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 17
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The hearing upon this popular doctrine was on the 27th of March, 1755, and the decision to over- rule all the objections and quash the writ, agreeably to the king's order, without entering into any inquiry on the merits of the bill of exceptions. 'The
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only satisfaction of the counsel for the plaintiff in error, (of whom the author was one,*) arose from a discernment that the whole court was conscious of a timid obsequiousness; and the lieutenant-governor and Mr. Murray, more anxious than others, con- travened the doctrine they had endeavoured to inculcate in that opinion, which the latter had delivered upon honour to the assembly, to support the court of exchequer, in the year 1734.
Before this determination, Mr. Delancey and the council had fallen under some degree of odium. The undistinguishing multitude were alarmed at the prospect of a war, and the defenceless condition both of our sea-coasts and inland frontiers. It was to still these clamors that the council advised, and the lieutenant-governor issued, an unusual procla- mation, on the 10th of January, under his private seal, calling the assembly to meet on the 4th of February, though they were under an adjournment to the second Tuesday in March.
He informed them of the armament coming out with general Braddock, for the expulsion of the French from the Ohio ; urged them to fortify the colony ; advised to a more compulsory regulation of the miltia, and to an attention to the Indians ; and said, " he flattered himself that they would not risk losing their all by an ill-timed parsimony."
During the consternation, the proclamation (not- withstanding a perfect concert took place between all the three branches for disregarding the royal
* With Mr. William Livingston and Mr. Scott. Mr. Nicoll, for Obriant the defendant in error, on a motion for quashing the writ, had a writ nisi cause. To which we plead on the 26th December, 1754.
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instructions, and in a few days they emitted forty- five thousand pounds in bills of credit, to be sunk by a tax,) prohibited supplies of provisions to the French colonies, and subjected the militia to such duties and penalties as the executive thought fit to prescribe, but to screen the assemblymen, the militia act originated with the council.
At this juncture, Mr. Shirley despatched his en- voys to animate the colonies to the project he had long meditated for exterminating the French from the north continent of America.
This gentleman was colleague to Mr. Mildmay for adjusting the contests in America, left unsettled by the peace of Aix-la-chapelle, and in a conference with the French commissioners at Paris, became jealous that France had the ambitious aim of sub- jecting all the northern parts of the new world to her dominion. Then it was that he conceived the idea of making a conquest of Canada. He proposed the design on his return to Mr. Pelham, but was silenced by the pacific and economical maxims of that minister, and ordered out to his government, from whence he never ceased his complaints, to excite administration to some vigorous exertions. The ministry were at length compelled to listen to his suggestions, by the accomplishment of his predictions, and letters were now written by Sir Thomas Robinson, (Mr. Pelham being dead,) ap- prising all the provinces of their danger, of which Mr. Shirley made a good use.
To this colony he sent Mr. Thomas Pownal, who was trusted with the secret before communicated to the assembly of the Massachusetts bay, under the
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tie of an oath. Canada was to be threatened on the side of the Kenebec and the lakes Champlain and Ontario, while Braddock's two regiments with the southern aid, were to penetrate and reduce the French forts on the Ohio .*
Pownal found Mr. Delancey and his party rather cold and backward, and applied himself to a party who from various causes were become so considera- ble as to inspire the lieutenant-governor with some awe, and especially as their views corresponded with the recommendations of the ministry.
The lieutenant-governor, therefore, soon after Mr. Braddock's arrival, sent a message to the assembly, on the 26th of March, 1755, pressing for supplies, to quarter troops, and impress carriages, &c. and apprised them of the precarious condition of Os- wego, where the garrison were exposed to want by the non-payment of their debt to sir William Johnson, who had contracted to subsist them.
Having communicated to them at the same time Mr. Shirley's letters, the council called for a com- mittee from the lower house, to hear Mr. Pownal's explanation, and the joint committee immediately resolved, " That the scheme was well concerted, and that if Massachusetts would raise fourteen hundred men, we ought to find eight hundred, and they agreed to contribute to a general fund for the common charge of the war.
