to the most inconsiderable of his predecessors ; but in his zeal for the church he was surpassed by none. With these bright qualifications he began his administra- tion on the 3d of May, 1702, assisted by a council consisting of the following members :- William Atwood, William Smith, Peter Schuyler, Abraham Depeyster, Samuel Staats, Robert Walters, Thomas Weaver, Sampson Shelton Broughton, Wolfgang William Romar, William Lawrence, Gerardus Beekman, Rip Van Dam.
His lordship, without the least disguise, espousing the anti-Leislerian faction, Atwood, the chief jus- tice,* and Weaver, who acted in quality of solicitor- general, thought proper to retire from his frowns to Virginia, whence they sailed to England: the former concealing himself under the name of Jones, while the latter called himself Jackson. Colonel Heathcote and doctor Bridges succeeded in their places at the council board.
The following summer was remarkable for the uncommon mortality which prevailed in the city of New-York, and makes a grand epoch among our
* He was at the same time Judge of the Vice Admiralty, and published his case in England, of which the assembly, in May, 1703, assert that it contained scandalous, malicious, notorious untruths, and unjust reflections on persons then in the administration of the province.
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inhabitants, distinguished by the "time of the great sickness."* On this occasion lord Cornbury had his residence and court at Jamaica, a pleasant village on Long-Island, distant about twelve miles from the city.
The inhabitants of Jamaica consisted, at that time, partly of original Dutch planters, but mostly of New-England emigrants, encouraged to settle there, after the surrender, by the duke of York's conditions for plantations, one of which was in these words : "that every township should be obliged to pay their own ministers, according to such agree- ments as they should make with him : the minister being elected by the major part of the householders and inhabitants of the town." These people had erected an edifice for the worship of God, and enjoyed a handsome donation of a parsonage house and glebe, for the use of their minister. After the ministry act was passed by colonel Fletcher, in 1693, a few episcopalians crept into the town, and viewed the presbyterian church with a jealous eye. The town vote, in virtue of which the building had been erected, contained no clause to prevent its being hereafter engrossed by any other sect. The episco- pal party who knew this, formed a design of seizing the edifice for themselves, which they shortly after carried into execution, by entering the church between the morning and evening service, while the presbyterian minister and his congregation were in perfect security, unsuspicious of the zeal of their
* The fever killed almost every patient seized with it, and was brought here in a vessel from St. Thomas, in the West Indies, an island remarkable for conta- gious diseases.
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adversaries, and a fraudulent ejectment on a day consecrated to sacred rest.
Great outrage ensued among the people, for the contention being pro Aris et Focis, was animating and important. The original proprietors of the house tore up their seats, and afterwards got the key and the possession of the church, which were shortly after again taken from them by force and violence. In these controversies the governor abetted the episcopal zealots, and harassed the others by num- berless prosecutions, heavy fines, and long imprison- ments; through fear of which many who had been active in the dispute fled out of the province. Lord Cornbury's noble descent and education should have prevented him from taking part in so ignominious a quarrel ; but his lordship's sense of honour and justice was as weak and indelicate as his bigotry was rampant and incontrollable; and hence we find him guilty of an act complicated of a number of vices, which no man could have perpetrated without violence to the very slightest remains of generosity and justice. When his excellency retired to Jamaica, one Hubbard, the presbyterian minister, lived in the best house in the town. His lordship begged the loan of it for the use of his own family, and the clergyman put himself to no small inconvenience to favour the governor's request ; but in return for the generous benefaction, his lordship perfidiously delivered the parsonage-house into the hands of the episcopal party, and encouraged one Cardwel, the sheriff, a mean fellow, who afterward put an end to his own life, to seize upon the glebe, which he surveyed into lots, and farmed for the benefit of the
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episcopal church. These tyrannical measures justly inflamed the indignation of the injured sufferers, and that again the more imbittered his lordship against them. They resented, and he prosecuted ; nor did he confine his pious rage to the people of Jamaica : he detested all who were of the same denomination ; nay, averse to every sect except his own, he in- sisted that neither the ministers nor schoolmasters of the Dutch, the most numerous persuasion in the province, had a right to preach or instruct without his gubernatorial license ; and some of them tamely submitted to his unauthoritative rule .*
The royal instructions required the governors of the plantations to give all countenance and encou- ragement to the exercise of the ecclesiastical juris- diction of the bishop of London, as far as conve- niently, might be in their respective provinces, and particularly directed, " That no schoolmaster be henceforward permitted to come from this kingdom, and to keep school in that our said province, without the license of the said lord bishop of London, and that no other person now there, or that shall come from other parts, shall be admitted to keep school
* It had been made a question in king William's reign, whether the keeping of schools was not by the ancient laws of England, prior to the reformation, of ecclesiastical cognizance. It was thought by some that a schoolmaster might be prosecuted in the ecclesiastical courts, for not bringing his scholars to church, according to the 79th canon in 1603. Treby, chief justice, and Powell, justice, were of opinion, that being a layman he was not bound by the canons.
