USA > New York > Dutchess County > The revolution and the common man : farm tenants and artisans in New York politics, 1777-1788 > Part 11
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12Christopher to Evert Bancker, Feb. 18, 1783, Mis- cellaneous Bancker Papers, N. - Y. H.S.
13Virginia Harrington states that of 104 members of the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1775, 57 became Loyalists and only 26 Whigs ( The New York Merchant on the Eve of the Revo- lution [New York, 1935], 349). For the relatively stronger Whig sentiment among the merchants of other cities, see Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in Rovolt (New York, 1955).
14 Alexander C. Flick, Loyalism in New York, 153.
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and summer of 1776, most of the more than 20, 000 residents of New York City left; after the bombardment of the city by the British man o' war Asia in August, one-third of the population was said to have fled in two weeks. 15 The number of exiles was estimated, both at the time and by later
scholars, as about 15,000. 16 This would have brought down the city's population to less than 10, 000 in the fall of 1776; so when we learn that in the course of the war the British evacuated 29, 000 persons from New York City for Nova Scotia alone, 17 we realize that the city's wartime popula- tion consisted largely of strangers.
They were, of course, Tory strangers. New York City "became a receptacle to the disaffected of every Colony in the Union, '18 who slipped in from upstate New York or flocked off the ships which evacuated Philadelphia and Charleston. Fifty of the two hundred ships which evacuated Charleston landed their passengers in New York City. 19 The refugees
15Thomas Wertenbaker, Father Knickerbocker Rebels (New York, 1948), 63.
1Oscar Barck, New York City During the War for Inde- pendence (New York, 1931), 76-77. See also Alexander McDougall's estimate, above, n. 7.
17 Claude H. Van Tyne, Loyalists in the American Revolu- tion (New York, 1902), 293.
18 Abraham Yates, writing as "Rough Hewer," draft dated Dec. 25, 1795, Yates Papers, N.Y.P.L. Other quotations from Yates in this chapter are from this source. On New York City as a center for Tory refugees, see also Wertenbaker, Father Knickerbocker Rebels, vil; Flick, Lovaliom in New York, 181.
19Van Tyne, Loyalists in the American Revolution, 289.
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sweating out the war behind American lines saw their city made the headquarters of the British army, the recruiting center for most of the Tory provincial regiments, the base from which the Associated Loyalists set out on their maraud- ing expeditions. Half of the armed men recruited in America for the British army and navy and for the Loyalist militia are estimated to have come from New York. 20
The refugees saw also -- and it was this that filled their minds in the summer of 1783 -- new men taking over the economic life of the city. Loyalist mechanics coming off the British boats moved into the homes and shops of refugee artisans.21 Six thousand men in the occupied city were em- ployed by privateering alone, and new merchants sprang up 'like mushrooms.#22 If the Whigs later ruthlessly confis- cated Tory property, in violation of the peace treaty, they justified themselves by charging that Lord Howe had come to America with blank conveyances for confiscating the city property of the refugee Whigs. 23 "This was not only under- stood so, ' Abraham Yates recalled, "by the friends of gov- ernment, but also by the German troops, even before they left Germany. They supposed upon the conquest of the
Ibid., 192-183; Wertenbaker, Father Knickerbocker Rebels, 215.
21 Wertenbaker, Father Knickerbocker Rebels, 217-218. 22Ibid., 200-212.
23"Brutus, ' To All Adherents to the British Govern- ment and Followers of the British Army Commonly called Torios [Poughkeepsie, Aug. 15, 178;], broadside, N. - Y. H.S.
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Americans, they would be put in the possession of all the Whigs houses and farms, furnished and stocked [, ] and many of them had brought over their families under that expecta- tion. " In August 1783 the refugee pamphleteer "Brutus' asked the remaining Tories in the city: "Are not many of your houses decorated with our furniture? which you most audaciously confess to be the 'spoils of rebels, ' an ap- pellation become rather unfashionable among you of late. " No one could deny that Loyalist patriots in and around the city were cultivating the farms of refugees. 24
If by some miracle, therefore, Sir Guy Carleton could have instantly evacuated the city in March 1793, when the terms of the preliminary peace treaty were received in America, an enormous economic displacement, an endless tan- gle of contested contractual obligations, a 'dead-lock in private affairs, "25 was absolutely inevitable. Whigs owed money to Loyalists, Loyalists owed money to whigs.' 26 Eman- cipated Negroes, who had flocked into the British lines just as in the Civil War they would come into the lines of the Union army, were concentrated in New York City: George Washington made their return the first point on his agenda
2ªVan Tyne, Loyalists in the American Revolution, 248.
