the clouds of national war overshadowed local difficulties. War again commenced between England and Holland in 1672, and in July the following year, a Dutch squadron sailed up the Bay of New York, and, in the absence of the governor, took possession of the fort and town [August 9th, 1673] without giving a shot. The easy conquest was the work of treason; yet, as the royal libertine (Charles the Second) on the throne of England doubtless shared in the bribe, the traitor went unpunished.' New Jersey and the Territories of Delaware' yielded, and for sixteen months [from July, 1673, to November, 1674] New York was again New Netherlands. When the two nations made a treaty of peace, the province was restored to the English, and remained in their possession until our Independence was declared in 1776. These changes raised some doubts concerning the validity of the duke's title, and the king gave him another grant in July, 1674. Sir Edmond Andros was appointed governor under the new charter, and continued arbitrary rule with increased rigor."

At the close of 1683, Governor Andros returned to England, when the duke (who was a Roman Catholic) appointed Thomas Dongan, of the same faith, to succeed him. In the mean while, the duke had listened to the judicious advice of William Penn, and instructed Dongan to call an assembly of representatives. They met [October 17, 1683], and with the hearty concurrence of the governor, a CHARTER OF LIBERTIES was established,' and the permanent foundation of a representative government was laid. The people rejoiced in the change, and were heartily engaged in the efforts to perfect a wise and liberal government, when the duke was elevated to the throne, as James the Second, on the death of Charles, in February, 1685. As king, he refused to confirm the privileges which, as duke, he had granted; and having determined to introduce the Roman Catholic religion into the province as the established church, he commenced by efforts to enslave the people. A direct tax was ordered; the printing press-the right arm of knowledge and freedom-was forbidden a place in the colony; and the provincial offices were filled by Roman Catholics. These proceedings gave pain to the liberal-minded Dongan; and when the king, in his religious zeal, instructed the governor to introduce French priests among the FIVE NATIONS,' he resisted the measure as highly inexpedient. His firm

1

The traitor was Captain John Manning, the commandant of the fort. He was, doubtless, bribed by the Dutch commander; and the fact that the king screened him from punishment, gave the color of truth to the charge that the monarch shared in the bribe.

3

Page 251.

2 Page 96. Page 129.

The duke claimed the country from the Connecticut River to Cape Henlopen. Andros attempted to exercise authority eastward of the line agreed upon by the Dutch and the Connecticut people [note 2, page 142], and went to Saybrook in the summer of 1676, with an armed party, to enforce the claim. He met with such resistance, that he was compelled to return to New York without accomplishing his design. See page 116.

The Assembly consisted of the governor and ten councillors, and seventeen deputies elected by the freeholders. They adopted a Declaration of Rights, and asserted the principle, so nobly fought for a hundred years later, that taxation and representation are inseparable; in other wordsthat taxes can not be levied without the consent of the people, expressed by their representatives. At this time the colony was divided into twelve counties. 7 Page 23.

8

This measure would have given the French, in Canada, an influence over the Indians that might have proved fatal to English power on the Continent. The FIVE NATIONS remained the fast friends of the English, and stood as a powerful barrier against the French, when the latter twice invaded the Iroquois territory, in endeavors to reach the English, at Albany.

ness gave the people confidence, and they were again on the eve of open rebellion, when the intelligence of the flight of James, and the accession of William and Mary' reached them. They immediately appointed a committee of safety, and with almost unanimous voice, sanctioned the conduct of Jacob Leisler (an influential merchant and commander of the militia), who had taken possession of the fort in the name of the new sovereigns, and by order of the inhabitants. Afraid of the people, Nicholson, the successor of Dongan, fled on board a vessel and departed, and the people consented to Leisler's assuming the functions of governor until a new one should be appointed. The aristocracy and the magistrates were offended, and denouncing Leisler as a usurper, they accused him of treason, when Governor Sloughter arrived, in 1691.

