USA > New York > The history of the late province of New-York, from its discovery, to the appointment of Governor Colden, in 1762. Vol. II > Part 12
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He suppressed any remarks on the novel omission of a previous copy, and, three days after, called them to hear this
ANSWER.
" Gentlemen of the General Assembly,
"I return you my thanks for this obliging address, and the assurances therein given me ; and as soon as you shall have made provision for the immediate and necessary service of the province, I shall readily grant you a recess as you desire."
They sat only to the 11th of November, and having voted to provide at the next meeting for repairing the fortifications, the establishment of a college, and the usual presents for the Indians, and other Indian affairs, he passed their bills, and, among the rest, the duty bill, and for issuing out of that fund the salaries of the officers to the first of September, 1753.
It may gratify the curiosity of the reader to know, that of the members of this assembly, Mr. Chief Justice Delancey was nephew to colonel Beekman, brother to Peter Delancey, brother-in-law to John Watts, cousin to Philip Verplanck and John Baptist Van Rensselaer ; that Mr. Jones the speaker, Mr.
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Richard, Mr. Walton, Mr. Cruger, Mr. Philipse, Mr. Winner, and Mr. Le Count, were of his most intimate acquaintances ; and that these twelve, of the twenty-seven which composed the whole house, held his character and sentiments in the highest esteem. Of the remaining fifteen he only wanted one to gain a majority under his influence, than which nothing was more certain ; for, except Mr. Livingston, who represented his own manor, there was not among the rest a man of education or abilities qualified for the station they were in : they were, in general, farmers, and directed by one or more of the twelve members above named-Mr. Dowe, by his colleagues, Mr. Winner and Mr. Rens- selaer ; Mr. Thomas, by his brother-in-law, the speaker, and his colleague, Mr. Philipse ; Mills, by Mr. Watts and his cousin-german, Mr. Nicoll ; Cornel, by his colleague, Mr. Jones ; Mr. Lot and Mr. Vandevier, Mr. Junton and Mr. Dupue, by all the city members ;* Mr. Walton, of Staten Island, by his cousin, a New-York member, and his col- league, Mr. Le Count; Mr. Filkin, by colonel Beekman, whose interest brought him in; Mr. Snediker and Mr. Samuel Gale, by the members for the capital ; and Mr. Mynderse, of Schenectady, by Mr. Winner and Mr. Rensselaer. Of the whole house, the only wealthy able member, neither connected with Mr. Delancey nor in the sphere of his influence, was Mr. Livingston.
His station on the bench, with the independent tenure of good behaviour, added to his amazing
* Messrs. Richard, Cruger, Watts, and Walton.
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power, which was again augmented by the inferior abilities of his assistants and his incessant assiduity, joined to his own affluence and that of his family, in cultivating all the arts of popularity from the moment he was disgusted by Mr. Clarke, in the year 1737: nor was he without dependants even in the council, though by the death of some weak men introduced by his interest, the suspension of Mr. Horsmanden who ventured too deeply in measures against Mr. Clinton, and the introduction of Mr. Rutherford, Mr. Holland, and colonel Johnson, he had lately lost ground at that board ; but, not many years afterwards, he found means to regain and almost engross the whole sway in the executive department.