Unfortunately, the necessary preparations were suspended for Mr. Braddock's approbation of the
* Mr. Shirley's letter was communicated to the council of New-York 10th March, 1755, and Mr. Pownal introduced four days after to explain and enforce the project.
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plan. Mr. Shirley was piqued at the delay, for no act was passed, as the house adjourned till the gene- ral's opinion could be obtained at a congress to which he had called several of the governors at Alexan- dria. The convention* was held the 14th of April. Mr. Delancey having returned, urged the assembly, on the 23d of that month, to proceed, informing them that General Braddock had consented to the plan, and the next day the assembly resolved, and soon after passed bills for levying eight hundred men, to act on the side of Crown point, to impress artificers for constructing boats, &c. and to prevent the exportation of provisions to the French.
After these became laws, Mr. Delancey, on the 2d of May, adjourned the house to the 20th, and then to the 27th, when he further informed them, that Connecticut had agreed to supply three of the eight companies at our expense, and that he had sent to Virginia for the necessary arms for the whole eight hundred ; that more forts would be necessary on Hudson river, and a large vessel in the lake, (St. Sacrament, since lake George ;) that it was agreed at Alexandria to make presents to the Indians, and that money ought to be applied for that purpose, and for the expenses of Mr. Johnson, the commander- in-chief of the provincial troops, against Crown Point, suitable to his rank of major general.
The assembly, proceeding upon the plan of the late congress at Albany, for apportioning the aids of the colonies, voted fifty pounds towards artificers for
* Governor Shirley took his route on Long Island, and passed through the village of Flat-Bush on the 6th of April. Mr. Delancey, with his brother Oliver and others, followed the day after.
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constructing forts. One hundred and seventy-four pounds ten shillings and eleven pence as their pro- portion of eight hundred pounds sterling, for Indian presents ; eighteen hundred for arming their levies ; and engaged for their proportion towards a vessel on the lake. A bill was set on foot for the payment of the necessary services of the Crown Point expedi- tion, and clauses ordered to be inserted to pay the lieutenant-governor two hundred pounds for his journey to Virginia, and twenty-two pounds more to his brother Oliver, who went to Connecticut to obtain three hundred men towards accomplishing our levies in that colony, and for his deligent and faithful services there he had the thanks of the house. But before any further progress was made, the lieu- tenant-governor adjourned them on the last of May, to the 10th of June, when he informed them that he had procured arms from Virginia for six hundred of their men ; that a severe law was necessary to obstruct the sale of rum to, and purchases of arms from, the Indians, and a reimbursement required for a present to them of Indian corn; and that drafts from the militia were expedient towards completing the levies. This message contained the following clause : " In the quotas to be settled for the contin- gent charges which may arise, none of the colonies ought at present to be considered but such as are engaged in the expedition, lest the service should suffer by it, or by too minute a calculation. The proposed expedition is of such consequence, that it ought not to be retarded by any light consideration."
On the seventeenth of June, he calls upon them for two thousand pounds, as a fifth of the expense
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of the train ; repeats his request towards general Johnson's expenses, a supply of their proportion towards Indian presents, provision for a quarter- master to be appointed by himself, and applauds the former evidences of their zeal.
Two days after they agreed to give two thousand pounds towards the train ; four hundred and fifty pounds to the Indians ; fifty pounds to general Johnson for his table, as much to the colonel of their own regiment ; thirty pounds to the major, and four shillings a day to one of the officers serving as quarter-master.
The council afterwards sent the lower house a bill against the exportation of provisions, stores of war, &c., and in the second reading of it, the lieutenant-governor adjourned them again to the twentieth of June, for four days.
Mr. Kennedy, the receiver-general, carried through his quit-rent bill at this session, but it excited re- sentment, and the house, on the twenty-fifth of June, desired to know from the lieutenant-governor what had been done respecting the powder he had seized as the king's collector ; adding, "that it will be impracticable to keep any gunpowder for the use of the colony, if it be liable to be thus arbitrarily seized and taken out of the custody of the officer, under pretence of being unlawfully imported." He re- plied, that the affair (as he took it,) rested with the lawyers, and promised to give directions to quicken the proceedings ;* and the same day they sent him a
* Mr. Kennedy did not succeed entirely to his wish. To the bill there were many popular clauses, for the assembly would not impose any rent upon the old patents that had been free from them before.