25 The phrase is Martha Lamb's, History of the City of New York (New York, 1880), II, 280.
2ºThomas Jones recounts the efforts of Loyalist cre- ditors to recover their debts before evacuation (History of New York during the Revolutionary War (New York, 1879), II, 263 ff. ). Of Tory debts to Whigs, "Brutus' said: "Can an instance be produced where any of you have had the honor or honesty to pay a debt to one who resided without your lines?"
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when he met with Carleton to discuss the terms of evacuation, but in the end an estimated 3000 freed Negroes were embarked. ?? Tradesmen and mechanics on James Delancey's West Farm, ten- ants before the war, had purchased their leaseholds from the British occupation administration; would they be allowed to keep them when the refugee Whigs returned? 28
No matter how quickly the evacuation had been accom- plished, nothing could have prevented such consequences of re-occupation as a swollen volume of litigation in the Mayor's Court; petitions to the city Common Council for re- mission of back rent on lots belonging to the city, petitions to the New York legislature for Femission of import duties while merchants re-established their firms; 29 and a fixed determination on the part of the returning refugees to ex- tract compensation -- whether by Trespass Acts, non-payment of debts, or discriminatory taxes -- for their losses during the war. One Whig exile wrote to another in July of the refugees' condition:
Many of them are destitute of every thing but public virtue and fortitude. How are they to be ac- comodated with houses? Who must turn out and by what means must preference be decided? . . . I will as far as I have agency or influence endeavour to have all done in a Regular Legal way. But the fory must make Room for us.
27 m The Iconography of Manhattan Island ( New York, 1915- 1928), ed. Isaac N. Phelps Stokes, V, 1162, 1175.
Harry B. Yoshpe, The Disposition of Loyalist Estates, 33-36.
29 Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York, entries throughout 1784; Assembly Journal (New York, 1784), 63, 66-67.
30William Malcom to James Duane, July 20, 1783, Duane Papers.
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All this could have been expected had evacuation taken place immediately in March, 1783: but it was not com- pleted for eight months! In that painful pause every senti- ment of vengeance, every insecurity about recovering a home or restoring a means of livelihood, waxed strong. "We alone of the whole federal union," wrote Duane in August, "are still in the painful situation of Exiles. '31 Resentment of the British delay became mixed with suspicion that fellow- Americans would filter into the city and monopolize post-war opportunities.
This was an altogether realistic suspicion. As early as February, Robert R. Livingston wrote of the city's houses that "the Eagle Eyes of speculation have already marked the best of them for their own"; in March, William Floyd warned Governor Clinton that if evacuation were delayed but access to New York City made possible, "great speculation would be carried on. . 32 Access was made possible. By order of Gen- eral Carleton on February 18 and March 27, Whigs were per- mitted to enter the city, visit their estates, and make in- ventories of their property. In April, William Smith noted in his diary that more than two thousand former residents were in the city; John Morin Scott wrote on April 30 that "a very great part of our Inhabitants have been in motion
31James Duane to William Malcom, Aug. 12, 1783, Duane Papers.
32Robert R. Livingston to George Clinton, Feb. 19, 1783, and William Floyd to Clinton, Mar. 25, 1783, Clinton, Public Papers, VIII, 78, 94.
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this Fortnight past to New York"; Loyalists wrote to the English newspapers that "the town now swarms with Americans, " "New York is filled with persons from different States. " ??
Not all of the Americans in the city during the spring and summer of 1783 were former residents. New Englanders, Jonathan Edwards' son among them, swarmed in "to drive Schomes of Commerce. '34 Refugees of wealth and good family, moreover, seemed to find it easier to recover their property than did refugees of humbler station. A Philip Schuyler could write directly to the British commander that a young son-in-law,
named Alexander Hamilton, would come into the city to recover Schuyler's property; and Sir Guy, recalling "the polite atten- tion I experienced many years ago at your house, ' promised the representative assistance and courtesy. " Henry Livingston arranged for John Watts, Jr., to take temporary possession of James Duane's old house when Admiral Digby quit it; James Beekman put his home in the care of Carleton himself; Robert C. Livingston slipped into town to look after his own property and that of his father, the Lord of the Manor. 36 These men at least would have where to lay their heads when evacuation came.
33Wertenbaker, Father Knickerbocker Rebels, 257; John Morin Scott to James Duane, Apr. 30, 1783, Duane Papers; Icono- graphy of Manhattan Island, V, 1159, 1161.
34- Icopography of Manhattan Island, V, 1156; East, Business Enterprise, 235.