To him, therefore, who barely considers the inveterate animosity between this demagogue and the king's governor, such a session as the last may appear not a little mysterious. The truth is, that he began to be fearful of having overacted his part. It was clear from the success of Mr. Clinton's recommendations to office, that the representation prepared by the lords of trade, could not be fa- vorable to the party that opposed him ; and besides the hints dropped by Mr. Chief Justice Morris and others in England, of meditated vengeance, corres- ponded with the intimations from Mr. Charles ; and many persons had ventured to predict, that the heated councils by which the assembly had been so long led, would end in the ruin of the province. The agent had informed the speaker, by a letter of the 30th of May, 1751, "that the report touching the state of this colony, was at last transmitted from
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the board of trade to the king in council." He adds : "It is said to be very long and particular, and to consist of a quire of paper, with two quires more by way of appendix, whereof I can have no copy till it is read in council and referred to a committee, when I shall move for a copy to be transmitted to the general assembly for their instructions there- upon. The affair of the Jersey line remains yet unproceeded upon." On the 22d of June following, he sent a copy of the act to regulate and restrain paper money in the four New-England colonies, carried through by the patronage of the board of trade, with a disagreeable prognostication, that it appeared to him " to be a prelude to a total abolition of paper credit in the colonies ; for, as what is allowed to be issued even on the greatest emergen- cies, is not a legal tender between man and man, I apprehend the conveniency and utility of it is quite taken away." He then adds : " The representation touching the state of your province, has not yet been read in council, owing possibly to some late changes in the ministry, the earl of Granville being declared president of the council, and the earl of Holder- nesse secretary for the southern department, in which America is included. I will carefully watch its progress and acquaint you therewith." His letter of the 29th of July following, has this clause : "I am in constant expectation of hearing that the represen- tation touching the state of your colony, will be taken into consideration ; upon which subject I am sorry to say that, as far as I can learn, it contains volumes of paper of which I am denied a sight, and can yet have no copy. Several rights and privileges
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claimed by the general assemblies of your colony, of which they have been many years in possession, are struck out; and complaints are made of particu- lar persons, which I was in hopes had long ago been dropped. I heartily wish the whole of this matter may not discompose the peace and tranquillity which had an appearance of being re-established in the colony. The affair of the Jersey line is not yet proceeded upon; for carrying on which, I have received the remittance of one hundred pounds, men- tioned in your letter. I have now only to add, that I understand a commission lies prepared at the secretary of state's office, appointing Robert Hunter Morris, esq. to be Lieutenant-Governor of New- York." His letter of the 10th of August is this : "I am to acquaint you, that on the 6th instant, the lords of the committee of his majesty's most honorable privy council, entered upon the conside- ration of the reports of the commissioners for trade and plantations, touching the state and condition of the colony of New-York, and referred the same, as I am informed, for further consideration. Having repeatedly applied to know whether, as agent of the colony, I might obtain a copy of this report, and of the papers accompanying it, (both which are very long,) and being given to understand there were orders against giving any copy, and that the matter would be taken up and considered as an affair of state, I believed it my duty to take the earliest opportunity of renewing that application. As soon as the report was read, I therefore wrote a letter to the secretary of the council, which he did me the favour to lay before their lordships of the committee,
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who, as I am informed, not having yet resolved whether they will allow a public hearing on the sub- ject matter of the report, and a copy of it being yet denied me, I must remain contented to watch its progress and to take their lordship's pleasure. If their lordships proceed herein as a council of state only, it will be from the orders and instructions that may be issued, that your colony will be able to judge of the principal points of the report: and if the regulations proposed do sensibly affect your colony, you will no doubt thereupon make such humble representations to the crown as you shall judge necessary, which must bring the whole at last to an open and public discussion. Mr. Morris's commis- sion to be lieutenant-governor of your colony, lies yet incompleted." On the 4th of May, 1752, he writes thus : "The further consideration of the report of the board of trade, touching the state of your colony, has not been resumed in council since August last ; and I am still not permitted to have any copy or extract of it, though I continue in hopes that their lordships of the privy council will not come to any resolution thereupon, without hearing the parties that may be affected by it. Being thus deprived of the means of informing the house with certainty, in points that may be of great conse- quence, I can only, under these circumstances, take measures for their service as opportunities are given me, of which I will not fail to make the amplest use in the discharge of my duty. Nothing material is yet done in the affair of the boundary line between your colony and New-Jersey. The intended com- mission to Mr. Morris, as lieutenant-governor, .is
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quite laid aside. I cannot conclude without express- ing my sincere wishes that a good understanding may be restored between the several branches of your legislature, and may subsist, for the general welfare and tranquillity of the colony."