Leisler, in the mean while, conducted affairs with prudence and energy. Having the sanction of the people, he needed no further authority; and when a letter from the British ministers arrived [December, 1689], directed to Governor Nicholson, "or, in his absence, to such as, for the time being," conducted affairs, he considered it as fairly addressed to himself. Milborne, his son-in-law, acted as his deputy, and was included in the accusations of the magistrates, who had now retired to Albany. They held Fort Orange' until the invasion of the French, in February, 1690,' when they felt the necessity of claiming the protection of the government at New York. They then yielded, and remained comparatively quiet until the arrival of Richard Ingoldsby, Sloughter's lieutenant, early in 1691. That officer announced the appointment of Henry Sloughter as governor; and without producing any credentials of authority, he haughtily demanded of Leisler [February 9, 1691] the surrender of the fort. Of course Leisler refused compliance; but as soon as Sloughter arrived [March 29], he sent a messenger to announce his desire to surrender all authority into his hands. Leisler's enemics had resolved on his destruction; and when he came forward to deliver the fort, in person, he and his son-in-law were seized and cast into prison. They were tried on a charge of treason, found guilty, and condemned to suffer death. Sloughter withheld his signature to their death warrant; but, when made drunk at a dinner party prepared for the purpose, he put his name to the fatal instrument. Before he became sober, Leisler and Milborne were suspended upon a gallows on the verge of Beekman's swamp May 26, 1691], where Tammany Hall-fronting on the City Hall Park, New York-now stands. These were the proto-martyrs of popular liberty in America.

4

Henry Sloughter was a weak and dissolute man, yet he came with an earnest desire to promote the welfare of the colonists. He convened a popular assembly, and formed a constitution, which provided for trial by jury, and an exemption from taxes, except by the consent of the representatives of the people. Light was thus dawning hopefully upon the province, when delirium

1 Note 7, page 113.

3

At this time, Schenectada was desolated. See page 131.

Note 9, page 139.

Their estates were confiscated; but after a lapse of several years, and when the violence of party spirit had subsided, the property was restored to their families.

tremens, at the close of a drunken revel, ended the administration and the life of the governor [August 2, 1691], in less than three months after the murder of Leisler and Milborne. He was succeeded by Benjamin Fletcher, a man of violent passions, and quite as weak and dissolute, who became the tool of the aristocracy, and was hated by the people. Party spirit, engendered by the death of Leisler, burned intensely during the whole administration of Fletcher ; and at the same time the French and Indians, under the guidance of Frontenac, the able Governor of Canada,' were traversing the northern frontiers of the province. Fletcher prudently listened to the advice of Major Schuyler,' of Albany, respecting the Indians; and under his leadership, the English, and their unwavering allies, the FIVE NATIONS, successfully beat back the foe to the St. Lawrence, and so desolated the French settlements in 1692, in the vicinity of Lake Champlain,' that Frontenac was glad to remain quiet at Montreal.

A better ruler for New York now appeared. The Earl of Bellomont, an honest and energetic Irish peer, succeeded Fletcher in 1698; and the following year, New Hampshire* and Massachusetts were placed under his jurisdiction. He commenced reform with great earnestness, and made vigorous efforts to suppress piracy, which had become a fearful scourge to the infant commerce of the colonists. With Robert Livingston' and others, he fitted out an expedition under the famous Captain Kidd, to destroy the buccaneers. Kidd, himself, was afterward hung for piracy [1701], and the governor and his sons were charged with a participation in his guilt. At any rate, there can be little doubt that wealthy men in the colony expected a share in the plunder, and that Kidd, as a scape-goat for the sins of the others, was the victim of a political conspiracy.*

Unfortunately for the colony, death removed Bellomont, on the 16th of March, 1701, when his liberal policy was about to bear fruit. He was succeeded by Edward Hyde (afterward Lord Cornbury),' a libertine and a knave, who cursed the province with misrule for seven years. He was a bigot, too, and persecuted all denominations of Christians, except those of the Church of England. He embezzled the public moneys, involved himself in heavy debts, and on all occasions was the practical enemy of popular freedom. The people

2

1 From 1678 to 1682, and again from 1689 to 1698, when he died, at the age of 77.

Peter Schuyler. He was mayor of Albany, and acquired unbounded influence over the FIVE NATIONS of Indians. See page 23.

