USA > New York > Westchester County > Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution > Part 6
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The disposition of the majority of the Committee of Correspondence, as well as the line of action which those who controlled it" intended to take, as far as it related to the great body of the unfranchised iuhab- itants and their rapidly increasing influence in the control of the political affairs of the Colony, was clearly defined and boklly presented, at that first op- portunity to do so, in the formation of that very im- portant Sub-Committee, in which the well-known . "fee-House on Thursday last, the Merchants and Mechanicks, who were "opposed to the Committee of Correspondlence consisting of Fifty-one "Persons, have, for the salutary Purpose of Culou among ourselves, "agreed to that Simuler ; and that the Gentlemen whose Names were " published in Mr. Gaine's last Paper, be the Committee for this City."
The correspondence of Lieutenant-governor Colden with Guverpor Tryon and with the Earl of Dartmouth very clearly indicates that that remarkable old man w is not deceived by the doings, in politics, of the " Merchants and Traders" and Gentry of New York ; that their social and commercial and professional standing dil not warrant what he re- garded, very reasonably, their temlency toward rebellion ; and that. while he hoped their influence would restrain the violence of those with whom they were associated, he never regar bel them as, truly, friends of the Home Government nor of the sovereign.
5 Minutes of the Conduitice, " New York, Monday, May 23. 1751." 6 Bancroft, ( History of the Unitel Nevtex, original edition, vii., 41, 42 ; ¿ sabe, centenary edition, iv., 327,) said " the control fell into the "hands of men who, like John Jay, still aftued at recouriling a contin- "nel depetalence on Euzland with the just fre-lom of the Colonies."
The principal purposes of the Comtuittee, in all which related to na- tional politics, were the protection of those who were constantly em- ployed in Smuggling ; the exemption of the Coloni . from the payment of Import Duties and Direct Taxes levied by the Parliament ; and the continued military protection of the Colonies, at the expense of the Mother Country, unless the unlikely contingency should arie of a vol- untary taxation of themselves, for that purpose. Besides these, the chief purpose of the Committee was to relegate the unfranchised masses of the City of New York, of all clases, to the obscurity and dependence of vassals ; and to place itself at the head of all the political elements of the Colony, as the autocratic, anti-revolutionary ruler of both the Colo- nists and the Government-in all of which, unquestionably, James Duane's and John Jay's were the master minds, within the Committee, : and William Smith's that which was not within it.
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ultra-democratie Chairman was made harinless, in the interest of the conservative aristocracy, by the addi- tion of three of the most conservative members of the Committee, as his associates; and what was known to have been the decided preference of the revolutionary portion of the uufranebised Working- men of the City, by whom the policy and the action of the Town of Boston were known to have been gen- erally approved, was openly, if not defiantly, disre- garded.
At eight o'clock, in the evening, the Committee as- sembled in au adjourned Meeting, thirty-eight of the fifty-one members being present ; and the Sub-com- mittee, which had been appointed at the forenoon session, reported the following draft of a letter, as suitable for a response to the letters received from Boston :
"NEW-YORK, May 23, 1774.
"GENTLEMEN :
" The alarming Measures of the British Parliament, "relative to your ancient and respectable Town, "which has so long been the Seat of Freedom, fill the "Inhabitants of this City with inexpressible Alarm.
" As a sister Colony, suffering in Defence of the "Rights of America, we consider your Injuries as a "common Cause, to the redress of which it is equally "our Duty and our Interest to contribute. But, what "ought to be done in a Situation so truly critical, " while it employs the anxious Thoughts of every "generous Mind, is very hard to be determined.
"Our Citizens have thought it necessary to appoint "a large Committee, consisting of fifty-one Persons, "to correspond with our sister Colonies, on this and "every other matter of publie Moment; and, at ten " o'clock this forenoon, we were first assembled. Your "Letter, enclosing the Vote of the Town of Boston, "and the Letter of your Committee of Correspond- " ence, were immediately taken into consideration."
" While we think you justly entitled to the Thanks "of your sister Colonies, for asking their Advice ou " a Case of such extensive Consequences, we lament "our Inability to relieve your Auxiety, by a decisive "Opinion. The Cause is general, and concerns a " whole Continent, who are equally interested with "you and us; and we foresee that no Remedy cau " be of avail, unless it proceeds from the joint Act "and Approbation of all. From a virtuous and " spirited Union, much may be expected; while the " feeble Efforts of a Few will only be attended with "Mischief and Disappointments to themselves, and "Triumph to the Adversaries of our Liberty.