In this precarious situation of affairs, it could not subserve Mr. Delancey's popular interest to increase the indignation of government against the colony, the numerous families whose estates were affected by the Jersey claims, growing extremely jealous of any further broils between the assembly and the governor. Those contests, besides, were inauspi- cious to the success of his designs of obtaining the lieutenant-governor's place, by which he hoped to find an escape for himself and his friends, if Mr. Colden took the command of the colony as president of the council, an event which he could not turn his eye to without horror. It was therefore expedient, while Mr. Delancey's friends were negociating in England for the gratification of his ambition, to suspend hostilities against Mr. Clinton : and the reader now has the new key to the seeming inatten- tion of the assembly to that part of the governor's speech in October, 1751, requiring their conformity to his commission and instructions, to the governor's courage in the last dissolution, and the subsequent pusillanimity of the new assembly during the rest of his administration.
Mr. Clinton furnished a fresh proof of the stability of his interest at court, by introducing a new mem- ber into the council. He had procured the royal mandamus for Mr. Smith, in preference to colonel Morris, for whom some solicitations were made by
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his brother, then in England, and before Mr. Oliver Delancey, whose sister was the lady of sir Peter Warren. Mr. Smith was sworn in on the 30th of April, 1753. The assembly was convened a month afterwards, at Jamaica, the capital being not yet free from the contagion of the small-pox.
The speech proposes a revision of the colony laws, and the framing and passing a new digest, according to a model executed in Virginia, and now recommended to our imitation by the lords justices and the board of trade, to which some embarrass- ments in the researches for compiling the late representation in the latter, had probably given rise.
He assigns the true reason of meeting them at an unusual place ; declares it to be by the advice of the council, and in tenderness to the house ; professes his confidence in their honour and justice, for a due attention to the state of the Indian alliance, the repair of the northern fortifications, and the discharge of the colony debts; applauds their late resolution to promote the arts and sciences, by establishing a seminary of learning, as worthy their diligent prosecution and most serious attention ; informs them of the intrusions upon the colony by our neighbours ; suggests the expediency of concert- ing measures respecting them, by a committee both of the council and assembly ; and promises readily and heartily to join with them in promoting the happiness of the colony.
The assembly thanked him ; hoped that the new code of colony laws, then just published, would not be disapproved by the king ; testified their gratitude
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for his regard to their safety in the convention at Jamaica ; and promised an immediate attention to matters laid before them. Not a single instance of the want of harmony now appeared.
A committee of both houses met on the New England intrusions, and a bill was passed for appointing commissioners to prepare representa- tions upon them to the king's ministers ; a further sum was raised by lottery for the college; the colony debt discharged, and every message received and attended to; money voted for fortifications ; large sums given for presents to the Indians; the critical state of their friendship confessed ; and the governor implored, by an address, to visit and treat with them. Mr. Clinton being indisposed, con- descended to propose a treaty by commission, and to authorize such persons for this trust, as the council and assembly might nominate and recom- mend to him; and colonel Johnson, such was the policy of the house, became the sole distributor of the presents, and the confidant of both houses.
To such as knew the offence taken at Mr. Clin- ton's patronage of this gentleman, and the obstacles raised to avoid the payment of his demands, it afforded no small surprise to see a joint address of both houses, signed James Delancey and David Jones, requesting a treaty for appeasing the ill tem- per of the Indians, and declaring it to be the opinion both of the council and assembly, "that colonel Johnson is the most proper person to be appointed to do this service ; and we humbly hope your excel- lency will commissionate him."
Towards the close of the session, which ended
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the 4th of July, and the last in Mr. Clinton's admi- nistration, he revealed the secret of his daily expec- tation of a successor, and his intention to return to England. It was extracted by their importunity for his making a journey to assuage the Indians.
The commissioners appointed for defending the colony against the encroachments of Massachusetts bay* and New-Hampshire, were all members of the assembly ; viz. David Jones, John Thomas, Paul Richards, William Walton, Henry Cruger, and John Watts ; and though the object of that act was a very important one, yet very little advantage was derived from it.
