USA > New York > Westchester County > Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution > Part 16
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75
The politicians of New York, those of later as well
+ As the action of the Committee which resulted in those Amend- ments was not generally noticed on the Journal or in the Regent, it is very evident that they were, generally, only verbal corrections, unim- portant in character, and involving no distinguishing principles. But there were two amendments, proposed by Colonel Nathaniel Woodball the motions for amendment were sinported, in each instance, by several members of the majority, as well as by the full force of the minority ; but because the principle involved in each of the proposed Amend- ments was distinctly declared in another of the Besolutions, the rejection of the proposition to repeat it. possessed no political significance what- ever.
Jurnal of the House, " Die Mercuri, Io ho., A.M., the 8th March, " 1775." @ 11.11.
ant-governar Cullen to the Earl of Bortmonth, " NEW YORK, 1st March. " 1735,").
1 Bancroft's History of the United states, original edition, vit, 139, 140; and George Clinton respectively, which were rejected, although the the xume, centenary edition, iv., 401. 42.
In n letter written by Mtexander McDongal, the well-known popular leader, addressed to Jesinh Quincy, Junior, then in London, and dated " Naw. Youk. April 6, 1775," the student of the history of the Revolution, . In New York, may find much, relating to the opinions of the revolution. ary element- in that Colony, concerning this State, as well as coure ning other kindred -uhjects.
3 Jounet of the House, "Die Martis, 10 ho., A. M., the 7th March, " 1775."
١
35
WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
- lrose of earlier peri wl-, have always been unlike "and quite as bollly sustained the Home Government, .. at any other die any ons toper Country ; and in what it had done, as any open and avowed " friend of the Government " could have done, had one been present,-a lesson of the highest importance to those who shall incline to ascertain the exact truth, concerning the origin of the American Revolu- tion and the purposes of those who promoted it, with !- in the Colony of New York, may be seen in the sim- ple record of this single action of the Representatives of Colonial New York, in her General Assembly, in 1775.
in the matter of these declaratory Resolutions, the spirit and terms of which were quite as radical in their character as could have been desired by the most advanced republican who was not an anarchist, the well-established reputation of those politicians was amply sustained-every member of the majority of the Assembly, including James Delancey, John Cruger, Benjamin Kissam, Crean Brush, Isaac Wilkins, and Frederic Philipse, except John Coe, of Orange- county, and Direk Brinckerhoff, of Duchess-county, voted in favor of the adoption of them and, of course, in favor of the embodiment of their terms in an Address to the King ; while every member of the minority of the House, with Coe and Brinckerhoff of the majority, voted in opposition to the adoption of them. Factional and partisan bitterness, very often, produces such remarkable instances of the inconsistency, if not of the incompreheusibility, of mere politicians ; but history affords few, if any, such examples, among those who were really patriotic, as were afforded by John Thomas and Pierre Van Cort- landt, by Peter'R. Livingston and Nathaniel Wood- hull, by George Clinton and Philip Schuyler, in the instance under consideration, when they voted against the Resolutions which have been fully de- scribed aud. consequently, against the great political principles which were asserted and maintained there- in, for no other reason which is now discoverable than the peculiar fact that those Resolutions had proceeded from and were, then, supported by the majority of the Assembly, by that faction of the great party ofthe Opposition of which all were equally meni- bers, to which they-those who have been named and those who were with them-did not belong.1
Whatever may have influenced those who had as- stumned to be the peculiarly disinterested and sincere. supporters of the common cause, in their united vote to reject the Resolutions which are, now, under con- sideration, those who are of the Westchester-county of the present day will continue to be interested in the fact that, on that very critical occasion, when the eyes of all sober-minded men, in Europe as well as in America, were turned toward that small Assembly- chamber, Isaac Wilkins, of the Borough of West- chester, and Frederie Philipse, representing the body of the County, manfully declared the Rights of the Colonists and those of the Colonies, and bravely re- sisted what were regarded as the usurpations of the Home Government; while Pierre Van Cortlandt, of the Manor of Cortlandt, and John Thomas, repre- senting the body of the County, quite as manfully opposed thein, and, indirectly, quite as bravely denied the existence of those individual an I Colonial Rights,
" The official record of the votes of the several Members of the Assem- My, of both factions of the party of the Opposition, as it may be sren in the Journal of the Fiveer, is one of the most cartons and most unaccount- abis, within our knowledge.