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message, desiring him, as Mr. Shirley was hourly expected, " to use his utmost endeavours to settle with him all matters relating to the Crown Point expedition, that the same may not be retarded for want of any articles necessary for carrying on the said expedition."
The lieutenant-governor laid before them, on the fourth of July, a request from Boston, that prepara- tion might be made by this colony for an addition to the troops. They only voted that they would aug- ment their aid if it was necessary ; and after adding sundry clauses for further expenditures, sent up the bill to provide for the services, on the fifth of July, which the council read thrice and sent up to the governor, who passed it the very same day it came up from the assembly, and he then adjourned them to the twenty-second of that month.
The people of the Massachusetts bay, taking the advantage of the common distress, were now making new inroads upon the colony. The scattered farmers on the eastern borders, unable to resist the large bands of intruders who came upon them by surprise, had their property despoiled, and were themselves carried off to distant jails, and harassed by the demand of extravagant bail. The pretext for these violences, besides a proclamation to appre- hend the intruders, was a letter to governor Shirley from Mr. Delancey, declining their proposal of last winter of leaving the decision of their controversy, relating to the partition, to disinterested referees ; but early in the spring, a committee under that go- vernment protected by men in arms, began surveys for towns west and north-westward from Sheffield,
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and within twelve or fourteen miles of Hudson's river. These transactions were reported to Mr. Delancey, by persons who conferred with the com- mittee both at Sheffield and Springfield, in a letter of the twenty-ninth of May, and his silence at this session upon a subject so interesting to the proprie- tors of the manors of Livingston and Renselaer- wick, as well as many others in the north country, who beheld the rapid growth and aspiring spirit of their eastern neighbours, administered to censure and discontent. It is some proof, if our intelligence was true, that the committee were themselves con- scious of a defect of title in their principals, that they made presents of cultivated land to such of the tenants as were willing to contest the title of their landlords, and sold the residue at the low price of but two shillings lawful money per acre .* One of the prisoners was a workman taken from the casting of cannon ball at the Ancram furnace for the king's army ; and that the service might not suffer, governor Shirley wrote to the judges, re- questing that he might be bailed. It was no sooner read than they declared, that this interposition of the governor's was of itself a good reason for hold- ing him in close custody : this anecdote is recorded, not to expose their ignorance of a prerogative vested by law in the king, whose letters against law and
* The author accompanied Mr. Robert R. Livingston on this journey. On the 16th of May they met brigadier Dwight, colonel Choat, and major Hawley, at Sheffield. They had a vote of the general court, authorizing them to make grants west of Sheffield and Stockbridge, as far as to the province of New-York. They could not be dissuaded from prosecuting their surveys under so dangerous and indecisive a power, being under instructions. They refused giving a copy of the vote.
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right are doubtless to be disregarded, but to show the extreme jealousy of the high-spirited descendants of the men who had curbed the tyrany of Charles I.
That Mr. Shirley, whose regiment, with Sir William Pepperel's, had passed by us up the river on the twenty-fourth of June for Niagara, censured the tardy proceedings of this colony, when he arrived at New-York on the second of July, and from which he departed two days after, was uni- versally known.
