XIII. guns. They therefore resolved, that the said letters were CHAP. rebellious, scandalous, and seditious; that they were designed to inflame the minds of the good people of the 1765. colony against their representatives; and that an address should be presented to the governor, requesting him to offer a reward of fifty pounds for their author or authors, that they might be brought to "condign punishment;"pledging themselves, at the same time, to provide the means for defraying the above reward.1 On the third of December, the governor, by Mr. Banyar, sent down a message to the house, in which the latter was informed that by the mutiny act, passed during the last session of parliament, the expense of furnishing the king's troops in America with quarters and other necessaries, was to be defrayed by the several colonies. In consequence thereof, the commander-in-chief had demanded that provision should be made for the troops, whether quartered within, or marching through the province; and it was now requested to make provision accordingly. This request was at this time exceedingly inopportune. It involved a question, which in Lord Loudoun's timewhen the country was engaged in a disastrous war, and when therefore there was a seeming necessity for such provision-bad been productive of ill feeling, and almost of riots. It may readily be seen, therefore, that when no such necessity existed, and when the public mind was in such an excited state, the assembly were in no mood to comply. The message was accordingly referred to a committee of the whole house, of which Robert R. Livingston was the chairman. On the nineteenth, they reported against it on the following grounds;-that when his majesty's forces were quartered in barracks belonging to the king, they were always furnished with necessaries without any expense to the counties in which they were quartered; and that if any expense was necessary for quartering 1 Journals of the assembly. XIII. CHAP. troops on their march, and supplying them with what was required by the act, the house would consider thereof 1765. after the expense was incurred.' Sir Henry Moore was too prudent a man to press the matter farther; and having satisfied his duty to the crown by the formal demand for quarters, he allowed the matter to drop for the present. Numerous acts were passed during this session; among which was one for vesting the stone wall, erected during the war on the north side of Albany for its defense, in the corporation of that city; and another for building a pier in the river to prevent damages by ice. After which the assembly, having drawn up a declaration of rights setting forth that his majesty's subjects were entitled to all the rights and privileges of Englishmen, not having forfeited them by their emigration to America, adjourned, on the twenty-third of December, to the following March. What were the views of Sir William Johnson upon the question which was now agitating all classes of community? This query is an interesting one, not only from the prominence of the man, but from the fact that it has always been taken for granted that his sympathies must have been, as a matter of course, upon the side of the crown. In elucidating this point, I think I am justified, after careful investigation, in stating, that when the troubles between the colonies and the mother country first began, so far from giving the ministry an unreserved support, he was decidedly non-committal. In a letter to the commanderin-chief, under date of September twelfth, he expresses himself upon the topic then uppermost in every mind, to say the least, in a very equivocal manner. "The change of men at home," he writes, in September, to General Gage, "may have produced a change of measures, and the affairs of the colonies in general may have engaged their attention, and will doubtless do so much more, when they hear of the riotous conduct of some of the Ameri1 Journals of the assembly. XUL cans, which has proceeded such lengths as must give us CHAP, reason to think that any ministry will take notice of it." Again in the same letter: "Although no great part of 1765. my landed estate was purchased from the Indians, neither is it equal in its whole extent to what former secretaries for Indian affairs acquired from them, yet it is, perhaps, more improvable than many others; and, therefore, having a property to lose, I cannot be supposed to think differently from the real interests of America; yet as a lover of the British constitution, I shall retain sentiments agreeable to it, although I should be almost singular in my opinion, and I have great reason to think that the late transactions, and what is daily expected in other colonies, will be productive of dangerous consequences-as I do not enter into their debates, nor suffer myself to be led by the artful constructions of the law. I know you will excuse my freedom in offering my thoughts." Again in another letter to a friend, he writes. "For my part, I neither wish us here more power than we can make a good use of, or less liberty than we have a right to expect."2 The cautious and non-committal tone of these extracts is apparent. Indeed, it is difficult to understand how one, whose feelings were ever peculiarly sensitive to injustice, and whose life was spent in shielding a persecuted race from oppression, could have been an uninterested spectator of events then occurring. Very many of his warm personal friends in the Mohawk valley, had espoused the cause of the colonies; and the presumption is, that had not his independence been shackled by the honors of the peerage and his obligations to the crown, he would boldly have advocated the side of the people. 1 Manuscript letter; 12 Sept., 1765. 2 In his correspondence at this time occurs also passages, of which the following are fair specimens. "I wish we may always meet with the moderation from the British crown." "I heartily congratulate you on the repeal of the Stamp Act." "The crown must pay for it [i.e. the troubles] all at last." "Unless they alter the Stamp Act, we shall all be Republicans." Exumo disce. CHAP. The Sons of Liberty were still in the ascendant. The last week in November, two hundred of them crossed over 1766. to Flushing, and compelled the Maryland stamp distributer, who had fled thither for safety, to sign a resignation of his office. In December, ten boxes of stamps were seized on their arrival in port and consumed in a bonfire. "We are in a shocking situation at present," wrote Alexander Colden to Sir William Johnson, with whom the former was on terms of intimacy," and God knows how it will end. Its not safe for a person to speak, for there is no knowing friend from foe."1 1 Manuscript letter; Alexander Colden to Sir William Johnson, 2d Decem1765. ber, CHAPTER XIV. 1766. XIV. 1766. It would have been strange if Sir William Johnson, CHAP. who had risen from the body of the people to such prominence in the colony by his own ability, and who had, moreover, thwarted so many, in their schemes of aggrandizement at the expense of the Indians, should not have presented a conspicuous mark for the envenomed shafts of malice and jealousy. In the beginning of this year, reports were circulated that he had incurred the royal displeasure, and that he was to be removed in disgrace. It was, therefore, with peculiar pleasure, that he received, in January, the intelligence that his son John, upon. his presentation at court immediately on his arrival in England, in November last, had been created a knight. The temperament of the Baronet was such as to render him miserable unless actively employed. Having therefore a little leisure by the termination of Indian hostilities, he turned his attention more particularly to personal and home matters. Accordingly, during the spring months, we find him busily engaged in erecting a grist mill for his tenantry; overseeing the building of an Episcopal church in Schenectady, of which he was the patron; and-having taken a past-master's degree in March-fitting up, at his own expense, a masonic lodge at Johnson Hall. He also built two commodious stone dwellings for his sons-in-lawthe families of whom had hitherto resided at the hallinto which they removed the latter part of March.2 1 Sir John Johnson, was the last Provincial Grand Master of the province of New York. 2 With each of these dwellings the Baronet conveyed a farm of six hun |