On the day after these Resolutions had been adopted by the Assembly, [March 9th, ] that body ordered the appointment of "a Committee to prepare and iay "before the House, with all convenient speed, the " Draft of an humble, firm, dutiful, and loyal Petition, "to be presented to our most Gracious Sovereign," pursnant to Colonel Peter R. Livingston's Motion on the thirty-first of the preceding January; and William Nicoll, of Suffolk-county, Leonard Van- Kleeck, of Duchess-county, and Isaac Wilkins, of the Borough of Westchester, were appointed the Committee for that purpose. During the same day, Crean Brush, from Cumberland-county, Colonel Ben- jamin Seaman, of Richmond-county, and Sammel Gale, of Orange-county, were appointed a Committee " to prepare the Draft of a Memorial to the Lords ;" and Daniel Kissam, of Queens-county, and James De Lancey and Jacob Walton, of the City of New York, were appointed a Committee "to prepare the " Draft of a Representation and Remonstrance to the " Commons of Great Britain," both of them pursuant to the Resolution offered by James De Lancey, to which reference has been already made .? The House directed, also, that the Drafts of those several papers should be laid before it, "with all convenient "speed."3
It will be seen that on neither of these Committees was there a single member of the minority of the House, notwithstanding the Resolution on which the first-named of those Committees was appointed origi- nated with a leading member of that faction, and notwithstanding, also, both the Resolutions pursuant to which all the Committees were appointed, had been adopted in the Assembly by an unanimous vote, every member of each of the two factions, in tempor- ary harmony and good-will, having united in approv- ing and supporting them -- an, evident result of the bitter factional feeling which had been aroused, first by the evidently dishonorable condnet of the minority. in springing upon the Assembly the Resolution which was offered by Colonel Ten Broeck, on the twenty- sixth of January, for taking into consideration the Proceedings of the Congress of the Colonies, while a "Call of the House," asked for by itself and for its
: Vide pages 50, 51, ante. 3 Journal of the House, " Die Jovis, IO ho., A.M., the 9th of March, #$ 1573.11
1
1
56
WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
peculiar advantage, was pending ; ' and. subsequently, by the peculiarly factional proceedings of the minor- ity, in the presentation of Resolution atter Resolu- tion, only for the promotion of Revolution ; and in its dishonorable opposition, while the Assembly was considering the State of the Grievances and the series of declaratory Resolutions, to all of which proceed- ings reference has been herein made .?
On the sixteenth of March, Isaac Wilkins, from the Committee appointed to prepare it, reported "the " Draft of a Petition to the King ; " and, immediately afterwards, Crean Brush, from the Committee ap- pointed to prepare it, reported " a Draft of a Memor- "jal to the Lords." During the same day, James De Lancey, from the Committee appointed to prepare it, reported " the Draft of a Representation and Remon- "strance to the Commons of Great Britain ; " and the Assembly promptly referred all those papers, for con- sideration, to a Committee of the Whole House.3
On the twenty-fourth of March, the Assembly re- solved itself into a Committee of the Whole House, upon the Draught of a Petition to the King, Colonel Benjamin Seaman, of Richmond-county, being in the Chair ; and, again, the minority displayed its faction- al animosity by presenting Amendment after Amend- ment, by far the greater number of them being merely verbal, without disturbing either the sense or the spirit of the original. In one instance, however, very unaccountably and not very consistently, Colo- nel Philip Schuyler appeared to have entertained a more than usually tender regard for His Majesty's " prerogative," in the matter of the Paper Currency of the Colony, " in the preservation of which prerog- "ative," he said, " we are deeply interested ; " and an Amendment, on that subject, which he submitted, was adopted by the House, without a division. An- other Amendment, concerning the Judiciary of the Colony, and entirely cancelling the paragraph, on that subject, which the Committee had reported, was submitted by George Clinton, of Ulster-county, and agreed to, by an unanimous vote of the House; and another Amendment, submitted by Colonel Frederic Philipse, by striking the words " seem to," from one of the paragraphs, and, by doing so, making the Acts relating to Boston and the Colony of Massachusetts- Bay really "establish a dangerous precedent, by inflict- "ing Punishment without the formality of a Trial." instead of only sceming to do so, as the original para- graph described them, really strengthened the Peti- tion, in its assertion of the Grievances to which the Colonies had been subjected.+ As the records of the elosing portion of the proceedings of the Committee of the Whole House and those of all that the House,
1 Vide pages 49, 50, ante.
2 Vide pages 51-53, ante ..
" Journal of the House, " Die Jovis, 10 ho., A.M., the 16th March, " 1775."*
Journal of the House," Die Veneris, 10 ho., A.M., the 9th March, "1775."