"L'pou these Reasons, we conclude that a Congress "of Deputies from the Colonies, in general, is of the "utmost Moment ; that it ought to be assembled, " without Delay ; and some unanimous Resolution " formed, in this fatal Emergency, not only respect- "ing your deplorable Circumstances, but for the "Security of our common Rights. Such being our "Sentiments, it must be premature to prononuce any
"Judgment on the Expedient which you have sug- "gested. We bes, however, that you will do Is the " Justice to believe that we shall continue to Act " with a firm and becoming Regard to American " Freedom, and to co-operate with our sister Colonies, " in every Measure which shall be thought salutary " and conducive to the public Good.
"We have nothing to add, but that we sincerely "condole with you. in your unexampled Distressed, "and to request your speedy Opinion of the proposed "Congress, that, if it shall meet with your Approba- "tiou, we may exert our utmost Endeavours to carry "it into execution.
" We are, Gentlemen," etc.
That evidently well-considered paper, probably the production of the mind and the pen of James Duane,! was so temperate in its tone and so judicious in its suggestions, that, after it had been presented as the Report of the Sub-Committee, it commended it-elf to the Committee with so much force, that it was ap- proved without a dissenting voice; " and the Chair- man was ordered to send copies of it, duly signed, to the Committees of Correspondence, in Bostou and Philadelphia.3
It will be seen that the Committee regarded the dispute with-the Home Government as something more than a merely local matter, in which the Town of Boston was the only sufferer ; and that it was not inclined, therefore, to confine its action, as the Vote of that Town had sought to confine it, to the particu- lar subject of the Boston Port-Bill, nor to direct all its efforts, as that Vote had solicited, entirely to the redress of the grievances of that particular Town. On the contrary, it recognized the equal importance of "every other matter of public moment ; " it as- serted that "the Cause was general and concerned a " whole Continent, who was equally interested" with themselves ; and it insisted that " no remedy can be " of avail, unless it proceeded from the joint Act and " Approbation of all." It was not inelined, without
1 We are not insensible of the fact that many suppose that the author- ship of this notable letter belongs to John Jay : bur, because the entire spirit of it is so unlike what he would have prevented in such a letter, written under such circumstances ; and because he is known to have been more inclined to resort to a Non-Importation Agreement than Jan.es Duane was, we prefer to favor the belief that the Litter gentleman wrote it.
" Because it was so entirely antagonistic to the known principles of the Boston-men with whom the minority of the Committee, in their indi- i vidnal relations, had been previously so entirely in accord, this answer to the letters from Boston, approved by the unanimous vote of the Commit- tee. affords additional evidence of the entire good faith of the great buddy of the unfranchised inhabitants of the City, in its concurrence in the ap- pointinent of the Committee of Fifty-one, and of the acquiescence in that appointment of, at least, those of the previously assumed leader- of those inhabitants who had been admitted to seats in that Committee.
3 Minutes of the Committee, 'adjourned Meeting) "NEW YORK, May 23, "1774 ;" Holt's New- York Journal, No. 1638, NEW-YORK, Thursday, May 26, 1774; Gaine's New- York Gazette and Men wry, No. 117s, NEW- York, Monday, May 23; No. 1659, NEW- YORK, Monday, May 30, and No. 11-3, NEW-YORK, Monday, June 27, 1974 ; Hirington's Nove-York Gazetteer, No. 17. NEW-YORK Thursday, May 19, and No. 55, NEW-YORK, Thurstay. Muy 26, 1774.
