USA > New York > Westchester County > Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution > Part 37
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WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
" he, the said Meloy, had been accused by some peo- ple of pointing a bayonet at the breast of a daughter " of your Memorialist, desiring your Memorialist to ex- " cutpate him from the charge, to which request your " Memorialist replied that he was not at his house but "at his school house when the affair was said to have " hayque ned ; but that a daughter of your Memorialist " met him as he was brought from the school hause, "atil told him that one of the men had pushed a " bayonet against her breast and otherwise insulted "het ; and your Memorialist remembers that when " he left his house in the morning his daughter had a "cap on, but when she met him near the school " house she had none on and her hair was hanging "over her shoulders.
"Your Memorialist, also, begs leave further to " represent that after he had been eight or ten days "at New Haven, he was carried by Mr. Jonathan " Mix, to whose care he was committeil, to the house "of Mr. Beers, innkeeper, in said town, where were "Captain Sears, Captain Lothrop, Mr. Brown, and " some others, whose names he did not know or does " not recollect. That several questions were asked " him, to some of which he gave the most explicit "answers, but perceiving some insidious design "against him by some of the questions, he refused to "answer any more. That Captain Sears then ob- "served to him, if he understood him right, that they "did not inteud to release him, nor to make such a "compromise with him as had been made with Judge "Fowler and Mr. Underhill,' but to keep him a pris- "oner till the unhappy disputes between Great "Britain and America were settled. That whatever "your Memorialist might think, what they had done " they would take upon themselves and support. "That your Memorialist then asked an explicit de- " claration of the charges against him, and was told "that the charges against him were :-
"That he, your Memorialist, had entered into a " emnbination with six or seven others to seize Cap- "tain Sears as he was passing through the county of " West Chester, and convey him on board a man-of- " war.
" That your Memorialist had signed a. Protest at the "White Plains, in the county of West Chester, "against the proceedings of the Continental Con- "gress.
"That your Memorialist had neglected to open his "church on the day of the Continental Fast.
"And that he had written pamphlets and news- " papers against the liberties of America.
"To the first and last of these charges your "Memorialist pleads not guilty, and will be ready to "vindicate his innocence, as soon as he shall be "restored to his liberty in that province to which only " he conceives himself to be amenable .? He considers
"it a high infringement of the liberty for which the " virtuous sons of America are now nobly struggling, "to be carried by force out of one colony into "another, for the sake either of trial or imprison-
which was accessible to us, we reached the conclusionis that the celebra- tod political tracts of "A. W. FARMER" [ Welcheder Former] which were published in 1974, and which created such an intense excitement among the revolutionary faction, were written by Inac Wilkins, of Westchester, and not by the Rev. Samuel Seabury, also of Westelester, to whom they had been generally attributed. Several years afterwards, those conclusions secured the respect and deference of one whose respect and deference, in such matters, were distinctions of which any one might have been reasonably proml. (Historien Magazine, New Series, iii., 9-January, 1-68 ; ) and we have not since seon the slightest reason for revising our early judgment, in that much canvassed question of authorship.
Within a few months after the publication of those notable political essays, the satirist, John Trumbult, wrote his versified version of Gen- eral Gage's Proclamation of the twelfth of June, 1775, in which, in the following lines, the well-informed anthor of that well-written piece very clearly indicated the person who, at that early date, was recognized as the detested "A. W. FARMER : "
" What disappointments sul and bilkings, "Awaited poor departing W . . . . . s; " What wild confusion, rout and hobble, yon "Made with his farmer, Don A. W."
(Trumbull's Origin of MeFingal, 31, 32 ; ) and within six months after Trumbull's publication, samuel seabury, in that portion of his Memorial In the General Assembly of Connecticut which is now under notice, added his very clear, very precise, and very unequivocal testimony, on the same interesting question, With these two independent pieces of evidence before him, the reader may easily ascertain with how much of accuracy that early judgment was formed.