35 Alexander Hamilton to James Duane, Aug. 5, 1783, Duane Papers; Sir Guy Carleton to Philip Schuyler, Aug. 8, 1783, Schuyler Papers, N. Y. P.L.
36 Henry Livingston to James Duane, July 16, 1783, and
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A year later, when the cream had been skimmed, wealthy Whigs would take high ground on the validity of the Trespass Act; for the present, however, Gouverneur Morris arranged with Carleton to receive full damages for the spoilage of Morrisania, while many Whigs of more moderate means returned to the city only to find that they could not re-occupy their homes without first paying a quarter's rent. Many were forced to split up their families and board them with friend- ly farmers. 37
Committees Again
A cry for retaliation arose in these circumstances which further prolonged evacuation by making many more Loyal- 1sts -- 15,000 more, according to one estimate-o-decide to leave New York City. The demand for retaliation was voiced by that familiar organ of the Revolutionary radicals, the popular committee.
The committee system has been generally supposed by historians to have died with the creation of the constitution
Robert C. Livingston to same, May 20, 1783, Duane Papers; Philip L. White, The Beekmans of New York in Politics and Commerce, 494-495.
37 In regard to Morrisania, see Jared Sparks, The Life of Gouverneur Morris, I, 264-265, and Select Cases of the Mayor's Court of New York City, 1674-1784, ed. Richard B. Morris, 58 n. For the difficulties of poorer men in recover- ing their houses, see Iconography of Manhattan Island, v, llo1, 1165, and James Riker, "Evacuation Day, 1783 (New York, 1.883), 5.
38Lt. Col. William Smith to George Washington, Aug. 26, 1783, quoted in Alexander J. Wall, "The Evacuation of New York City in 1783, " History of the State of New York, ed. Alexander Flick (New York, 1933), IV, 266.
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of 1777. Yet not only, as appeared in our study of Dutchess, were committees the heartbeat of the radical movement of 1779-1780; they were also very real for contemporaries in the summer of 1783. General Carleton wrote to Governor Clinton that many were being driven from the city by the fear that some
in the lower Classes at least may take advantage of the Laws past in the Course of the War . . . to give Efficacy to the irregular and inimical Resolutions of the Committee Mon, who appear to be an active Bodies [ sic] in various Precincte and Districts within the sphere of your Authority. 39
To the President of the Continental Congress, Carleton wrote of the "sovereignty they [the committees] assume, and are actually exercising. .40
Americans as well as Britishers testified to the fer- ment of committee activity. James Duane wrote to his wife in August of the widespread desire of city residents to leave the country "from a Dread of the Resolutions of our Commit- 2008. . 41 An American officer helping to supervise the evacuation agreed in blaming delays on the 'numberless warm publications in our papers and the unconstitutional proceed- ings of Committees. "42 Alexander Hamilton, too, wrote to
39Carleton to Clinton, July 25, 1783, Clinton, Public Papers (New York, 1933), VIII, 240.
40Carleton to Elias Boudinot, Aug. 17, 1783, quoted in Iconography of Manhattan Island, V, 1166.
4-James Duane to Mrs. Duane, Aug. 21, 1783, Duane Pa- pers.
"William Smith to George Washington, Aug. 26, 1783, as cited above, n. 38.
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Robert R. Livingston that 'some violent papers put into the city have determined many to depart, who hitherto have in- tended to remain. Many merchants of second class, characters of no political consequence, each of whom may carry away eight or ten thousand guineas [, ] have I am told lately ap- plied for shipping to carry them away. "43 The clamor of committee proceedings was heard even across the Atlantic. John Jay, in the midst of negotiating the treaty of peace, wrote to Egbert Benson in September, 1783: 'Your irregular and violent popular proceedings and resolutions against the tories hurt us in Europe. We are puzzled to answer the question, how it happens that, if there be settled govern- ments in America, the people of town and district should take upon themselves to legislate. . 44
The committees themselves frankly avowed the purpose of their work. "We know very well, ' "Brutus" told the Now York City Tories, "that the resolutions of the people, pub- lished by their committees in the course of this summer, have considerably accelerated your motions. "
The most important of the committees of 1783, and the only ona whose proceedings have been preserved, is that same group of refugee New Yorkers whom we previously ob- served at work in 1779. This committee met at Fishkill on July 22, 1783, with John Morin Scott, Alexander McDougall
43 Alexander Hamilton to Robert R. Livingston, Aug. 13, 1783, Robert R. Livingston Papers.
44John Jay to Egbert Benson, Sept. 12, 1783, Corres- pondence and Public Papers of Jay, III, 75.