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due consideration. to paralyze the industries and the commerce of the entire Continent, only for the par- ticular benefit of one Town-it preferred to regard the particular grievance of that Town as only one among many grievances, endured by other Towns. as well as by that, and by the entire Continent ; and it wisely made all those grievances a common cause, and proposed to remedy them, as far as a remedy could be found in America, by a concerted move- ment of all the parties who were suffering from them. It was the first, or among the first, to dis- regard the peculiar selfishness of the popular leaders in Boston, by whom the grievances of that particular Town had been thrust into an undue prominence, for the relief of which, especially, they insistedl, the entire efforts of the entire Continent must be directed ;1 and it was the first to propose and to insist on the convention of a Congress of Deputies from all the Colonies, in which all the grievances which were sus- tained by each and every of those Colonies could be duly considered, and concerted action be secured from the entire Continent, for the relief of all who were aggrieved .? How much, in that well-considered
1 The Committee of Correspondence of Philadelphia, after it had re- ceived and publicly rend the opinions of those who had been nominated as members of the similar Committee, in New York, not yet organized, had, to some extent, done so, at an earlier date ; but the reply of the Committee in New York accompanied that of the Committee in Phila- delphia, Paul Revere having taken both, at the same time, on his return to Boston.
? We are not insensible of the fact that the origin of the Congress of the Continent, which was assembled at Philadelphia, in 1974, has been varionsly stated, by many of those who have preceded ne ; and we are equally sensible of the other fact, that individuals, in different Colonies, without any connection with each other, had suggested, theoretically, that such a Congress would be useful for various limited and, generally. locul purposes, previously to that more general and practical proposition which was made by the Committee of Correspondence in New York, on the occasion under consideration.
The Town of Providence, in Town-meeting, May 17, 1774, was, proba- Fly, the first organized body which recommended a Congress of the sev- erul Colonies, for general purposes ; but it only requested the Deputies of the Town, in the approaching General Assembly, to " use their influ- "ence," in that body, But get waswell si, " for promoting a Congress, as soon "as may be, of the Representatives of the General Assemblies of the "several Colonies and Provinces in North America," for the general purposes of the whole number. I Proceedings of the Town- Marting, reprint- ed in Force's American .techires, Fourth Series, i., 233 ;) and the Com- mittee of Correspondence of Philadelphia, in its reply to the Committee of Correspondence of Boston, dated " PHILADELPHIA, 36/ 21. 1774,"" com- pared the proposition of Boston, to enter into an Association of Nou- Exportation and Non-Intercourse, with the proposition of New- York, to convene a Congress of the Colonies, without determining which of the two it would approve, . Letter, dated as above stated, ) leaving the subject undecided, until the eighteenth of June, when the Congress was deter- mitted on, by a Meeting of the Citizens, without the intervention of the Committee, Proceedings of the Meeting, reprinted in Force's American Ar- chires, Fourth Series, i., 426, 45.)
Because the General Assemblies of the greater number of the Colonies at that time, could not have elected Inputies to the proposed Congress, even if they had been willing to have done -the Governor having in each case, the power of proroguine or dissolving the Assembly, which, in the greater number of instances, he would have certainly done-the netiun of the Town of Providence, although well intended, could not re- gult in the convention of a Congress : and what was done by the Com- mittee of Correspondence in Philadelphia, was not entitled to the hon- orable mention of it, which Frathingham and others have made, since it aniumnied to nothing, either of approval or disapproval of the New-
and judicious action. the Committee of Correspond- enre, in New York, offended those of the revolu- tionary clique, in that City, who had not been invited to places and seats in that Committee, and how much the revolutionary leaders and the revolutionary popu-
York proposition to convene u Congress. The honor, what there was of it, remains, therefore, with the committee of Correspondence of New- York, as related in the text, of having originated the Congress, on the twenty-think of May, with the additional honor of having established the proposition for such a Congress, in the fare of and notwithstanding the determined opposition of the Ma -- achusetts-men, in Boston, led by Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, and their well-enlogized associates.
The Committee of Correspondente of the Colony of Connecticut con- corred in the reconanendation which the Committee in New York bal trade, on the fourth of June, I Fire Committee of Correspondence of the General Assembly of New York to the Committee of Correspondence of the Colony of tonneetient, " New YORK, Jun- 24, 1774 ; ") the General As- semibly of Rhode Island dil se, on the fifteenth of June, (Journal of the General Assembly, June 15, 1771-Records of Rhode Island. vii .. 246 ; the General Court of Massachusetts dil so on the seventeenth of June, (Jour- god of the House of Representatives, June, 1974;) and the City of Phila- delphia, as above stated, did is on the eighteenth of Jnue.