We are not naacquainted, also, with a paper, entitled The Westchester Farmer, written by D. Williams, and published in The Magazine of Amer- ican History, viii., 117-February, 18%2. It contains what purports to have been an unsigned draft of a Memorial supposed to have been addressed, or intended to have been addressed, by Samnel Senbury, ser- eral years after the occurrences now under consideration, to the Commis- sioners for adjusting the losses of the Loyal Refugees, in which draft of a Memorial he claimed, if the paper is not something else than what it purports to have been, to have been the song author of the "A. W. "FARMER " tracts, as well as of various other tracts and publications. But we are constrained to say that, whether the paper is what it purports to have been or not, and whether it was copied and delivered to the Commissioners or not, of both of which we have grave doubts, there are evidences within itself of its enfire nntrustworthiness, in its recital of known fa ts .; that we do not believe, therefore, that it was written by Sammuel Seabury, carefully and deliberarely, if he really wrote it ; and that we need more evidence than we have yet seen, that he was capable of deliberately and understandingly telling or writing nuqualifiedl false- hoods, for any purpose, either while he was in New Haven, in 1775-6, or in London, after he had received his Doctor's degree from Oxford Cui. versity, several years afterwards.
In view of the fact, if it is a fact, which Mr. Williams Las copied from Boucher's Sommes, that a pension was granted to some other person for having done what, in this paper, was said to have been done by seabury, it is very evident the British Government preferred to believe that sam- uel Seabury was NOT the author of the " A. W. FARMER " tracts not of the other publications nained in that draft of a Memorial, referred to in Mr. William's paper ; and that it acted, accordingly.
We are not insensible of the fact that a great-grandson of Samuel Sex- bury, in a paper which was published in The American Quarterly Church Review, for April, INSKI, without any supporting testimony which any Bench in the country would have received as evidence, in any case, un- dertook the ungracious task of showing, by argument, that Samuel Sea- bury was not sincere, when he wrote the disclaimer which is now under notice ; that his words, on the matter of his alleged anthotelup of the political pamplilets and newspaper articles referred to, were artfully in- tended to mislead the General Assetably, beneficially to himself; and that, in fact, notwithstanding what he and others had said and written to the contrary, Samuel Seabury was really the author of the "A. W. "FARMER " tracts ! We must be excused, however, for diventing from the conclusions of this younger member of the seabury family, and for
I Vide pages 132, 133, aute.
" In our early matthood, after a careful examination of all the evidence 13
138
WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
" ment. Must he be judged by the laws of "ent, to which as an indian of New York he "owed no obedience? or by the laws of that colony " in which he has been near twenty years a resident? "or, if the regulations of Congress be attended to, "must he be dragged from the committee of his own " county, and from the Congress of his own province, " eut off from the intercourse of his friends, deprived " of the benefit of those evidences which may be " necessary for the vindication of his innocence, andl "judged by strangers to him, to his character, and " to the circumstances of his general conduct in life ? "One great grievance justly complained of by the " people of America, and which they are now strug- "gling against, is the Act of Parliament directing "persons to be carried from America to England for "a trial. And your Memorialist is confident that the "supreme legislative authority in this colony will not "permit him to be treated in a manner so destructive " to that liberty for which they are now contending. " If your Memorialist is to be dealt with according to " law, he conceives that the laws of Connecticut, as "well as of New York, forbid the imprisonment of "his person any otherwise than according to law. If " he is to be judged according to the regulations of the "Congress, they have ordained the Provincial Con- "gress of New York or the Committee of the county " of West Chester, to be his judges. Neither the "laws of either colony nor the regulations of the " Congress give any countenance to the mode of " treatment which he has met with. But considered " in either light, he conceives it must appear unjust, " cruel, arbitrary, and tyrannical.1
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retaining our own well-considered opinion that Samuel Seabury was nothing else than a learned, sincere, truthful, honorable, and fearless man, incapable of such dishonorable trickery as has been attributed to him. Others are at liberty, of course, to think differently.