The rise of the controversy with New-Hampshire was this :- Before the year 1741, that colony was considered as the tract granted to Mason and Gorges, and extending only sixty miles from the sea-coast, did not by many miles reach the river Connecticut. The commission to Mr. Benning Wentworth, governor of it, issued in that year, and declared his province to extend westward and north- ward, " until it meets with his majesty's other provinces."
On the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, that governor conceived the design of extending his jurisdiction westward to twenty miles from Hud- son's river, because New-York had agreed with Connecticut to such a boundary on the east; and Massachusetts had of late years intruded so far upon certain old patents of this province, extending to thirty miles east from that river.
. * In the first volume of this work, is inserted the report of the council in March, 1753, on the pretensions of Massachusetts bav.
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The country in the north-eastern corner of this colony was, before the late war, almost entirely unknown, and so exposed to the incursions of the enemy, especially after the erection of the fort at Crown Point, in 1731, that it contained scarce a single inhabitant when Mr. Wentworth began to grant it as a part of the province of New-Hamp- shire, in 1749. Then the quarrel arose. New-York insisted upon Connecticut river as her eastern boundary ; and after several letters had passed between Mr. Clinton and that governor, it was agreed, in July, 1750, to state their claims, exchange copies of their representations, and submit to the royal decision, it being understood that all interme- diate grants should be suspended.
Mr. Wentworth, whose narrow views prompted him to greater activity, stated his claim, and despatched it in a letter of the 23d of March, 1750, ยท without the least previous intimation to the governor of New-York; and soon after, multiplied grants of the controverted territory, under the seal of New- Hampshire. This precipitation, which, by pressing private interest into the maintenance of a point that might have been otherwise settled without difficulty, is the true origin of those disorders in that quarter of the country. New-York afterwards exhibited its title, when advised by the agent of the clandestine conduct of New-Hampshire; and to support it, and repress the incursions of Mr. Went- worth's patentees, was one of the objects Mr. Clinton had in view at the last meeting of his assembly. Nor could he omit the notification ; for the agent, upon the receipt of an extract from Mr.
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Wentworth's letter to the lords of trade, from the secretary to that board, who had procured time to consult his constituents, on the 18th of February, 1753, wrote both to the governor and the speaker, and enclosed copies of the New-Hampshire appli- cation for running out the line he had set up for a partition between the two colonies. The sequel will show how much the unseasonable neglect of the rights of the colony at this juncture, was afterwards to be regretted. *
THE
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.
CHAPTER III.
FROM THE RESIGNATION OF GOVERNOR CLINTON, TO THE APPOINTMENT OF SIR DANVERS OSBORN, AS GOVERNOR.
MR. CLINTON was at Flushing, in Queens county, where he had resided the whole summer, when sir Danvers Osborn* arrived to succeed him in the command, which was on Sunday, the 7th of October, 1753. He was met at Whitehall by the council, mayor, and corporation, and chief citizens, and attended to the council chamber; and, in the absence of Mr. Clinton, took up his lodging at Mr. Murray's, whose wife was a daughter of governor Cosby, and a distant relation of sir Danvers' deceased lady, a sister to the earl of Halifax. Mr. Clinton waited upon him the next day, and they both dined at
* Mr. Charles, in his letter of the 11th of June, 1753, informed the speaker that sir Danvers was " a gentleman of great worth, a member of parliament for Bedfordshire, and brother-in-law to the earl of Halifax."
1
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an entertainment provided by the council. On Wednesday morning they assembled the council at the Fort, for administering the oaths, and then began the usual procession for reading the commission at the town-hall. The indecent acclamations of the populace, stimulated by the partizans of the late troubles, induced the old governor to take leave of his successor at a short distance from the Fort, while sir Danvers stalked along with the council and magistrates, rather serious than cheerful, amidst the noisy shouts of a crowded throng.
After his return to the council chamber, he received the address of the city corporation, of which he had a copy, and with difficulty restrained his intention of begging the alteration of a passage in it, which he thought expressive of jealousy. The words were : " We are sufficiently assured that your excellency will be as averse from countenancing, as we from brooking, any infringements of our inestimable liberties, civil and religious."
