1702 Our Sachims were arrived two days before I came from home. There are great divisions in Onondage one half of ye Indians are inclined to have a French Jesuit among them ye other half are against it and many of those that are for ye Priests seem to be inclined to hearken to Corlaer and to take a minister to instruct them in ye Christian faith: do give a faddom of Wampum.- Col. Docs. N. Y. iv. 998. Cornbury's Answer. I understand also that some of your people are gone to fetch a Jesuit from Canada not with standing it was concluded by all ye five nations not so much as to suffer one to come into your country much less to send for him Now Brethren whatever I have promised I will take care shall be religiously observed on my part, and since that is my Resolution I expect that what you have promised should in like manner be punctually observed, I am now sending over to England to be supplied with ministers to instruct you in the Christian faith and therefore can stand in no need of any from ye French I shall conclude and hold fast the Resolutions made when ye five nations were here last, and hope ye brethren will doe the same, in token whereof I give you a faddom of Wampum.- Col. Docs. N. Y. iv. 999. [1702, Aug. 1-10. Synod of North Holland held at Eukhuyzen. No references to America.] TRINITY CHURCH AND THE KING'S FARM. Aug. 6, 1702. The King's Farm had been first leased to Trinity Church by Governor Fletcher in 1697. Bellomont had secured the annulling of that lease in 1699. Lord Cornbury in 1702, renewed the lease to Trinity Church during his term of office at an annual rental of sixty bushels of wheat. At a meeting of the Vestry held August 6, 1702. "Mr. Vesey and Mr. Wenham reported, that Mr. Clarkson, dec'd., one of the Tennants of the King's Farme, before his death and after the granting of a new lease from the Right Honorable Edward, Lord Viscount Cornbury, did relinquish his right and interest in the lease thereof to the Church. Captain Wilson, in consideration of a peece of Plate, to be given him by the Corporation of Trinity Church within twelve months next ensuing, doth surrender his interest and right in the said lease for the Farme, to come to the Church, and bears the charges he has bene at, in defending and maintaining the Church's right thereto ". Also: "It is agreed by this Board that George Ryders have the Farme the remaining part of the year till the first of May next, that he shall have liberty to take off his winter and summer grain, provided he plant no Indian Corne next Spring therein, that he sow no more summer grain next spring than winter grain, that he commit not any waste, leave the fences in repair and good order; he paying for the same the sum of thirty five pounds to the Church Wardens for the use of the Church ".- Dix's Hist. Trinity Ch. i. 141. LORDS OF TRADE TO LORD CORNBURY. Cornbury appointed also Governor of New Jersey. To the Right Honorable the Lord Viscount Cornbury. Her Majesty has been pleased to appoint you her Governour of New Jersey, upon the surrender of the Proprietors of their right to the Government of that Province and your Commission and Instructions have been dispatched accordingly. We must recommend to you upon this occasion that you use your best endeavour to 1702 Whitehall, Sept. 24, 1702. - Col. Docs. N. Y. iv. 966. LORD CORNBURY TO THE LORDS OF TRADE. To the Right Honorable the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations. A. In my former letters to your Lordships I acquainted you that at my first arrival in this Province I met with great complaints from the generality of the people here against the persons then in power here but more particularly against Mr. Atwood, Mr. Weaver, Coll. De Peyster, Dr. Staats and Mr. Walters who are the five gentlemen that composed the Council at my arrival here. I hoped at first that Complaints had been greater than they needed have been, but when I looked into the reasons of them I found them inferior to the injuries. The chiefest, honestest and richest inhabitants of this Province had suffered by the wicked contrivances of Mr. Atwood and Mr. Weaver, who had been the cheif Actors of all the mischeifs and misunderstandings here though the others were very willing instruments to assist them as far as they were able in the destroying this Province which appears plainly to me to have been their design hoping no doubt thereby to raise their fortunes to a very great pitch upon the ruines of the English and French inhabitants here in general and most of the richest of the Dutch, who all of them having long enjoyed the benefits of the English Government were not only content to live quietly under it but have always been ready to assist it with their purses as often as required till they saw plainly they were to be made a prey to the unsatiable avarice of the persons above mentioned, B Who had projected the extirpation of the English here. This appears to have been their design by several instances particularly turning the English out of all the Commissions of the peace and Militia through the Province and putting Dutchmen into their places who were generally the meanest of the people, men extremely ignorant of all things few of them understanding the English tongue much less the laws. D. I am sorry the great mortality that we have lately had at York has so much diminished our number there, for in ten weeks time the sickness has swept away upward of five hundred people of all ages and sexes; Some men of note and amongst the rest Capt. Stapleton dyed two days ago, he was Commander of her