USA > New York > Westchester County > Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution > Part 5
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fostered by the most aristocratic of her citizens, from the beginning of its existence, was one of the most powerful of tho-e instrumentalities which, at that very time, were sapping the foundations of the Throne, in' the Colonies; and it was through the proposition and the persi-tent effort of that particular Committee, that, Very soon after it was organized, another and yet more influential body was created, composed of influential anh able men, mainly from the higher classes of . wirty, by whom, not long afterwards, the Home Cinemaout was arraigned before the bar of the entire world, on well-sustained charges of Usurpation ant Oppression ; by whom, also, the standard of a united Rebellion of all the Colonies was raised; and by whom a revolutionary power, united and energetic, extending throughout the entire seaboard, was raised for its support. In opposition to the purposes and the demands of the small revolutionary element, in New York-in opposition, also, to the leaders and the revolutionary populace, in Boston, with whom the revolutionary leaders in New York were in constant correspondence and in entire harmony-the Com- mittee which the conservative, anti-revolutionary aristocraey of New York had thus created for the protection and the promotion of its own particular interests, the domestic as well as the foreign, originally proposed and persistently insisted on the organization of a Congress of Delegates from all the Colonies, for the united consideration of all the matters in difference between all the Colonies and the Home Government ; and it was that Congress, thus called into existence by an anti-revolutionary body, by assuming authority which had not been delegated to it and by disregard- ing the expressed opinions and intentions of those who were represented therein-at the expense, also, of its own consistency, in excepting one of the Colo- nies from the provisions of its Association, in order to secure the vote of that Colony for the enforcement of that Association upon all the other Colonies -- which not only closed the door of reconciliation with the Mother Country, which it was expected to have opened to its widest extent ; but, practically, it organ- ized a systematic and general Revolution, throughout the entire seaboard, which, ultimately, led to the over- throw of all monarchial power, within the entire territory of each and every one of its several constitu- ent Colonies. Such a notable instance of the thing which had been created for a specific purpose, having been turned, in the progress of events, by the tact of a small proportion of its members, without violence and by some of those who had favored and assisted in the construction of it, against the greater number of those who had created it and for the overthrow of their purposes in having done so, as was seen in the instance of that Committee of Correspondence in New York and in its notable results, is worthy of notice and remembrance; and it may well serve, also, as a perpetual reminder, to those whose political conduct has not been altogether honest, and whose inclinations
have, sometimes, been directed toward something else than that which has been indicated by their professions, that
"There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, " Rough how them how we will."
While the consolidated Opposition, in the City ot New York, was thus actively employed in making preparations for a vigorous opposition to the latest measures of the Home Government and, in order to make that opposition more effective, in transferring the leadership of the confederated party of the Oppo- sition from the few who had previously assumed to lead the revolutionary portion of the unfranchised masses, in the violent proceedings in which, from time to time, the latter had been engaged, to the greater number, of higher social and pecuniary and politieal standing, who formed the large majority of the Con- mittee of Correspondence which it was ereating, as its leader, in its opposition to the Ministry, the Town of Boston, also, was anxiously and carefully preparing for the coming eatastrophe.
On the evening of Tuesday, the tenth of May,1 Cap- tain Shayler arrived in the latter place, bringing intelligence of the passage of the Act of Parliament closing that Port. On the following day, Wednesday, the eleventh of May, the Committees of Correspond- ence from eight of the adjacent Towns were invited to meet the Boston Committee, for consultation ;" and on Thursday, the twelfth of May, those Committees assembled at Faneuil Hall, with Samuel Adams in the Chair and Joseph Warren acting as the leader, on the floor, and determined to send " Circular Letters" to the several Committees of Correspondence, where such Committees existed, in the other Colonics, urging, as the only proposed remedy for the threat- ened grievances, a renewal of that Non-Importation Association which, during the excitement which had followed the passage of the Stamp-Act, had been productive of so much success.3 Ou Friday, the thirteenth of May, a Meeting of the Freeholders and other inhabitants of the Town, legally qualified and duly warned, was holden in Faneuil Hall, Samuel Adams being in the Chair, at which it was voted, "that it is the opinion of this Town, that, if the other "Colonies come into a joint Resolution to stop all "Importation from Great Britain and Exportation to "Great Britain and every part of the West Indies, till
I The Massachusetts Gezette of Thursday, May 12, 1774, printed the text of the Boston Port-bill, in full, with the following heading: " Tues- " day arrived here Captain Shayler, in a Brig from London, who brought "the most interesting and important Advices that ever was received et "the Port of Boston." See, Also, Bancroft & History of the United States, original edition, vii., 31; the stone, centenary edition, iv., 321; Frothingham's Rise of the P .-. publie, 320; etc.