The reader of the two preceding paragraphs, in which the captive re- sponded to the first and fourth of the charges which his captors had pre- sented against him, cannot fail to find evidence, of the highest character, that, in his political opinions, Samuel Seabury was, at that time, as he bad previously been, in exact accord with Isaac Wilkins and Frederic Philipse, also of Westchester-county ; and that he was and had been in accord with the great body of Americans, believing and maintaining that the Home Government hund invaded the personal and political rights of the Colonists ; that the latter had just reason for complaints and opposi- tion to the Colonial and Home Governments, because of those grievances ; that the Colonists were justified in their opposition to those obnoxious measures and to those who enacted and promotedl the execution of them, as far as that opposition involved no violation of the Rights of Persons or Properties nor of the Laws of the Land; and that the Continental Congress of 1774, until it passed beyond the prescribed limits of its authority, as that authority had been specifically defined by its constitu- ent Colonies, and until it assumed the unwarranted authority of legisla- tion, thereby closing the open door of reconciliation with the Mother Country, for the promotion of which it had been expressly and solely con- stituted, was worthy of the respect and support which were given to it, by nearly every one, in the Colony. In common with the great body of the Colunista, throughout the entire seaboard, he was sincere in his con- vietious that the Colonies were suffering from the wrongs which had been inflirted on them by the Mother Country ; and he was willing to resort to all lawful means for their relief. But when the entire min- chinery of the party of the Opposition was seized by those who only cared for the offices which they could secure and for the promotion of only a factional struggle for the control of the political power of the Colony, he preferred to remain among the conservatives, and to act, if
"With regard to the second charge, viz. : That " your Memorialist signed a Protest against the pro- " creling- of the Congress, he begs leave to state the " fact as it really is. The General Assembly of the " province of New York, in their session- last winter, "determined to send a petition to the king, a " memorial to the House of Lords, and a remonstrance "to the House of Commons, upon the subject of "American grievances ;? and the members of the "house, at least many of them, as your Memorialist " was informed, recommended it to their constituents " to be quiet till the issue of those applications should "be known. Some time in the beginning of April, as " your Memorialist thinks, the people were invited to "meet at the White Plains to choose delegates for a "Provincial Congress. Many people there assembled " were averse from the measure. They, however, gave " no other opposition to the choice of delegates than " signing a Protest. This Protest your Memorialist "signed in company with two members of the assem- " bly, and above three hundred other people.3 Your " Memorialist had not a thought of acting against the " liberties of America. He did not conceive it to be "a crime to support the measures of the representa- "tives of the people, measures which he then hoped "and expected would have good effeet by inducing a "change of conduct in regard to America. More . "than eight months have now passed since your " Memorialist signed the Protest. If his crime was "of so atrocious a kind, why was he suffered to " remain so long unpunished? or why should he be "now singled out from more than three hundred, to "endure the unexampled punishment of captivity "and unlimited confinement ?
" The other crimealleged against your Memorialist is " that he neglected to open his church on the day of the "Continental Fast. To this he begs leave to answer : " That he had no notice of the day appointed but " from common report : That he reecived no order "relative to said day either from any Congress or " committee : That he cannot think himself guilty of " neglecting or disobeying an order of Congress, "which order was never signified to him in any way :
he acted in my political movement, with the conservative rather than with the revolutionary faction of the party of the Opposition.
Whatever he may have sufferquently become, and the perstentions to which he was subjected by those of the opposite faction of the Opposi- tion would have soured the most amiable of dispositions and have trans- finnied those who were more opposed to the Government than he into active " friends of the Government." when this Memorial was written, and previously thereto, Sammel svabury, like Isaac Wilkins and Frederic Philipe afel the De Lanceys and the great body of the farmers of West- chester-county and those who were not seekers for offices and official power and official emoluments; everywhere, as far as they were po'iti- cally inclined, in any direction, were unchanged, conservative membris of the earlier party of the Opposition to the existing, governing Ministry, without either pretending to be or being, in the slightest degres, what were then known, distinctively. as " friends of the Government, " or what have subsequently become known by the technical teria, as offensive as it was distinctive, of " Tories."