itself, did, on this subject, " are missing." in our copy of the Journal, the details of those provedore- anne. be given ; ' but history bears testimony to the general fact that, in its amended form, the Petition to the King was duly agreed to, by the Assembly."
On the same day, [ March 24th], the Memorial to the House of Lords and the Representation and Remon- strance to the House of Commons, after several Amend- ments, none of them possessing any importance whatever and only three of them having called for a division of the House, had been negatived in the Committee of the Whole House, were successively re- ported to the House; and, in the respective forms in which they were thus reported, the House adopted them, in each instance, without a division of the House.7
On the following morning, [March 25th] the en- grossed copies of the Petition to the King," the Memor- ial to the Lord, and the Representation and Remon- strance to the Commons of Great Britain1 were respect- ively presented to the House, read, and again agreed to, in each case without a division of the House. In each instance, also, the Speaker was ordered to sign the document, in behalf of the House; and, after having ordered the Speaker to transmit these three several petitions to the King, the Lords, and the Commons, " with all convenient speed, to Edmund " Burke, Esquire, Agent of this Colony at the Court " of Great Britain ; and that a Letter be prepared, to " be approved by this House, to the said Agent, with "directions that he present the same, in behalf of " this Colony, as they are respectively directed, a: "soon after the receipt thereof as possible; " and with the additional Order "that Mr. Speaker trans- "mit, at the same time, to the Agent, the State of the "Grievances of this Colony and the Resolutions of "this House thereupon," the House adjourned."
On the thirty-first of March, the Assembly ordered the Speaker to send to the Speakers of the several Houses of Assembly on this Continent, as soon after
5 The original Journals of the Assemidy which included the proceedings of the entire session which is now under consideration, were lost during the troublesome times of that period ; and the only knowu copy of the original printed edition of those Jurrud's wanted four pages, in this portion of it. Those missing pages contained the closing portion of the proceedings of the House, on the Petition In the King, as stated in the text. and the opening of its proceedings on the Memorial to the House
6 The completed Petition to the King, signed by the Speaker of the As- sembly, may be seen in the Journal of the Jeembly, " Die Sabbati, 10 " ho., A. M., the 25th March 1975."
:" Journal of the Home, " Die Veneris, 10 ho., AM, the 24th March "1975."
The defect in the Journal, as it is now known to us, to which reference bas been made, leaves us without any information concerning the proceedings of the Hutise on the first twenty paragraphs of the W :- marid to the House of Lords.
" Jourand of the House, " Die Sabbati, to ho., A. M., the 25th March "$ 1775.7
1. Latrial of the House, " Die Sabbati, I ho., P.M., the 25th March, " 1976." !! Thin.
-
....