Bancroft's History of the United States, original edition, vil., 35; the atme, centenary edition, iv., 321 ; Frothingham's Rise of the Republic, 3_1. 3 Bancroft's History of the United states, original elition, vil., 31-37 ; the same, centenary edition, iv., 321-523; Frothingham's Rise of the B.publi:, 321, etc.
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" the Act for blocking up this Harbour be repealed, I specifically and definitely laid down. and in no other " the same will prove the Salvation of North America line whatever, leaving nothing to the ch ice or the better judgment of the existing circum-lares of any ingenuity contrived no other remedy for their merely local grievance than that specidie suspension of the "and her Liberties. On the other hand, if they con- "tinue their Exports and Imports, there is high reason ; others, any where; that even their New England "to fear that Framl, Power, and the most odions Op- " pression will rise, triumphant, over Right, Justice, "Social Happiness, and Freedom." It was also | entire agricultural and manufacturing industries of " Ordered, that this Vote be forthwith transmitted by "the Mederfor to all our sister Colonies, in the " Name and Behalf of the Town." !
It will be seen, in these faithful statements of the doings of the leaders of the revolutionary party and of the doings of the revolutionary party, itself, in Boston, in May, 1774, that Massachusetts-men, there ; and at that time, recognized the existence of no grievance whatever, in any of the Colonies, except that which had been inflieted on Boston, in the pas- sage of the Boston Port-Bill; that they elevated that local grievance, which had been inflicted only as a penalty for local offenees against existing Statutes, to the level of that general Stamp-Aet, which had been inflicted on every Colonist, throughout the entire Continent, not as a penalty for wrong doing, but as a general Tax, levied only for the increase of the national Revenue ; that they considered that a general determination, by all the Colonies, from Nova Scotia to Florida, to hold no commercial intercourse what- ever with the Mother Country and with all the West Indian Colonies, foreign as well as British, was necessary for the protection of the delinquent Town from the threatened consequences of its persistent violation of the Laws of the Nation ; that they arro- gantly assumed that general action of all the Colonies must be taken, uniformly, in a distinet and clearly defined line, which those Massachusetts-men
all the Colonies, except to the extent of supplying the demand for the productions of their industries for home-consumption only, as well as the specifie sus- pension of all the Commerce of all the Colonies, except that with the French Colonies of St. Pierre and Miquelon, on the coast of Newfoundland-with which, by the bye, so large a portion of the smuggling by Massachusetts-men was, then and subsequently, carried on2-all of which, without any possible abatement, they definitely proposed and positively insisted on ; and that, in their complacency, they dared, also, to assert, if not to threaten, that the con- sequence of disobedience to their audacious proposi- tion, in any of the Colonies, would be the triumphant rise of Fraud, Power, and the most odious Oppression, over Right, Justice, Social Happiness, and Freedom.3 In short, the principles and " patriotic" impulses of those men of Boston began and ended in the proposed promotion of nothing else than their own individual and local interests, at the expense of the entire prostration of business, internal as well as external, except that of Smuggling, from one extremity to the other of the Atlantic scaboard-the warp, the woof, and the filling of their neatly woven web were, in faet, nothing else, whatever, than unadulterated, audacious selfishness; and that selfishness, in that particular connection, was seen, more distinctly than it had previously been seen, when, a few weeks after- wards, the alms of the Continent, which had been sent for the particular relief of the siek and suffering poor of Boston, whom, it was said, the Port-Bill had
1 Proceedings of the Meeting, in Force's American Archires, Fourth Se- ries, i., 331, and in Dawson's The Park and its Vicinity, 32.