These particulars are mentioned with the more minuteness, on account of the tragical end to which this unfortunate gentleman was approaching.
He told Mr. Clinton, with disapprobation of the party exultations in his progress to, and return from the town-hall, " that he expected the like treatment before he left the government."
While at a splendid dinner, given to the two governors and the council by the corporation, there was every demonstration of joy. The city was illuminated, cannon were discharged, and two bonfires lighted up on the common, in the evening. sir Danvers took no part in the general joy. He
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retired early in the afternoon, and continued at his lodgings, while the whole town seemed abandoned to every excess of riot. The last act of Mr. Clinton's administration was the delivery to Mr. Delancey of a commission to be lieutenant-governor. This had been done in the presence of the council, immedi- ately after he gave the seals to sir Danvers, and it contributed much, with the discovery now made of Mr. Clinton's letter to the lords of trade respecting the Jersey claim,* to the mad transports of the populace in the streets and commons.
Sir Danvers rose early on Thursday morning, and before the family were about, had, alone, patrolled the markets and a great part of the town. He complained of being somewhat indisposed ; and at dinner said, with a smile, to Mr. Delancey, "I believe I shall soon leave you the government. I find myself unable to support the burden of it." He had convened the council in the forenoon, and appeared in some perturbation at their first assembly, especially when he found that Mr. Pownal, who had the key of his cabinet, was not within. He was desirous to show them his instructions. He informed them, that he
* It was divulged at one of the hearings, on the 29th of May, and 5th of June, before the board of trade, after the objections by Mr. Forrester and Mr. Pratt (since the celebrated lord Camden) to the Jersey act, and to show, that the crown had, except some trifling quit-rents, no interest in the controversy. The contents of the agent's letter of the 12th of June, with the history of those debates, were now publicly retailed, and exasperated the New-York landholders near the contested line, for the bounds and reservations of their patents had been authenticated under Mr. Alexander's oath, with information concerning their vast extent, to make unfavourable impressions, as Mr. Clarke expresses it, upon the minds of the lords of trade; " which (says he) may possibly remain." The author transcribed the report, of which Mr. Pratt was the penman, in the former volume, on which the Jersey act was repealed by the king.
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was strictly enjoined to insist upon the permanent indefinite support of government, and desired their opinions upon the prospect of success. There was a general declaration, that the assembly could not be brought to adopt that scheme. With a distressed countenance, and in a plaintive voice, he addressed Mr. Smith who had not yet spoke a word :- " What, sir, is your opinion ?"-and when he heard a similar answer, he sighed, turned about, reclined against the window-frame, and exclaimed, " then what am I come here for ?"
In the evening he had a physician with him, talked of ill health, was disconsolate, and retired to his chamber, and at midnight dismissed his servant. While the house was preserved the next morning in the utmost silence, upon an apprehension that he was still asleep, an account was brought that he was hanging dead against the fence at the lower end of the garden. A vein was opened, but to no purpose.
The malevolence of party rage would not at first ascribe this event to the insanity of the deceased ; but threw out insinuations, that he had been brought to his end by foul means, and that the criminals were some of those who could not suppress their joy to see Mr. Clinton a private character, and Mr. Delancey at the helm; nor did these unjust sus- picions soon subside.
The council were immediately summoned to Mr. Murray's house, where the tragedy was acted, and every circumstance inquired into, for the satisfaction both of his relations and the crown, and the vindica- tion of the party led by the new lieutenant-governor VOL. II .- 24
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to such lengths against Mr. Clinton, who was then preparing for his voyage.
On the top of the fence was a row of large nails inverted, to exclude thieves from the garden, over which he had cast a silk handkerchief tied at the opposite ends, and had elevated his neck to it by a small board, which was found near him over his hat upon the ground.
After his servant left him, he had consumed a vast number of private, but no public papers, endorsed others, which he preserved; wrapped up a sum of money, borrowed since his arrival, and directed it to the lender. There was lying on his table a paper, written in his own hand, quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat, and the coroner's inquest believed his testimony, for they found him a lunatic.
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