A CHAPTER IN THE STORY OF LIBERTY.
WHEN the conference opened, August 19, Dr. Cadwallader took the place of
Governor Clinton, who was down with fever. The two delegates from
Massachusetts, Mr. Nelles and Colonel Wendell, were also present, but
none from Connecticut appeared. Colden’s speech was a bubble of
rhetoric, fairly dazzling with the prismatics of a lively imagination.
It rehearsed facts, fancies, and prophecies appropriate to the
situation. The colossal but purely mythical preparations supposed to be
made in Great Britain, in the reality of which the sailor-governor
himself heartily believed, were duly set forth. Then the wrongs suffered
by the Indians at the hands of the “perfidious” French were detailed,
until the braves were stirred in eye and nostril, and the chiefs grunted
out, “Yo-hay! yo-hay!” (“Do you hear! do you believe!”), and general
applause in Indian fashion followed as the interpreter finished each
sentence. The war spirit was further roused by flatteries which fell
like oil on the flames, kindling the fiercest enthusiasm. After the
usual promises of gifts and equipment, with assurance of reward and
booty in the future, the orator wound up by narrating the murder of some
white men, their brothers, even since their arrival in Albany, and
calling upon his hearers for immediate and permanent revenge.
Taking it all in all, this speech of Clinton and Colden’s is a fair
sample of the lies, false promises, and irresponsible assertions on
which the red man has been fed, from the first coming of the whites, to
the battle with the Sioux, near Pine Ridge Agency, in January, 1891. The
proper peroration of the speech, according to Indian etiquette, was the
casting down of a wampum war-belt with verbal assurances and in symbolic
intent that the British would live and die with their brethren the
Iroquois. When this was done, a war-whoop was raised that must have been
heard in every cabin and iron-monogrammed brick-house in the colony and
manor.
On that very day, as was soon afterward learned, the French were at Fort
Massachusetts,[5] which had been built by Col. Ephraim Williams. It
stood in the meadows east of Williamstown, under the shadow of old
Greylock, beyond the present town of North Adams. After two days’ siege
the brave garrison surrendered and were led away to Canada. The French
lost forty-seven men. The fort was afterward, in 1747, rebuilt, and was
the scene of more than one attack by the enemy.
The council-fire was then raked up, so that the braves might have time
to sleep, smoke, and deliberate for reply. When the council re-opened on
the 24th, the governor was present, and the first orator at the
rekindled fire was an Onondaga chief. After the usual efflorescence of
forest rhetoric, he promised in the name of the Seven Nations—a small
army of eight hundred braves from Detroit and the Lake country, the
Missesagues, having temporarily joined the confederates for the common
purpose—to dig up the hatchet against the French and their allies. They
further agreed to roast alive any French priest who came among them. The
next day was devoted to distributing the presents sent from the king and
the governors of Virginia and Massachusetts; the new tribe, Missesagues,
receiving one fourth. On the 26th the kettle was hung over the fire, and
a great war-dance held, in which, after unusual smearings of paint, the
weird, wild, and guttural, but pathetic songs were sung. After a few
private interviews with the chiefs, and further tickling of their palms
with presents and their stomachs with fire-water, the council-fire was
put out by separation and scattering. Part of the Valley Indians
remained in Albany, in token of their loyalty to the English, while most
of them returned to their castles to organize war-parties. Unfortunately
an epidemic of the small-pox broke out at this time all along the
Valley, carrying off hundreds of the Indians, among whom were the two
delegates from the Missesagues.
Other councils were held with lesser bodies of Indians; and Johnson,
despite the raging of the small-pox among the Valley Indians,
endeavoured to keep the savages on the war-path toward Canada; but
little was accomplished during the summer. While the coming French fleet
was destroyed by storm, Johnson increased his fortune by being appointed
government contractor for Oswego, and his fame by being commissioned by
Clinton as Colonel of militia. The only campaign in 1747 was one of
paper and ink, Shirley and Clinton being the chief combatants. There
were also raids and fights on the New England borders, but little took
place that needs to be chronicled here. Clinton and De Lancey kept up
their quarrels; the former warning Johnson of his illustrious relative,
venting his wrath on the Dutch legislators, and taking high-handed
vengeance on Judge Daniel Horsmanden. This champion of the Assembly and
people, and one of the ablest jurists in the province, was most
obnoxious, politically, to the king’s representatives. He was also
personally offensive as being the co-worker with Chief-Justice De
Lancey.