1
57
WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
the rise of this House as conveniently may be, copies ! sembly, and its members, and their doings; and, of the State of the firiran's, of the Resolutions of the House, of the Petition to the King, of the Memer- il to the Lords, and of the Representation and Remon- strance to the Commons, requesting those several Speakers to lay the same before their respective Houses of Assembly, at their first meeting after the receipt thereof.1
through that deception, to promote their own or their party's or their sectional purposes. Individual mem- bers of that Assembly, men of honor and unimpeach- able integrity, have been stigmatized as "wretches," and as " the veriest reptiles on earth" and charged with "corruption " and every kindred vice -- some of them were driven from their families and their homes ; On the following day, [April 1st.] the Assembly ap- pointed " a Standing Committee of Correspondence," composed of the Speaker, [John Cruger, ] James De Laneey, James Jauncey, Benjamin Kissam, and Jacob Walton, all of them from the City of New York, others of them were lawlessly seized and carried from their families and their homes, exiled, and held in lawless bondage; and others of them were stripped of their patrimonial estates or of the estates of their own ereation -- only because they had preferred, as Benjamin Seaman, of Richmond-county, Isaac Wil- ! Members of that Assembly, to assert the Grievances kins, of the Borough of Westchester, Frederic Phil- ipse. of Westehester-county, Zebulon Seaman, of Queens-county, John Rapalje and Simon Boermin, of Kings-county, Samuel Gale, of Orange-county, and George Clinton, of Ulster-county, or any seven of them, "whose duty it shall be to obtain thegmost "early and authentie intelligence of all such Acts "and Resolutions of the British Parliament or Pro- " ceedings of Administration as do or may relate to "or affeet the Liberties and Privileges of His Ma- "jesty's Subjects, in the British Colonies in America "and to keep up and maintain a Correspondence and "Communication with our Sister Colonies, respecting "these important considerations; and the result of " their Proceedings to lay before the House."" under which the Colony was said to have been labor- ing and to demand a Redress of those alleged Griev- ances, not with any less distinetness of words nor with any less firnmess of manner, but after a manner and through instrumentalities of their own selection and which possessed their greater confidence, rather than after a manner and through instrumentalities which others would have thrust on them, which their own sense of fitness and adaptability had not ap- proved, which were controlled by men in whose noisy pretensions to personal and political integrity they could not repose confidence. Measures which were sincerely intended for the promotion of the common cause of the Colonies, in their struggle with the Home Government, -- measures which presented noth- On the following Monday, the third of April, the Assembly adjourned until the third of May ;? and that eventful Session of the last General Assembly of the Colony of New York, which was assembed for the discharge of legislative duties, was ended. ing else than political principles or reeitals of facts which no one, of any seet or faetion, pretended to dispute -were opposed, vehemently and without measure, within as well as without the Assembly, only because they had not originated and were not supported before the House, by the opposite faetion of the Opposition ; and, with that hereditary, or see . tional, or sectarian, or partisan bitterness which the lapse of years has served only to intensify, that work of depreciation and misrepresentation of those meas- ures and of all who favored them, continues to dis- grace much, at the present day, which is audaciously ealled " history."
That General Assembly and all that it did, from the opening of the Session until the final declaration of its Speaker brought that Session to a elose, have been made the themes of uneeasing misrepresentation and abuse or of absolute and contemptuous silence, from far the greater number of those who have as- sumed to write or to speak concerning the history of that notable period. They have been the themes, sometimes, of ignorant and unserupalous bigots and, sometimes, of intelligent and unserupulous tricksters ; sometimes a personal and sometimes a local end has been served by either a falsification or a concealment of the truth, concerning them ; and, sometimes, frag- mients of nseless and glittering rhetoric, strung to- Kether, as farmers string fragments of useless and glittering tin and display them in order to deceive andl to scatter unsuspecting birds from their corn- fields, in like manner, have been employed by literary prestidigitators, in order to deceive those who are Jess intelligent than themselves, concerning that As-
A candid and carefully-made comparison of the terms of those several State of Grievances, and de- claratory Resolutions, and Petition, and Memorial, and Representation and Remonstrance, which were prepared, and agreed to, and presented, and published by that much-abused General Assembly of Colonial New York, with the several Resolutions, and Decla- ration of Rights, and Association, and Addresses, and Memoriala, and Petition, which, in like manner, were prepared, and agreed to, and presented, and published by the much-eulogized Congress of the Continent, which had assembled in Philadelphia, in September, 1774, will clearly establish the fact that the former were AJ mail of the Home, "Die Veneris, 10 ha, A.M., the St March, ' quite as decided, in their tone, and quite a- clear and distinct, in their terms, as the latter; and such a comparison will also clearly establish the fact that, : in its continnous and violent opposition to the former,
Journal of the Howwe, " Dig Sabbati, 10 ho., A M., the 1st April, 1 faradof the House, "The Ize, 10 in., A. M. the 21 April, 12:5 ".
1
58
WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
in every stage of its progress through the House, the minority of that tieneral Assembly was clearly actu- ated by some other motive than that of simple, un- contaminated patrioti-m.