The way subsidiary committees were formed can be
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and William Malcom among those present. 45 A seven-man executive committee was created, which met twice during the next six weeks and in September produced a memorial of grievances. 45
The memorial plainly recited the economic concerns of its signers. Referring to the destruction by fire of 1000 New York City homes, the memorial stated that a very considerable part of the city was reduced to ashes, and the remainder
in the occupation of adherents to the British govern- ment, and followers of the British army, possessed, not only of all the advantages derived from trade and business of every kind, but also of wealth and influ- once to secure these advantages to themselves.
Hence the memorial asked that houses formerly rented by refugees be returned to them, and that houses on confis- cated estates be assigned to accomodate those whose dwell- ings had been burned. The signers included the respectable merchants Joshua and Comfort Sands.
An economic basis for the threats of the committees was also discerned by Robert R. Livingston. Writing to Hamilton, Livingston analyzed the motives of the committeemen
glimpsed in a letter from Frederick Weissenfels to John Lamb, written from Poughkeepsie on March 23, 1783, which describes how the precinct assessors had called a meeting 'in order to form committees,' but had been dissuaded by "some men in power" (Lamb Papers, N. - Y.H.S. ).
45William Malcom to James Duane, July 20, 1783, Duane Papers; --- to Alexander McDougall, Sept. 2, 1783, Alexander McDougall Papers.
46 The Memorial of the Subscribers, in Behalf of Them- selves and Others, the Refugee Citizens of New-York (New- burgh, Sept. 1, 1783), broadside, N. - Y.H.S.
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as follows:
In some few it is a blind spirit of revenge & resentment but in more it is the most sordid interest[ : ] one wishes to possess the House of some wretched Tory another fears him as a rival in his trade or commerce & a fourth wishes to get rid of his debts by shaking off his creditor or to reduce the price of living by depopulating the town.' 47
Thus the anti-Tory agitation not only looked backward to the grievances of the past, but also forward to a mighty Jostling for economic power and position in the re-occupied city.
Return of the Nativos
A double confusion, a double uncertainty, therefore hung over New York City as the tense summer of 1783 dragged into autumn. On the one hand, there Was the physical chaos of sudden mass evacuation. As ship after ship dropped down the bay,
down on the docks army commissioners were selling sur- plus stock -- cattle, wagons, horses, firewood; on Queen Street there was one auction after another, as the de- parting merchants disposed of all goods they could not take with them; here one dealer was selling bricks, here another a pile of heavy timbers, there still an- other barrels of sugar, molasses and rum.
An American in the city in August saw auctions everywhere and sentries posted every hundred yards. 49 Although commerce between New York City and other American ports was permitted after March, the general confusion prevented the orderly
Robert R. Livingston to Alexander Hamilton, Aug. 30, 1783, Robert R. Livingston Papers.
48 Wertenbaker, Father Knickerbocker Rebels, 264; see also Barck, New York City, 214, and Flock, Loyalism in Now York, 143 n.
49 - to --- , Aug. 30, 1783, quoted in The Memorial
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carrying-on of business. "Except theft and pilfering, ' a newspaper stated in September, "there is very little business carried on at present. . 50
This was one kind of chaos. Men of standing and pro- perty, whether Whig or Tory, dreaded a second chaos : mob violence when patriots finally returned to the city. It was "throo fear of a Mob or Rable, " Cadwallader Colden told George Clinton, that "numbers of Usefull honest Men drove out of" the city; the fears of the departing Loyalists, Samuel Loudon wrote to McDougall, 'seem principally to arise
from . , the mob, who they suppose will be let loose upon
thom. * 51 Leading Whigs shared these fears. Twice in August Governor Clinton received affidavits attesting that hundreds of men had combined to plunder New York City when the refu- gees returned. 52 'I fear this entry into New York and the consequences to be apprehended, " Malcom wrote to Duane, "more than anything during the war. . 53
The presence of Washington's troops in the return to the city on November 25, owed much to this fear of mob vio- lence. All through the summer, Yates wrote, there had been
History of the City of New-York, ed. James Grant Wilson ( New York, 1892), II, 550.
50 Iconography of Manhattan Island, V, 1167.
51Cadwallader Colden to George Clinton, July 26, 1783, Clinton, Public Papers, VIII, 223; Samuel Loudon to Alexander McDougall, Sept. 26, 1783, McDougall Papers.
52Clinton, Public Papers, VIII, 236-237, 244-245.
53William Malcom to James Duane, July 20, 1783, Duane Papers.