How well it was founded, is left to the reader to determine. The speaker's letter to the agent, of the sixth of July, was doubtless intended as the justifi- cation of their proceedings :- " By our last advices from the westward, major general Braddock was on his march from Willis's creek, within about fifty miles of the Ohio ; his men well and in high spirits. On the fourth instant, governor Shirley set out from this place for Albany, his men chiefly gone before, intending with all expedition for Niagara. This little army consists of his own and Pepperel's regiments, joined by five hundred men from New- Jersey, and five hundred more proposed to be taken from major general Johnson's command ; so that this union will of course carry into execution the clause and article of war you sent us, and show its effects. The enterprise to Crown Point has so thoroughly engrossed the attention of the house, that they have not been able to apply themselves to the affair of the Jersey line. The provincial forces of this and the eastern colonies, are on their march for Albany, in order with the utmost despatch to
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proceed to Crown Point, under the command of major general Johnson, who, it is said, has engaged a good number of Indians to attend both armies, and I am in hopes by October next, we shall be in possession of all the settlements they have made on his majesty's lands. This colony has, on this occasion, exerted its utmost, having in conjunction with the colony of Massachusetts bay, furnished the whole train of artillery, amounting to an expense of ten thousand pounds currency, the other colonies having furnished no part thereof."
It must, however, be remembered that one motive to the zeal of the party who had so long predomi- nated in the province, was taken away from the moment the news arrived in March, that sir Charles Hardy was coming out to take the reins. Their disgust could not be concealed ; Mr. Delancey had the mortifying prospect of descending to the bench with a disputable title, and the members were not without their fears of a dissolution, from the firmness of the administration respecting the permanent support, the rejection of their address to the king, the unaccountableness of their act respecting the Jersey line,* and the inattention of the lords of trade
Mr. Charles's letter of 25th of March, 1755, had utterly subverted the confi- dence of those who relied on the lieutenant-governor's opinion concerning the proper mode of settling that controversy : concerning the hearing at the board of trade on the act for submitting it to the king's decision, he writes, "their lordships declare that they look upon the said acts as waste paper, and that the settlement of the line in dispute can no otherwise be made than by commis- sioners from the crown. Again, 2nd June :- " I now find that their lordships have agreed in a report against the act as ineffectual to the purpose for which it was intended, and that it will be in vain to oppose the report in council." And he importunes the house to provide for the expense of a commission, as he had often before, and for names to be prepared for commission.
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to their impeachment of the late governor. Add to this, that the dissentions respecting the college had spread through the colony, and endangered the seats of several members ;* and that the Delanceys were not a little chagrined, both with Mr. Shirley and general Johnson. The former having preferred Messrs. Peter Van Brugh Livingston and William Alexander, to Mr. Oliver Delancey, for agents in the purchase of supplies for the Niagara expedition, and the latter being a partizan of Mr. Clinton's, and therefore not paid, and hated the more, because favoured by general Braddock, in consequence of the patronage of Mr. Shirley. Not to mention that Shirley had expressed himself to the lieutenant- governor with a tartness not easily to be forgot, though it was necessary to guard against his attacks : add to this, after the precipitation of the act provid- ing for the service by three readings in one day, and the stimulus respecting Mr. Kennedy, an opposer of that bill, and the promoter of another sent from the council to the house for the easier recovery of the king's quit-rents, was ascribed.
At the close of this meeting, Mr. Richard, Mr. Walton, Mr. Cruger, and Mr. Watts, all members for the] capital, were joined to the speaker, at his request of aid for managing the future correspon- dence with the agent.
* To weaken the opposition, Mr. Delancey had granted an additional charter, enabling the ministers, elders, and deacons, of the low Dutch church of New- York to choose and maintain a professor in the college of their persuasion ; and on the 12th of June, the governors petitioned the assembly for the money which had been raised and put into the hands of the trustecs, but it was carried by a majority of two, to postpone the consideration of their request to the fall of the year.
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The account of the death and defeat of general Braddock on the ninth of July, reached us on the tenth day after, and gave a shock more easily con- ceived than described.