3

Schuyler's force was about three hundred Mohawks, and as many English. They slew about three hundred of the French and Indians, at the north end of the lake. • Page 79. Page 117.

5

Because Spain claimed the exclusive right to the West India seas, her commerce in that region was regarded as fair plunder. Privateer commissions were readily granted by the English, French, and Dutch governments; and daring spirits from all countries were found under their flags. The buccaneers, as they were called, became very numerous and powerful, and at length depredated upon English commerce as well as Spanish. Privateers, or those legally authorized to seize the property of an enemy, became pirates, or sea robbers. Privateering is only legalized piracy.

An immigrant from Scotland, and ancestor of the Livingston family in this country. He was connected, by marriage, with the Van Rensselaer and Schuyler families; and in 1685, he received from governor Dongan a grant of a feudal principality (see patroon, page 139) on the Hudson, yet known as Livingston's Manor.

King William himself was a shareholder in the enterprise for which Kidd was fitted out. Kidd appeared publicly in Boston, where he was arrested, then sent to England, tried, and executed. Page 161.

9

finally demanded and obtained his recall, and the moment his official career ceased, in 1708, his creditors cast him into prison, where he remained until his accession to the peerage, on the death of his father.' From this period until the arrival of William Cosby, as governor [1732], the royal representatives," unable to resist the will of the people, as expressed by the Assembly, allowed democratic principles to grow and bear fruit."

4

The popular will and voice now began to be potential in the administration of public affairs. Rip Van Dam, "a man of the people," was acting governor when Cosby came. They soon quarreled, and two violent parties arose the democratic, which sided with Van Dam, and the aristocratic, which supported the governor. Each party had the control of a newspaper, and the war of words raged violently for a long time. The governor, unable to compete with his opponent, finally ordered the arrest of Zenger [November, 1734], the publisher of the democratic paper, on a charge of libel. After an imprisonment of thirty-five weeks, Zenger was tried by a jury, and acquitted, in July, 1735. He was defended by Andrew Hamilton, of Philadelphia, who was presented by the magistrates of the city of New York with a gold box, as a token of their esteem for his noble advocacy of popular rights. Then was distinctly drawn the line of demarcation between republicans and royalists (Whigs and Tories),' which continued prominent until the war of the revolution was ended in 1783.

From the arrival of Cosby until the commencement of the French and Indian war, the history of New York is composed chiefly of the records of party strife, and presents very little matter of interest to the general reader. Only one episode demands special attention, namely, the excitement and results incident to a supposed conspiracy of the negroes, in 1741, to burn and plunder the city, murder the inhabitants, and set up a government under a man of their own color. Several incendiary fires had occurred in rapid succession, and a house had been robbed by some slaves. The idea of a regular and horrid conspiracy at once prevailed, and, as in the case of the Salem Witchcraft,' an intense panic pervaded all classes, and many innocent persons suffered. This is known in history as The Negro Plot.

1

8

According to an unjust law of England, a peer of the realm (who is consequently a member of the House of Lords [note 2, page 218]) can not be arrested for debt. This law, enacted in the reign of Henry the Eighth, still prevails.

2 Lord Lovelace, Ingoldsby, Hunter, Schuyler, Burnet, and Montgomerie.

We have already noticed (page 135) the breaking out of Queen Anne's War, in 1702, and the successful expeditions fitted out and sent in the direction of Montreal in 1709 and 1711. The debt which these expeditions laid upon New York, was felt for many years.

The New York Weekly Journal (democratic), by John Peter Zenger; The New York Gazette (aristocratic), by William Bradford. The latter owned the first press ever set up in the province. He commenced printing in New York in 1696. See note 3, page 179.

5 Note 4, page 226.

6

Page 179.

Page 132.

Before the panic was allayed, four white people were hanged, and cleven negroes were burned, eighteen were hanged, and fifty were sent to the West Indies and sold.