It bas suited the purposes of -olde to bring forward the doings of eighty-uine members of the dissolved Hluuse of Burgesses of Virginia, assembled at the Raleigh Tavern, at Williamsburg, on the twenty-sev- ruth of May, as a contestant for the loners of New York, in this matter; but that Meeting was held four days after the proposition had been made in New York ; and what it did was only to " recommend to the Com- " mittee of Correspondence that they communicate with the several Cor- " responding Conduittees, ou the expediency of appointing Deputies from "the several Colonies of British America, to meet in a General Con- " gress," etc , which was done on the following day, in which, however, nothing else was done than to solicit, from each Committee, its "senti- "ments on the subject." (Proceedingsof the Meeting, reprinted in the Boston Gazette of June 13, 1774, quited by Frothingham, in his Rise of the Republic, 333.)
The reliability of what is known as "history " may be seen in what has been juifdished concerning this first proposition to convene a Con- gress of the Coloni. s. . Frothingham, (Rise of the Republic, 322,) is the only one who has alludei to the really original, but impracticable, pro- position by the Town of Providence, Without making the slightest all- sion to what was done in New York, Burke's Annual Register for 1175, 6 ; History of the D'ar in America, Dublin : 1770. i., 21 ; Andrews's His- tory of the War with Amerist, , London : 17>5. i., 135; Soule's Histoire des Trmd bes de l'Amirique Anglaise, Paris: 1757, 1., 45; Chez et Lebrun's Histoire politique et philosophique de la Revolution, Paris: an 9. 100 ; Sted- mar's History of the American Har, London : 1994, i., 91, 05 ; Adolphus's History of England, London : 1-05, il., 124; " Paul Allen's" History of the American Revolution, Baltimore : 1822, 1 .. 1:4: Pitkiu's Hotory of the Coated Sodex, New Haven : 1825, 1, 271, 252 ; Wilson's History of the American Revolution. Baltimore : 1524, 100; Grathathe's History of the United States, London : 1-34. i. F4); Losing's Seventeen hundred and seventy-vis, New York : 1-1. 123; his Field-Back of the Revolution, New York : 1551, 11 .. 456 ; Bidpatli's Habry of the Unitof States, New York : las, 216; A. H. Stephens'& Hatog of the United States. New York : 1874. 166, 167; Hohne's History of the United States, New York : 1951, 105, and several others. assigned the propritiou for a Congress to Virginia. Mercy Warren's History of the American Revolution, Boston : 1505, i .. 135: Lendring's If story of the Law crean Berolution, Exeter : 1336, i., 63 ; De Rochelle's Elde Unix d' Afrique, Parts : 1915, 173 : Losking's Histo- . ry of the United States, New York : 1ST, 27 ; and the series of small Histories of the United States, by the same anther, without alluding to what was done in New York. preferred to regard what was done by the House of Representatives of Musst. husetts, on the seventeenth of June, as the origin of the Congress Frethingham's Bier of the Republic, 302, 323, ostentatiously presented what wasdone in Massachusetts and " the "other New England Colonies," and then add with questionable integrity, as It was aopainted with the facts, " the sentiment and determination "of the patriots south of New England were represented in the pro- " cerdlings of the Virginia meeting. " which he described, at cou-iderable length, without making the shghtest allusion to the carlier proceedings of Frunsylvania und New York, where the Congress certainly originated. Gordon's History of the American Besluten, London : IT'S, 1. 322, cor- rectly assigned the origination of the Congress to the Committee of Cor-
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lace of Boston were also offended by it, are well known
The Committee of Correspondence, in New York, to the student of the history of that period '-how ' as it was known to the world, at that time, was created much, also, that action of the Committee, in New York, has been made the text of misrepresentation and abuse, whenever it has been referred to, in the historical literature of New England, from that day to this, is known to all who are acquainted with the peculiar peculiarities of that well-filled class of the productions of American home-industry .?