Common sense suggested, that as the attempt against fort Du Quesne was thus become abortive, reinforcements were necessary to give success to the two other enterprises against Niagara and Crown Point-and especially to the former : yet when the assembly met, on the 22d of July, Mr. Delancey adjourned them to the fifth of August, and then delivered a speech for fresh levies of men in such animated terms, as increased the astonishment at his silence a fortnight before, and how he could then think it for his majesty's service that the members should be dismissed, and now utter himself that " the safety and being of the British colonies are near a crisis. Nothing will tend more to animate our troops, than our proceeding immediately to raise an additional number of men to join them, nor can any thing be more effectual to confirm our Indians in their dependence on us, than to show them we , have strength sufficient to protect them, to defend ourselves, and to chastise our enemies. Let it be exerted with the utmost vigour. As the provincial troops are already on their march, any assistance we give them must be sent without the least delay ; and therefore if a sufficient number of volunteers do not offer, it is necessary drafts should be made, and the succours be despatched with all speed. I recommend it to you to provide funds. I have thought of three, a poll tax of ten shillings or more on every slave from fifteen to fifty, an excise upon
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tea, and a stamp duty : if they are insufficient, make an addition to the tax on estates real and personal."
Lieutenant-governor Phipps, of the Massachusetts bay, had before urged an augmentation of the army destined to Crown Point, and his letter was now communicated to the assembly, and led to the real object of the message ; for the house instantly sig- nified their concurrence for the reinforcement of that body, and a bill was brought in for a new emission of ten thousand pounds to defray the expense, which was sent up to the council on the 12th of August. Objections were now immediately started to it, and amendments proposed. Four hundred men were to be raised, at fifteen pence a day. If volunteers did not offer, the quotas in all the counties, except New-York, were to be drafted by ballot ; but in that, the captains had authority to pick out the individuals. Nothing could be more essential ; and it was imputed to design, to gratify private revenge excited by the opposition to the college, as well as to influence at the new elections, which every body imagined would take place as usual on the arrival of the new governor. The lieutenant-governor, who had set his heart upon the bill, intruded upon the council the day it came up, and pressed their assent with an indecent freedom. The intended amendments could not have been rejected, without exposing the lower house to the resentment of the people; and the council, confi- dent of success, resisted the lieutenant-governor's importunity, and resolved to send them down. But, determined that the bill should pass as it stood, or be lost, he immediately published the secret which
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Mr. Shirley had incautiously trusted to him, and which the council had engaged not to divulge before their amendments were adopted; and that very afternoon sent the general's letter to the house, of the 7th of that month, informing him that he had ordered colonel Dunbar, who commanded the twelve hundred regulars that escaped on Braddock's defeat to march immediately to Albany; and from that moment the augmentation of the provincial forces gave place to a vote for refreshing and transporting the regular troops ; and two days after, the assembly was adjourned to the 26th of that month, and after- wards to the 1st of September.
But to guard against any disadvantageous im- pressions in England, care was taken to despatch a letter, on the 12th of August, to the agent, which, after mentioning Braddock's defeat, the loss of eight or nine hundred men, and the artillery and baggage, "for want only of a little caution," it adds : "what steps the southern colonies will take in this juncture, I know not. As for us, we can give no assistance, being engaged in an expedition against Crown Point ; and this disaster of general Braddock's has laid us under a necessity of rein- forcing our troops on that expedition, at the expense of ten thousand pounds more. Mr. Shirley is gone to Oswego, with about three thousand men, to endeavour to seize Niagara, and interrupt the com- munication between Canada and the Ohio, through the lake Ontario : but its success may now justly be doubted, as the French will be able, from the forces on the Ohio to strengthen Niagara. In this disjointed state of our colonies, I fear we shall
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never be able to do any thing to effect. If the government at home will form us into a union, (for here I fear it never will be done,*) I make no doubt but by a little assistance from Great Britain, in money, shipping, and warlike stores, we shall be able to drive this restless, treacherous and savage enemy, from this continent."
Whether this letter was or was not despatched before Mr. Shirley's letter on that day was commu- nicated to the house, there certainly was art in leaving the agent to make a use of it, for the credit of a colony that neither contributed this reinforce- ment it boasts of, either to the western or northern expeditions of the year.
But a very different spirit prevailed in the eastern colonies ; for, upon the southern defeat, Massachu- setts added eight hundred and Connecticut fifteen hundred men to the forces already under general Johnson's command ; and this compelled Mr. De- lancey to defer any further adjournments. When he met the assembly again, he counterfeited the highest approbation of the zeal and vigour of our eastern neighbours, and urged the house, the reader
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