2 Vide pages 55, 56, ante. a Vide pages 71-74, ante.
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WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
139
" That a complaint was exhibited against your " Memorialist to the Provincial Congress of New " York, by Captain sears, soon after the neglect with " which he is charged, and that after the matter was " tilly debated, the complaint was dismissed: ' That " he conceives it to be cruel, arbitrary, and in the " highest degree unjust, after his supposed offense has " bren examined before the proper tribunal, to be " dragged like a felon seventy miles from home, and " again impeached of the same erime. At this rate " of proceeding, should he be acquitted at New " Haven, he may [be] forced seventy miles farther, " and so on without end.
" Further your Memorialist begs leave to repre- " sent : That he has a wife and six children, to " whom he owes, both from duty and affection, pro- "tection, support, and instruction. That his family " in a great measure depend, under the providence of "God, upon his daily care for their daily bread. " That there are several families at West Chester " who depend on his advise as a physician, to which "profession he was bred. That as a elergyman he " has the care of the towns of East and West Chester. " That there is not now a elergyman of any denom- "ination nearer than nine miles from the place of "his residence, and but one within that distance " without crossing the Sound ; so that in his absence "there is none to officiate to the people in any " religious service, to visit the sick, or bury the dead. "Your Memorialist also begs leave to observe: "That in order to discharge some debts which the " necessity of his affairs formerly obliged him to con- ." traet, he, about a year ago, opened a grammar " school,2 and succeeded so far as to make it worth "one hundred pounds, York money, for the year " past. That he was in a fair way of satisfying his " creditors and freeing himself from a heavy incum- "branee. That he had five young gentlemen from "the Island of Jamaica, one from Montreal, four "children of gentlemen now in England, committed "to his care, among others from New York and the " country. That he apprehends his school to be " broken up and his scholars dispersed, probably "some of them placed at other schools, and that it " may be difficult, if not impracticable, again to "recover them. That .if there should be no other "impediment, yet if the people of West Chester are to
1 The ruffianly leader of the banditti who seized Samuel Senbury and destroyed or carried away the property of James Rivington, had had a public controvery with the latter, and had been most ignominiously defeated, (deLancey's Notes on Jones's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, i., 561-566.) The text of the Memorial of Shovel Fabury, in this place, indicated that the same disreputable habitué of Jasper Drake's Brekman's Slip unlicensed alchouse had also had a political tilt with the Rector of St. Peter's Church; in Westchester, with a situilar result. The reader may gather from those facts, without re- sorting to that general fact of the disappointment of Sears, in his serai- ble for " a high office in the American Navy, " of which Bancroft has may mention, just what was the reason that that ruffian was so zralone, in his pursuit of the two who had so signally defeated him. 2 Vilo pages 128, 130, ante.
" be liable to such treatment as your Memorialist hath " lately endured, no person will be willing to trust " his children there. That in this case, your Memor- " ialist must lie entirely at the mercy of his creditors " to seeure him from a jail, or must part with every- " thing he has to satisfy their just demands.
" Your Memorialist, thinking it his duty to use all "lawful and honorable means to free himself from " his present confinement, mentioned his ease to the "judges of the superior court lately sitting in this "town. Those honorable gentlemen - thought it a "ease not proper for them to interfere in; he has, " therefore, no remedy, but in the interposition of the " Honorable House of Assembly.
" To them he looks for relief from the heavy hand "of oppression and tyranny. He hopes and expects " that they will dismiss him from his confinement, "and grant him their protection, while he passes " peaceably through the colony. He is indeed "accused of breaking the rules of the Continental "Congress. He thinks he can give a good account " of his conduct, such as would satisfy reasonable "and candid men. He is certain that nothing can " be laid to his ebarge so repugnant to the regula- "tions of the Congress, as the conduct of those "people who in an arbitrary and hostile manner " forced him from his house, and have kept him now " four weeks a prisoner without any means or pros- "peet of relief. He has a higher opinion of the " candor, justice, and equity of the Honorable House " of Assembly, and shall they ineline to inquire more "minutely into the affair, he would be glad to ap- " pear at the bar of their house, and answer for him- " self; or to be permitted to have counsel to answer " for him; or, in such way as they in their wisdom "shall think best, to grant him relief. And your " Memorialist, as in duty bound, shall ever pray. "SAMUEL SEABURY. " Dated in NEW HAVEN the 20th day of Decem- "ber, 1775."
