CHAPTER VII. On the 18th of October, 1770, John, Earl of Dunmore, arrived in New York to occupy the gubernatorial chair, left vacant by the lamented Sir Henry Moore. 1770. The new Governor is described, in a letter to Sir William Johnson, as "a very active man, fond of walking and riding, and a sportsman." This description affords a clue to the character of the man-easy in his disposition, and one who preferred the delights of the chase to controversies with his Legislature. There was little likelihood, however, of his being troubled with a body that had of late grown very subservient. The news, moreover, which he brought with him, of his majesty's consent to the bill authorizing the emission of a colonial currency, increased the spirit of loyalty; and when, in his opening speech on the 11th of December, he expressed his pleasure that the example of the loyal subjects of the province had been the means of restoring friendly feelings and confidence between the parent country and the colonists, the address of the Assembly, in reply, was a simple echo. During the entire 1771. session, therefore, the wheels of government rolled smoothly; and at its close, on the 16th of February, 1771, the loan bill was passed, as was also the one for appropriating two thousand pounds for the support of the troops. The crown had seemingly triumphed ; but the end was not yet. On the 8th of July, 1771, Sir William Tryon, Bart., having rendered himself odious to the people of North Carolina by his petty tyranny, arrived in New York, bearing his majesty's commission as Governor and Commander-in-Chief, in the place of Lord Dunmore, who was transferred to the government of Virginia. The year 1771 was also marked by the founding of the New York Hospital. The first regular meeting, after its organization, was held on the 24th of July, 1771. The hospital began by the reception of lunatics, and patients who were suffering from small-pox and syphilis. Fractures and maniacs appeared together on the reports of diseases. In 1798, the governors announced that the hospital was, properly, an infirmary for the reception of such persons as require first, medical treatment; second, chirurgical management; third, for maniacs; and fourth, for lying-in women. Two hundred pounds were voted as the beginning of a library. The meetings of the governors were held for a long time at Bolton's tavern, or at the Coffeehouse. Bolton's was celebrated for fifty years as a place of resort, like our modern Delmonico's, and was still better known as Sam Francis's tavern. Here Washington bade farewell to his officers, December 4th, 1783. The building is still standing on the south-east corner of Broad and Pearl Streets. The Coffee-house, sometimes called "The Merchants' Coffee-house," stood on the south-east corner of Wall and Water Streets, recently occupied by the Journal of Commerce. The slip near it was known as "Coffee-house Slip," at the foot of Wall Street. The meal or flour market was close by. The river then came up to Water Street. When the governors purchased the five acres on which they built in 1771 (a part of the Rutgers farm), the spot selected was upon a spur or hill, surrounded on three sides by marshes. The water of two ponds, or "kolcks," frequently over flowed meadows where now is the corner of Pearl and Chatham Streets, so that ferry-boats were used. Rutgers had suffered so lamentably with fever and ague that he had some years before prayed the King for a better title to his marshes, so that he might sell them to somebody willing to make drains, because the inhabitants lost onethird of their time by sickness. Governor George Clinton complained, in 1746, to the Duke of Newcastle, that his son had an ague and fever about ten months, which had worn him to nothing. Where the Astor House stands, there was, in 1780, an encampment of negro slaves who had been enticed by Lord Dunmore from Virginia. They died in large numbers of small-pox, and were buried where Stewart's store, corner of Broadway and Reade Street, now stands. John Quincy Adams saw New York in 1785 for the first time, and found the city had then but 18,000 inhabitants. He says that while he tarried at John Jay's, that gentleman was laying the foundation of a house on Broadway, a quarter of a mile from any other dwelling. Mr. Jay lived nearly opposite the hospital. In 1780, a duel was fought behind the hospital, as the most retired spot for the purpose. The cow-pastures extended from Grand Street down to the hospital, which adjoined the Raneleagh Gardens. Beyond St. Paul's church were fields, orchards, and swamps. G. W. P. Custis, who was a member of Washington's family while the President resided in New York, spoke of St. Paul's church as quite out of town, and of playing on a fine green common where the Park Theater stood. William A. Duer, in his reminiscences that began after the war, in 1784, speaks of having often passed on skates from the "kolck" under the bridge at Broadway and Canal Street; and, pursuing the outlet to the meadows, he would proceed over them to the north beyond Hudson Square, and to the south as far as Duane Street, then |