Majesty's ship Jersey and brought me into this Province. I hope the cold weather will be a great means to abate the fury of it. F. At my arrival here I found Coll. Bayard and one Hutchins an Alderman of the City of New York in prison under sentence of death for High Treason, which Treason was no other than the signing Addresses to the late King and the House of Commons of England complaining of the grievances they labored under and likewise a congratulatory Address to me to be given to me at my arrival into the Province which it seems was treason too. The two original Addresses to the King and Parliament I herewith transmit to your Lordship at the request of the Gentlemen who signed them I send you likewise copies of all papers relating 1702 to Coll. Bayards tryal as I had them from the clerk of the Council and from other persons who had collected them as well as they could, for Mr. Atwood would not permit any minutes to be taken in Court so that I cannot send you so perfect an account as I could wish, but it is the best I could get. Coll. Bayard has lately printed his tryal upon such Minutes as he was able to take himself while he was at the Bar which I likewise send to your Lordships with copies of all the Addresses delivered to me since I came hither by which you will see what a condition the people of this Province were in. N. I must likewise acquaint your Lordships that I have been at Albany to renew the Covenant Chain with the Five Nations of Indians whom I found full of complaints saying we did not keep our promises with them. The conference was pretty long therefore I have troubled you with a particular letter on that subject and likewise send you the conference itself at large therefore I shall say no more upon that matter now. P. I think it my duty to recommend to your Lordships favour and care the case of Coll. Nicholas Bayard and Alderman John Hutchins whom I found under sentence of death for High Treason. If I may take the liberty to give your Lordships my opinion upon the proceedings against those two Gentlemen, I must say they were the most unjust that were ever heard of or known. I always thought that the statute of the 25 of Edward the third had limited Treason, but it seems Mr. Atwood is of another mind, for he declared upon the Bench that whatever was Treason by the Common law before the passing of that Act, was Treason still notwithstanding that Act; If so that Act is of little use to the subject who must be very unhappy under such a Judge. But allow Mr. Atwood to be in the right and allow the papers to be really Treasonable papers (which I conceive they are not) still they are not justly condemned for those papers had at that time never been seen by Capt. Nanfan nor any of the Council nor by Mr. Weaver who was made Solicitor Generall on purpose for that tryal (an office never known in this Province before) nor by the Grand Jury who found the Bill, nor by the petty Jury who tryed the Prisoners so that in truth these men were condemned for supposed written Treason which was never produced in evidence against them, nor proved to be Treason; for I think it is very plain by the oathes of the witnesses both before the Council and in Court that their is nothing like Treason contained in their depositions against the prisoners therefore I conclude that they were condemned unjustly and contrary to the known laws of England, and therefore I hope your Lordships will be pleased to intercede with her Majesty in behalf of Coll. Bayard and Hutchins that the sentence against them may be reserved. There were many other irregularities committed in the proceedings against those men. For example, the special Commission limited the Judges to hear try and determine that very numerical day mentioned in the Commission which was the 19th day of February and they had no power to adjourn to any other day notwithstanding which Mr. Atwood adjourned several times the Court. Another irregularity was with respect to the Grand Jury. Mr. Weaver the new Sollicitor insisted upon it that he had a right to sit with the Grand Jury and that no witness should be examined but such as he should think fit. Four of the Grand Jury opposed this and would not be perswaded to suffer it for which Mr. Atwood dismissed those four men from being of the Jury after they were sworn and possessed of the bill and put in four other men which he thought more for his purpose. There were nineteen persons upon the Grand Jury of which eight would not find the Bill, so there remained but eleven notwithstanding which the foreman It is entitled, "An account of the Illegal Prosecution and Tryall of Coll. Nicholas Bayard, in the Province of New York for supposed high treason in the year 1701/2. Collected from several memorials taken by divers persons privately, the commissioners having strictly prohibited the taking of the tryal in open Court. New York, 1702." Folio pp. 44. The trial is reprinted in Collection of State Trials, of the Grand Jury (who is a brother of Coll. De Peyster) indorsed the Bill, Billa Vera, and when the Council for the Prisoners insisted that the Prisoners could not be put upon their Tryal because the Bill was not only found Mr. Atwood declared that in this case the Grand Jury was but an inquest of office and that though the Bill was found by a less number than twelve it was sufficient to put them upon their tryal and accordingly proceeded. He would not allow any body to take any notes in Court not so much as the Practitioners of the Court. These are some of the irregularities of that tryal I could name many more