Three days after this spirited Memorial was written -- there is no record that it was ever laid before a General Assembly 3-as the brave Memorialist subse-
3 We are not inversible of the fact that Hinman, in his Historieal Col. Letione of the part sustained by Connecticut during the War of the Revolution, (page 54%,) stated that samuel Seabury "brought his petition on the "20th day of December, 1776, # to the General Assembly of Connecticut, "then sitting at New Haven ; " and, further, (pag- 551,) that " the peti- "tion, in the Assembly, was referred to a Joint Committee of the two " Honses, with William Sammel Johnson, Esq., as Chairman, who re- " ported that a letter had been received from the President of the New " York Congress, on the subject ; and that to answer said letter, a pub- " lic hearing shonbl be had before both Houses of sail Assembly." We are not insensible, also, that Mr. Seabury addressed his Memorial " To " the Honorable the General Assembly * * * now sitting in New "Haven, in said Colony, by special Order of his Honor, the Governor," (ride page 135, ante.) But the Journal of that Special Session, called by the Governor, and sitting at New Haven. shows " the General Assembly " was adjourned by Proclamation, on the 14th day of December, 1973 ;" and that there was no other Session of the Assembly, from the latter
* Thus stated in that work.
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140.
WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
quently stated, "the gang who took " [him] "pri- "oner thought jiroper to withdraw their guard and "let" [him] " return" to bis desolate home! that he was unable to discharge his official duties with propriety atal accuracy ; " he and his family were subjected to constant annoyances and insults; Puis house was occupied, soon after, by a Company of Cavalry, who consumed or destroyed all the product- of Connecticut, none of whom had been disturbed by | of his Glebe, on which, to a considerable extent, his
It was not pretended that either the Executive, or the Legislative, or the Judicial authorities of the Colony the revolutionary element within that Colony and. all of whom were enabled to discharge all their legitimate functions, had made the slightest move- ment for the relief or for the release of the captive, who, during the preceding nearly five weeks, had been held in captivity, with the entire knowledge
and acquiescence and in the presence of each of those i such of his effects as could be conveniently carried, several departments of the Colonial Government, in one of the Capital-Towns of the Colony. It was not pretended that any one of the seventeen banditti, residents of the Town of New Haven and known to Need there be any surprise that, after such an ex- perience of what, in practice, were "the Liberties of "America," Samuel Seabury's political opinions under- went a radical change -- that he ceased to be of the party of the Opposition to the Ministry then in place ; and that he became, decidedly and firmly, "a friend "of the Government," in other words, an unqualified and distinctive Tory ? " all in authority, had been called to account, by any one in authority, for their flagrant violation of the Law of the land. On the contrary, it is evident that his captors had become tired, since they found that an able and -courageous prisoner, such as Samuel Seabury was, was not likely to be useful to either the general cause of the Rebellion or to those who held him ; and, therefore, without any official action which has been recorded, either by the official pens or by the traditional stylus of history-just as similar political prisoners, within the memory of living men, have been informally and unceremoniously ejected from plaees in which they had been lawlessly con- fined by warrant of no other mittimus than the naked ipse dixit of reekless and law-defying political dema- gogues possessing a revolutionary power to issue such orders-the guards which had barred the outlet from his improvised prison were removed; the doors were opened; and he was permitted to depart, without hindranee, and to return, without molestation, to his home and family.
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He reached Westchester, ou his return, on the see- ond of January, 1776;" but his private affairs were very much disturbed; 3 his School, on which he large- ly depended for the payment of his debts and for the more comfortable support of his family, was broken up; + his present means were very limited-the ex- pense of his month's confinement, in the hands of the banditti, had amounted to the very large sum of ten pounds sterling" -- his papers were so much scattered
family was made dependent ; " he was thus made en- tirely dependent for support on his small stipend as a Missionary of the Venerable Society ; and, finally, like his friend and neighbor, Isaac Wilkins, he was compelled to seek shelter and safety in flight ?- when a favorable opportunity was afforded, he gathered and, with his wife and six children, he fled, first across the Sound, to Long Island and, subsequently, to the City of New York."
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