See, also, Letter from Thomas Young to John Lamb, " BOSTON, May 13, "1774 ;" Holt's New-York Journal, No. 1ST, NEW-YORK, Thursday, May 19, 1774 ; Harington's Netr-York Gazettevr, No. 57, NEW-YORK, Thursday, May 19, 1774 ; Gaine's New- York Gazette and Mercury, No. 1178, NEw. YORK, Monday, May 22, 1774 ; Lieutenant governor Colden to Governor Tryon, " SPRING HILL 31-t May, 1774 ;" the same to the Earl of Fuert- mouth, "New- York Ist June, 1774 ;" Annual Register for 1775, 4 ; His- tory of the War in America, Dublin : 1779, i., 19, 20 ; Andrews' History of the War with Imericu, London : 1785, i., 131 ; Gordon's History of the Ameri- can Revolution, London : 1758, i., 3414 Wwwey's History of the American Revolution, London : 1701, i., 112; Stedman's History of the American War, London : 1794, i., 93 ; Adolphus's History of England, London : 705, ii., 122, 123 ; " Paul Allen's" History of the American Revolution, " Baltimore, 1822, i., la1 ; Horse's Annals of the American Revolution, Hart- ford: 1924, 179, 180; Pitkin's History of the United States, New Haven : 1×2%, 1., 270 ; Grahame's History of the Failed States, London : 1836, iv., 317. 348 ; Hildreth's History of the United States, New York : 1856, First Series, ili., 34 ; Leake's Memoir of General John Lamb, Albany: 1857, 81-86; Lossing's Seventeen hundred and seventy-sis, New York : 122; Lowing's Field-book of the Revolution, New York : lal, i., 567; Ban- croft's History of the United States, original edition, Boston : 1858, vii., .37 ; the same, centenary edition, Boston : 1876, iv., 323 ; Frothingham's Rise of the Republic, Boston : 1-72, 321; Lodge's History of the Fag- linh Colonies, New York : 15x1, 489; etc.
Lendrum, (History of the United States ;) Lossing, (History of the United States, 184 ;) and Ridpath, (IFstory of the United States ;) made no allusion to this very important Meeting.
"" LORD SANDWICH .- Do not the New England Fishing-ships carry on "an illicit Trade with the French ?
" COMMODORE SHULDHAM .- Certainly : their Ships meet at Sea ; and "they sujudy them with Provisions, Ruin, Stores, and the Ships thein- "selves ; and return loaded with French Manufactures." - Examination of Commodore Shouldbeat, Governor of Nagonalland, before the House of Lords, March 15, 1773.1
3 It will not be out of place, in this connection, to state the fact that Boston could have averted all the evils ascribed to the Boston Port-Bill, by paying for what some of ber lawless inhabitants had destroyed -as property destroyed by mobs, in our day, must be paid for by the County in which it is destroyed, as Alleghany county, Pennsylvania, sorrowfully knows, as one of the several results of the notable " Pittsburg Riot-" of 1×27. She was evidently inchned to do so, in the beginning; but she was counselled by the Canens of Town Committees, prompted by Joseph Warren, not to do so ; and the Committee of Correspondence at Phila- delphia subsequently urged her to pay, without success. As will be seen, in atelier part of this Chapter, however, the intliction of the Ros- ton Port- Bill was a pecuniary advantage to that Town ; and it is not in ;- possible that it was foreseen, at that time, that a payment for the Tea which bad been destroyed by one of her mols, would deprive the Town of all the perenniary advantages to be derived from a refusal to do so.
What wonderful results, arising from that refusal to pay for what a mob had destroyed, have been seen, throughout the world, from that day to this.