were I not afraid of tiring you with them. Orange County, Sept. 27, 1702. Col. Docs. N. Y. iv. 971, 972, 973, 974, 975. LORD CORNBURY'S REASONS FOR SUSPENDING THOMAS WEAVER, Esq. October 2, 1702. That pursuant to such his wicked Practises he procured himself to be appointed Sollicitor General (a new office in this Government) for that purpose the Attorney Generall giving his advice and opinion to ye Contrary and declining to appear in such unjust Prosecutions. That in combination with other his confederates he prosecuted Coll. Nicholas Bayard and Alderman John Hutchins and caused them to be condemned as Traytors for new Invented and unheard of Treasons the only facts offered to be proved against them being their advising others and signing themselves and address to His Majesty, and address to ye Honorable House of Commons and another to myself the last being only a civil congratulation on my arrival and with much violence endeavoured to procure the said Bayard and Hutchins to be put to death for the same though the said three Addresses were never procured in Court on those Tryalls nor the matter contained in them ever duly proved. That from the time of my arrivall to the day of his suspension though I have very often desired him I never could obtain any account whatsoever of ye State of ye Revenue or other publick money which had come to his hands and he was accountable for.- Col. Docs. N. Y. iv. 1013. 1702 LORD CORNBURY'S REASONS FOR SUSPENDING CHIEF-JUSTICE ATWOOD. 1702, Oct. 2. Of the said Attwoods partiality I have myselfe always been a witness as often as he hath sate with me in ye Court of Chancery here. That upon my arrival att ye entrance of ye Port of New Yorke Immediately a great number of ye principal inhabitants of ye Province, English, Dutch, and French together with ye minister of ye English Church who had for some time before been drove from their habitations of New Yorke and had been forced to shelter themselves and their goods in the neighboring Province by reason of a violent and unheard of Persecution by ye persons then exerciseing ye Powers of Government in this Province, came to me on board His Majesty's Ship ye Jersey and greivously complaining of ye great hardships and persecution that they and a great number more of ye principal Inhabitants who had been forced to flye into other Provinces more remote, lay under, That had it not been for ye hopes of my speedy arrival from whom the hoped for succour Justice and Releife, the City of New York especially and a great part of ye Province had been left desolate.- Col. Docs. N. Y. iv. 1011. 1702 WILLIAM ATWOOD. 1702. Further information respecting the times, 1701-2, may be found in a small pamphlet, entitled "The Case of William Atwood, London, 1703 ". This has been reprinted by the New York Historical Society in its collections for 1880, p. 237. Atwood was appointed Chief Justice of the Province of New York, and Judge of Admiralty there and in Neighboring Colonies by William III. The above mentioned pamphlet gives also an account of the government and people of the Province, and especially of the circumstances connected with the trial and attainder of Bayard and Hutchins; who were reprieved before Cornbury's arrival upon acknowledging their offences and begging pardon.- Dix, 131. ADDRESS OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE PROVINCE OF NEW YORK 1702, Oct. 2. To the Right Honorable Edward Lord Viscount Cornbury his Majesties Governor of New York. Whereas many of us live remote, and the time of your Lordships arrivall being uncertain, wee have presumed to take this method of expressing the sincerity and fervor of our affections. Humbly addressing your Lordship by this paper, congratulating your Lordships safe arrival and that of your noble Lady and Family. We do assure your Lordship that we have and will alwaies conserve a zealous and steady resolution to support and promote, to the utmost of our power, the Honor and Interest of our most gracious Soveraing, Lord King William (whom God long preserve to Reigne over us) in this part of his Dominions; and if it shall please God, his Majesty see it for the Honor and Interest of the English Nation to engage in a new Warr, wee shall cheerfully undertake the Duty and Charges thereof in these Frontiers Provinces as we have done in all the last Warr; and will not be wanting to your Excellency in the hearty expressions of our duty supporting and supply those your Lordship shall judge necessary to adjust an impartial administration of Government to all his Majesty's subjects Inhabiting this Plantation. We have this entire confidence in your Lordship's great prudence, justice, courage and conduct that with the blessing of God upon your Lordships endeavours we doubt not to enjoy safety and protection from our enemies abroad, Liberty of conscience, Peace and tranquility at home, and that the name of Party and Faction may henceforth vanish with every thing contradictory to the true English Interest. That your Lordship be successfull in attaining all the ends of good government, grown in your Prince's favor, and have the due Reverence as well as the cordial affections of the People here under your directions, live long and happily amongst us to the praise and Glory of Almighty God and your Lordships Satisfaction and contents, are the cordial wishes and constant prayers of your Lordship's most obedient dutiful and humble Servants. Signed by 346 Persons of the City of New York and also by Deputies from ye severall Counties of ye Provinces.- Col. Docs. N. Y. iv. 1005. |