In 1700, one case was libeled for teaching school at Exeter without the bishop's license, and though it was admitted that the canons did not bind the laity, yet it was conceived that the crown, since the reformation, had authority to vest the superintendency of schools in the ordinary, but a distinction was taken between grammar schools and schools for inferior instruction. A pro- hibition issued as to the teaching of all schools except grammar schools.
Vid. I, P. Williams' Rep. 29-33.
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in your province without your license first obtained." There is reason to think this instruction has been continued from the revolution to the present time, to the governors of all the royal provinces.
A general account of his lordship's singular zeal is preserved, under the title of the Watch Tower, in a number of papers published in the New-York Weekly Mercury for the year 1755.
While his excellency was exerting his bigotry during the summer season at Jamaica, the elections were carrying on with great heat for an assembly, which met him at that village in the fall. It con- sisted principally of the party which had been borne down by the earl of Bellomont and his kinsman ; and hence we find Philip French, who had lately been outlawed, was returned a representative for New-York, and William Nicoll elected into the speaker's chair.
Several extracts from his lordship's speech are proper to be laid before the reader, as a specimen of his temper and designs. " It was an extreme sur- prise to me (says his lordship) to find this province at my landing at New-York, in such a convulsion as must have unavoidably occasioned its ruin if it had been suffered to go on a little longer. The many complaints that were brought to me against persons I found here in power, sufficiently proved against them ; and the miserable accounts I had of the con- dition of our frontiers, made me think it convenient to delay my meeting you in general assembly, till I could inform myself in some measure of the condi- tion of this province, that I might be able to offer to your consideration some few of those things which
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will be necessary to be done forthwith, for the defence of the country."
He then recommends the fortifying the port of New-York and the frontiers ; adding, that he found the soldiers naked and unarmed; after which he proposes a militia bill, the erection of public schools, and an examination of the provincial debts and accounts ; and not only promises to make a faithful application of the moneys to be raised, but that he would render them an account. The whole speech is sweetened with this gracious conclusion : " Now, gentlemen, I have no more to trouble you with, but to assure you in the name of the great queen of England, my mistress, that you may safely depend upon all the protection that good and faithful subjects can desire or expect from a sovereign whose greatest delight is the welfare of her people, under whose auspicious reign we are sure to enjoy what no nation in the world dares claim but the subjects of England; I mean the free enjoyment of the best religion in the world, the full possession of all lawful liberty, and the undisturbed enjoyment of our freeholds and properties. These are some of the many benefits which I take the inhabitants of this province to be well entitled to by the laws of England ; and I am glad of this opportunity to assure you, that as long as I have the honour to serve the queen in the govern- ment of this province, those laws shall be put in execution, according to the intent with which they were made; that is, for the preservation and pro- tection of the people, and not for their oppression. I heartily rejoice to see that the free choice of the people has fallen upon gentlemen whose constant
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fidelity to the crown and unwearied application to the good of their country is so universally known."
The house echoed back an address of high com- pliment to his lordship, declaring, "That being deeply sensible of the misery and calamity the country lay under at his arrival, they were not suffi- ciently able to express the satisfaction they had both in their relief and their deliverer."
Well pleased with a governor who headed their party, the assembly granted to him all he desired : eighteen hundred pounds were raised for the sup- port of one hundred and eighty men to defend the frontiers, besides two thousand pounds more as a present towards defraying the expenses of his voy- age. The queen, by her letter of the 20th of April, in the next year, forbade any such donations for the future. It is observable that though the county of Dutchess had no representatives at this assembly, yet such was then the known indigence of that now popu- lous and flourishing county, that but eighteen pounds were apportioned for their quota of these levies.
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