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deprived of their usual means of support, were that such principles and such purposes as were thus diverted from the particular purposes for which they presented to the several Colonies, found little favor, had been contributed, and rumployed, instead, for the anywhere, except among those of the assumed leaders particular benefit of Boston's tax-payers, in relieving of the unfranchised inhabitants of the City of New York, who favored revolutionary measure-, and who had not been included in the recently appointed Committee of Correspondence, the Committee of Fifty-one, in that City ?3 them from the necessity of levying an unusual Poor- tax for the relief of the more than usually large number of those who were willing to live on charity ; and in " cleaning Docks, making Dykes, new laying " of old Pavements in the publie streets, etc."-all of On Tuesday evening, the seventeenth of May, Paul Revere, bearing letters from the Committee of Cor- respondence, in Boston, in which were inclosed copies also, in his saddlebags, a very interesting letter from one of the master spirits in that Town, to his corres- pondent in New York, reciting more of the motives of the Massachusetts-men, in their construction of the Resolutions of the Town-meeting in Boston, than was told elsewhere; 5 but there is no evidence that Revere brought anything whatever from the Caucus which had been convened in Faneuil Hall, on the preced- ing Wednesday." In accordance with his instructions, Revere immediately proceeded to Philadelphia, to deliver the letters which had been addressed to the Committee of Correspondence in that City ; i and them " public concerns, of no advantage to any in- " dividual, any further than as a member of the "community to which he or she belonged. Not a : of the Vote of that Town, to which reference has been " single Wharf, Dock, Dyke, or Pavement, belonging . made, arrived in the City of New York -- there was, "to any individual, was ordered to be made or " repaired," notwithstanding many of those who had been really thrown out of employment could have found renumerative occupation in such works of private concern; "but only such " were thus made or repaired " as, by the constant usage of the Town, had "always been supported at the expense of the pub- "lie"-in other words, at the expense of the tax- payers, the aristocracy of that peculiarly democratic and peculiarly revolutionary Town. One of "the "chief concerns of the principal inhabitants" was " for those Tradesmen, whose small funds, though " sufficient for the small purposes of hfe, yet would " soon be exhausted, if their resources were cut off"- How wonderfully similar thoughts, originatedl in different minds, will svinetimes run in parallel grooves, far apart, as in this instance ; and still more wonderful it is, when, as in this istance, the thoughts are nitered in words so wonderfully similar. in other words, for the payment of debts, due by those Tradesmen to those "principal Inhabitants." which, otherwise, would have been worthless-and 3 Alexander McDougal and all those of the former revolutionary leaders who were included in that Committee, as will be seen in the course of this narrative, on the twenty-third of May, hy a formal vote, concurred with their aristocratic, anti-revolutionary associates in con- demuing the proposition of the Town of Boston and in offering another, in its stend : it remained only for John Lamb and those who had not been favored with seats in that body, to continue their agreement, in political affairs, with the revolutionary leaders, in Boston. Nails, and Ropes, and Baizes, and "Shirt-cloths," and Shoes, and other articles were manufactured, at the expense of the charitable, elsewhere, which were disposed of, by the "Gentlemen " who managed the speculation, to whom and at such prices as best answered the purposes of all concerned.1 Need there It will be seen, also, in the course of this narrative, that Boston was not sustained, in her unreasonable demands, by any of the Committees of the larger Towns and Cities, in other Colonies. be any surprise that, as one of their countrymen has since said, without a blush. " the people of Boston, " then the most flourishing commercial Town on the "Continent, never regretted their being the principal " object of ministerial vengeance ; " telling us, at the same time, that the " thousands who depended on their " daily labor for bread said: 'We shall suffer in a ""good cause ; the righteous Being who takes care of " the Ravens that cry unto him, will provide for us "'and ours'"?" Need there be any surprise, also,
+" On Tuesday Evening, arrived here Mr. Revere, who came Express " from Boston, which he left on Saturday, about 2 o'clock in the After- " noot." -- (Holt's New- York Journal, No. 1637, NEW-YORK, Thursday, May 19, 1774.)
$ Reference is made to a letter which was written by Thu mas Yonng, immediately after the adjournment of the Town-Meeting, May 13, and aldressed to John Lamb, in the City of New York. It may be seen among the " Lumb Papers," in the Library of the New York Historical Society ; aml every student of the history of that eventful period will be amely re-paid for whatever time he may spend in a careful perusal of it.
6 The Minutes of the Committee of Correspondence, " NEW YORK, Monday, " May 23, 1771." contain a record of the reading ot " Letters fr un the "Committee of Correspondence of Boston, with a Vote of the Town of " Boston, of the 13th instant, an I a Letter from the Committee of Phil- "alelphia ; " and, in the absence of any allusion to any other letter what- ever. there is no reason for supposing that anything, in a Hlition to these three letters, was received from any other organization or person, at Bos- ton or elsewhere.
; Revere was at Philadelphia, on the twentieth of May, when the in- habitants of that City appointed its Committee of Correspondence ; and, on the following day, he left that City, on his return, carrying with hitu, to New York and Boston, if not to other Towns and Cities on his route, copies of a Circular Letter, probably from the pen of John Dickinson, containing the response of Philadelphia to the Boston Resolutions, and, generally, surveying the political situation of the Colonies, from the Philadelphia standpoint. - ( Proceedings of the Meeting which appointed the Committee, May 20, 1714, and a copy of the Circular Letter, written by the
: A paper, dated "Boston August 20, 17TA," responsive to "a report . Helestrionly propagated in New York "-but without any indication Is whom written or where published-which was printed in Force's A . von Archives, Fourth Series, i., 743, 744.