It will be seen, also, by every careful and candid render of the published proceedings of that Congress to which reference has been made, that, notwithstand- ing the gravamen of the declared Grievances of the constituent Colonies, of that notable body, consisted of sundry Acts of Parliament, all of which were con- sidered as oppressive, it had made no attempt what- ever, either by Petition or otherwise, to induce the Parliament to remove or even to modify those Griey- ances, or any of them, by a repeal or even by an amendment of the obnoxious provisions of those op- pressive legal enactments, contenting itself, instead, with preparing, and agreeing to, and presenting, only Addresses to the People of Great Britain, to the Inhab- itants of the Province of Quebec, and to the King, and a Memorial to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies, respectively, not one of whom possessed the slightest legislative authority, nor the slightest ability, in any way, to remove nor even to modify those Grievances, whatever might have been its disposition to have done so-indeed, notwithstanding the well known desires of the great body of the Colonists, throughout the entire Continent, notwithstanding the known purposes for which that Congress had been convened, and notwithstanding the express provisions of the greater number of the Credentials of the several Del- egations, the proceedings of that Congress were mainly declaratory and justificatory of Rebellion, with scareely an effort to obtain a redress of Grievances, and nothing whatever for the yet more desired reconciliation and union with the Mother Country, "so beneficial to the "whole Empire, and so ardently desired by all British " America,"1 for "the restoration of union and har- " mony between Great Britain and the Colonies, most " ardently desired by all good men." ? The tone and the tendency of all that it did. however, were pecu- liarly revolutionary, in all which it was eminently successful;" and, to that extent, if no further, it had failed to represent, truly, those in whose name it had nominally acted. On the other hand. the General As- sembly of Colonial New York, the legitimacy. of whose organization and the entire legality of whose action, in behalf of the common cause, no one has ever presumed to question ; without compromising its dignity, as a General Assembly ; with that common sense which, in Europe as well as in America, was, then, so pe-
culiarly uncommon ; without entangling itself with any questionable alliance; and without belittling its legitimate influence by expressing its official sym- pathy with any other body, even in relation to those measures which were similar, in character and pur- pose, to those of its own enactment-that General Assembly, quite as clearly and quite as energetically as the Congress had done, in behalf of its constitu- ents, boldly declared the Grievances of those whom it represented, in a clear recital of the several Acts of Parliament which had been employed by the Home Government for the oppression of the Colonists; and, in addition to that recital of specific Statutes which were grievous in their provisions, it adopted a series of Resolutions, declaratory of the general Rights of the Colonists, as Englishmen, "to which they were "equally entitled with their fellow-subjects in Great "Britain "-Resolutions which no one could have made stronger, in support of the common cause. But, unlike that Congre-s, and more consistently with its daty to its constituency than anything, in that connection, which the Congress had professed to do, that General Assembly, in its official character, approached the King and the two Houses of Parlia- ment, in whom, acting together, rested the only legit- imate authority which could possibly be exercised for the removal of those Grievances which it had described, and for the restoration of that harmony, between the Colonies and the Mother Country, which the former so earnestly desired; and, unto these, respectively, it respectfully presented its manly, and dignified, and legally-expressed prayers for the re- peal of those several Acts or parts of Acts which were oppressive or which threatened to become so. In all these, it violated no law and fostered no spirit of dis- affection. Without the loss of any of that dignity which legitimately belonged to it, and without sacri- ficing any of that respect for its constituents which its duty required it to maintain, it recognized the sovereignty of the King, as the Congress had also done; and, consistently with that dignity and that respect, but with a boldness which was peculiarly its own, at the saine time, it also asserted its own stand- ing, as a General Assembly, by memorializing instead of petitioning the Peers, and by representing the facts of the usurpation, to the Commons, and by sup- plementing that "representation" with a "remon- strance" against the action of that distinguished body, in its serious disregard of the Rights of the Colonists. In all these several prayers, with what- ever titles and in whatever form they were presented. the General Assembly employed terms which com- manded the respect of those to whom they were re- spectively addressed ; and, in one instance, so clearly was the Grievance represented and so earnest was the remonstrance which was made against it, in the As- sembly's Remonstrance, that even Lord North was obliged to acknowledge the force and the fitness of the plea, and, in his place in the House of Commons,
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.