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a "continued scene of disorder" in the city. "General Carle- ton with all his troops had as much as he could do to prevent excesses. This gave rise to an idea that it would be imprac- ticable to govern the city without a military force. . 54 Other observers concurred:
The inhabitants of New York were threatened when the British should decamp, with indiscriminate plunder and future confiscations. Many inoffensive citizens, not otherwise easily terrified, had their apprehensions on this score -- they knew well enough that vagrant and predatory combinations . . would not be backward. To give perfect ease and security to the people of New-York, it was necessary that a detachment of voll- disciplined troops should accompany their favorite chief into the capital. 55
Eence, on the eve of entrance into the city, each battalion of American troops was ordered to have a company lay on its arms for twenty-four hours to prevent disorders. 56 Hence the light infantry battalion of the Continental Army remained in the city for weeks. On the evening of November 25, over a celebratory glass at Fraunces Tavern, William Malcom told Alexander McDougall and Richard Lewis that "the Troops were brot here to dragoon the Citizens there was no need of them. "57 Malcom and Mcdougall would be on opposite sides of the political broils ahead.
54500 above, n. 18.
55"Marvel, " N. Y. Daily Advertiser, Mar. 17, 1789.
56Orders of Brevet Brigadier-General Henry Jackson, Nov. 24, 1783, quoted in Wilson, Memorial History, II, 556 n. 57 Alexander McDougall to Richard Lewis, Dec. 25, 1783, and Lewis to McDougall, Dec. 28, 1783, McDougall Papers.
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Conclusion
Beneath the surface of the conflict between "Whig" and "Tory, " hostility between rich and poor flourished in New York City in the years 1783-1785. This hostility began not with the return to the city in November 1783, but over six months earlier when the terms of the preliminary peace treaty reached the United States. After March 1783 evacuation was certain, and the thoughts of all exiled New Yorkers turned from the com- pletion of the war to the re-establishment of a livelihood after their seven-year abeence.
Contractual tangles and economic frictions were inevi- table in the confused context of defeat and evacuation, but the long delay before evacuation was effected sharpened the inesca- pable bitterness and resentmert. Refugees of humble means, who lacked connections in the occupied city, feared with some justification that more well-to-do exiles were securing a stranglehold on future economic opportunities as the summer months vent by. The party antagonisms which were to last until the mid-decade had crystallized by the time the first soldier of General Washington's victorious army again set foot on Broadway.
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CHAPTER VIII WHIGS AGAINST TORIES: 1784
From the morrow of their return to New York City until the early summer of 1785, the artisan class of New York City, under the banner of anti-Toryism, attacked the well-to-do merchants of the city. From mid-1785 until the ratification of the United States Constitution, and on for several years into the early 1790's, - the same artisans worked with the same merchants on behalf of stronger national government and more vigorous central economic planning. But their motives were the same in both the early and later years of the Critical Period. National independence and a well-paying livelihood were the mechanic's persistent aims. In the early and late 180's alike these aims involved also opposi- tion to Great Britain and to presumed dependents of the British in America.
In the eyes of the artisan in the mid-1780's, as for the well-to-do conservative in the "counter-revolution" of 1780 and 1783, no contradiction existed between immediate, personal economic interests and the patriotic goal of sus- taining the national economy and preserving national
-New York politics in the 1790's are exhaustively examined in the forthcoming work of Alfred Fabian Young, presently available as "The Democratic Republican Movement in New York State, 1788-1797" (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern U.), 1958.
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independence. The first broadened out, in ramifying patterns of economic inter-dependence, into the second. The politics of the ratification of the Constitution have too often been conceived as a dialogue of such discrete economic interests as the "creditor" interest, the "West Indian merchant" interest, and the like. So men may think, perhaps, in a fun- damentally stable situation where politics consists in the minute division of an assured quota of prosperity. But in the 1780's, as in the early 1860's or 1930's, the well-being and continued operation of an entire economy, nay, of an entire structure of society, were at stake. Naturally, and realistically, the merchant thought not only of the going price of Jamaica molasses, but also of whether he might sail to the West Indies at all, and of whether, in default of American payments, foreign creditors might occupy the custom-houses of New York and Philadelphia by force; cro- ditors of the government looked not only to the prospective rate of interest on securities, but to whether they would be paid at all, and hence, to the re-channeling of impost revenue to support government credit; and artisans, the particular concern of the present study, were interested in the volume of money and the proportion of United States com- merce carried in native bottoms, as well as in higher pro- tective duties on imported British manufactures. If any event were required to bring home to all classes of the city the dependence of every particular livelihood on the general well-being of American commerce, the depression of 1785 did
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