respondence in New York ; but, without the slightest shadow of truth, it slated that the Committee was controlled by Isaac Sears, who was one of the minority of that body ; and that it was opposed by "the To "ries," not one of which party was then & member of the Committee. Ramsay's History of the United States, London : 1791, i., 114, correctly assigned the origination of the Congress to New York ; but it inaccurately stated that it was done "at the first meeting of the inhabitants," instead of at the first meeting of the Committee which the inhabitants had chosen, a few days previously, for their political leaders. Hildreth's History of the United Nates, New York : 1856, First Series, iii , 35, pre- seuted the, facts as they really took place, giving to the Courmittee of Correspondence of New York the origination of the Congress ; aml Leake's Memoir of General John Lamb, Albany : 1857 ; Dawson's Park and as Vicinity, New York : 185, 33; McDonald and Blackburn's Southern History of the United States, Baltimore ; 1869, 170; and de Lan- cey's Notes on Jones's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, New York : 1979, i., 443, 414, follow that excellent example. Ban- croft's History of the United States, original edition, vii., 40, correctly yields the honor of having originated the Congress, to New York ; but, unaccountably, it assigns it, in New York, sometimes to an imaginary " old committee," which had ceased to exist when the Stamp-Act, which had called it into existence and to which its operations had been limited, was repealed, eight years previously, and sometimes lo the eight or ten men who styled themselves and who were known as ' the Sons of Lib- "erty," all of whom who were members of the Committee of Correspond- ence, appointed at the Coffee-house, were notoriously in accord with the men of Boston, who advocated an immediate suspension of the Commerce of the Continent and opposed the proposition to call a Congress for the general relief of all the Colonies. It is also well known, concerning those "Sous of Liberty " that, after 1766. they made no pretension that a permanent Committee existed ; that their correspondance was conducted in their individual capacities, and not officially, as a Committee ; that none of their correspondence, as far as it is now known, alluded to a Congress of the Colonies, for any purpose ; and that their especially care- ful historian and eulogist, Isaac Q. Leake, not only made no such claim, in their behalf, but expressly and in unmistakable words, gave that hon- or to the Committee of Correspondence which had been appointed by the body of the inhabitants, at the Coffee-house. (Memoir of the Life and Times of General John Lamb, Albany : 1857, 88.) In the same author's centenary edition of that History of the United States, Boston: 1876, iv .. 326, the same statement was made, without the slightest change ; and Lodge's History of the English Colonies, New York : 1881, 489, without Bancroft's airy rhetoric, in a far more historical style than that historian employs, in some of his words, and without the slightest change in its substance, perpetuated the error.
Such are the guides which American scholarship, generally fettered with bonds of Roman and Grecian Literature, has given to the world, for the direction of those who shall aspire to the knowledge of a history of America. Such are some of the evidences of the entire mutrustworthi- ness of the greater puntber of those who, satisfied with that " discipline " to which the Classics have subjected them and without having otherwise anahfied themselves for the proper discharge of their honorable dutiesas historians of their own Country, have contented themselves, in-te.ul, by repeating what others, also fettered by similar obsolete prejudices and equally indolent, have written, and by willingly propagating the errors which local prejudices or indulence or a faulty education or ignorance have produced, while, with greater usefulness to the workl and greater honor to themselves, they might rather have attempted to extirpate theni.
1 An evidence of that feeling may be seen in the letter from Thomas Young to John Lamah, dated " Boston, 19th June, 1774," in the " Lamb " Papers," New York Historical Society's Library:
2 From the days of Doctor Gordon until the present time, as far as our knowledge extends, Hildreth is the only New Englander, among histori-
only as a local organization, for only special purposes, and with only a very limited and a very clearly defined authority.3 But it very soon became evident that some, at least, of those who had promoted the organ- ization of that Committee, only for limited and well- defined purposes, and who had subsequently assumed the entire control of its action, were well-inclined, for the advancement of their individual and family and factional influence and interests, to use every opportunity for the increase of the authority of the Committee, which was or which might be, in any way, afforded ; and that they were not ill-disposed, in the prosecution of their peculiar purposes, to assume and to exercise authority which had not been vested in that or in any other organization, and limited only by their own ill-sustained views of expedieucy and pro- priety, cannot be, successfully disputed." Notably among those instances of authority unduly assumed by the Committee, was its early attempt to place itself at the head of all those, in every other County in the Colony, who were inclined to be or who were likely to become disaffected and revolutionary ; which may be regarded as the second successful movement of the rapidly advancing revolutionary elements in the Colony of New York, among those who assumed to regard a revolution, conducted by themselves, as commendable and praiseworthy, while such a revolu- tion, controlled by others, would be regarded and re- sisted, by them, as worthy only of condemnation and to be extirpated, the latter regardless of every other consequence.
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