Ser, sino a Letter from Willow Cooper-the well-known Town-Clerk of theIn-ben Gentleman in New York, dated " Busron : September 12, "1771." writh h in response to inquiries, and with the knowledge of " amis of the Committee appointed to receive donations."
: Bancroft's History of the United States, original edition, vil., 48 ; the nine, centenary edition. iv., 332.
On the thirty-first of May, 1774, John Scollay wrote, from Boston, to Arthur Lee, in London, "Thousand's that depend on their daily labour " for support, must be reduced to the greatest degree of distress and "want. However, they will butler in a good Cause, and that righteous " Being who takes care of the Ravens who cry unto Him, will provide "for them and theirs. "
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those who had been nominated to the Committee of Cartondouce in New York, the Committee itself not Loving been formally established, evidently availed themselves of that opportunity to write to Philadelphia, in which, also, no Committee had been appointed, on the subject of the Boston Resolutions, and, unquestionably, in opposition to the propositions which they contained.1
Those who had been appointed to membership in the proposed Committee of Correspondence of the City of New York-in the "Committee of Fifty- "one," asit was popularly called-were duly assembled, at the Coffee-House, on Monday, the twenty-third of May, 1774, forty-three of the fifty-one being present; and the Committee was duly organized by the ap- pointment of Isaac Low, as its permanent Chairman, and that of John Alsop, as its permanent Deputy- chairman 2-at a subsequent Meeting, Joseph Alli- cocke was appointed Secretary, and Thomas Pettit, Messenger, of the Committee ; " the first two, in whom some authority was vested, being high-toned, anti- revolutionary Merchants ; while the last two, who were not members of the Committee, and to whom no authority was given, were among those unfranchised, revolutionary Workingmen, whom the former had pre- viously looked on with so much disfavor.
Immediately after the organization of the Commit- tee had been completed, a letter was received from " the body of the Mechanics, signed by Jonathan " Blake, their Chairman," informing the Committee of the coucurrence of the Mechanics with the other in- habitants of the City, in their nomination of it; which clearly indicated the entire good faith of the great body of the unfranchised masses, in the transfer of the leadership of the confederated party of the Op- position, from those, with revolutionary tendencies, who had called themselves "Sons of Liberty," to the aristocratic, conservative elements of the party op- posed to the Colonial policy of the Home Govern- ment, which had been made at the Coffee-house, on : the preceding Thursday ; and clearly indicating, also, that whatever the differences between the two fac- tions, on social questions. might be, they were one in all which related to the great political questions of the day, concerning the obnoxious features of the Colo- niał policy of the Home Government, notwithstand- ing the disappointment of some of the assumed leaders of those masses, when they had failed to secure seats in the Committee 4-the sinister purposes of those who
Committee -- both re-printed in Force's American Archives, Fourth Series, i., 310-312. )
1 The Committee of Correspondence of Philadelphia to the Committee of Correspondence to Boston, "PHILADELPHIA, May 214, ITTA," copies of which "were transmitted to New York and most of the Southern Colo- "nies. "
2 Minutes of the Committee, " NEW-YORK, Monday, May 23.1, 1774." 3 Minutes of the Committee, " NEW-YORK, May 30, 17.4."
4 Minutes of the Committee, " NEW-YORK, Monday, May 231, 1774." See also Holt's New York Journal, No. 1BS, NEW YORK, Thursday, May 26, 1774, in which appears the following : "Since the Meeting at the Cof-
had proposed the Caneus which had been assembled at Sam. Francis's had been established; the unfran- chised masses and those who had assumed to be their leaders had been generally hoodwinked; and even the watchful "Sons of Liberty," with here and there an exception, were apparently contented.
At the same meeting of the Committee, the letters from the Committees of Correspondence in Boston and Philadelphia, to which reference has been made, were laid before it. The letter from Philadelphia be- ing only a reflex of what had been written to that Committee by those who had subsequently been con- firmed as members of this, it received no official at- tention, at that time; but those from Boston, which included the Vote of the Town of which mention has been made, were referred to a Sub-committee, com- posed of Alexander MeDougal, Isaac Low, James Duane, and John Jay, with instructions to consider the subject to which those letters were devoted; to prepare a draft of an answer thereto; and to report the same, to the Committee, at eight o'clock on the same evening, to which hoar the Committee then ad- journed.5
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