On the 12th of September Horsmanden was suspended from service as a
member of the council. The fact was published in the journal; but no
reason was given for this, except that the governor announced that he
would explain his action to the king. Horsmanden was also removed from
his other positions,—as commissioner to meet the representatives of the
other colonies, and as judge and recorder of the city. This act of the
governor’s still further irritated the “stubborn Dutchmen,” whose
hostility now turned into a war to the knife. Even though savages were
ravaging the suburbs of New York, it is doubtful whether they would have
been turned from their determination to fight absolutism, in the person
of Clinton. When the governor announced the return of Johnson from his
fruitless search after the enemy at Crown Point, the temper of the
Assembly was not improved. They were tired of having the praises of
Johnson sounded in their ears. They still refused, in the face of
Johnson’s contract, while still in force, to furnish extra guards for
the fulfilment of his stipulation in provisioning Oswego. They also
adhered to their determination not to yield to the governor’s demands,
so long as he thwarted their purposes. In affirming their former
resolutions, they, nevertheless, offered to indemnify Johnson if through
accident he became a loser by fulfilling his contract.
Meanwhile, the governor held counsel with the New England commissioners,
and despite the remonstrances of the members, bluffed off his little
Parliament until October 5. The frontier was still exposed. It was hard
to get volunteers for Oswego, largely owing to the abominable
drunkenness of the officers there, and the lack of good discipline. Two
companies from Colonel Schuyler’s regiment were therefore drafted for
the purpose. It being practically impossible to maintain the weak force
at Saratoga, this post, which had been named Fort Clinton, was burned by
order, and the ordnance and stores removed to Albany. In this unpleasant
state of affairs Colonel Johnson was summoned to New York, and on
October 9 was examined by the committee of the Executive Council. He
exposed the grave state of affairs, in that the Indians had been kept
from hunting for a whole year, and were now destitute. Unless something
were speedily done, he felt he must abandon Mount Johnson and his
interests in the Mohawk Valley. He even imagined that his leaving would
be the general signal for an exodus of all the white people from the
Mohawk basin. He recommended the erection of forts both in the Seneca
and the Oneida districts. He believed that these measures, with plenty
of presents, and the ferreting out of the miscellaneous rumsellers who
debauched the Indians, would make safe the northern frontier and save
the colony.
Clinton’s message to the Assembly, October 6, was presented with high
praises of Johnson, a vindication of himself, and an exhortation to act
promptly and liberally, as the Iroquois sachems were waiting with
Johnson in the city to see what would be done in their behalf. The
conquest of Crown Point was still in view; and men, money, and supplies
were asked for. It was intimated that the Crown (the mother country) had
already done its full part, and that the colonies should now do theirs.
Still the Assemblymen, who thought the Indians ought to have been
allowed to go on their hunting, ought to have been kept friendly, but
not stirred up to fight the French or be sent to Canada, and ought to
have stayed in New York to guard their own old men and squaws instead of
having white men drafted to do it, distrusted the servant of the king
and the tool of Colden, and doubted the fitness of the governor’s
appointees to office. They questioned the wisdom of the governor’s
general policy; and they intimated, with only too good reason, that the
money so freely distributed for the Indians was not properly and
publicly accounted for. They voted promptly all that was necessary for
the expedition against Canada. They fully realized the necessity of
holding firm the loyalty of the Six Nations; and to keep it, they
offered at once to vote the sum of eight hundred pounds, provided the
persons chosen to distribute the people’s money were such as they
approved of. In regard to the forts on the distant frontier, so near
Canada, they considered that the other colonies should share the expense
of permanently guarding the king’s dominions.
In answer to these defiant resolutions, which practically impeached the
governor, Clinton sent a curt and insulting note of less than one
hundred words. The Dutchman’s ire now blazed fiercely. After the
significant ceremony of locking the door and laying the key on the
table, they proceeded to issue a manifesto, marshalling in review the
whole proceedings since June 6, 1746. They censured him for removing the
former commissioners of Indian affairs, and for practically making Dr.
Colden the real administrator of affairs in the cabinet, and Colonel
Johnson in the field. They sneered at the pretensions and vanity of the
governor in his constant boasting of what he claimed to have done. They
charged him with treating the people of the colony with contempt, and
with insulting them by vile epithets. They complained of the many brief
and inconvenient adjournments to which he had needlessly subjected them.
Especially were they enraged in their feelings at the deference paid, at
their expense, to the commissioners from Massachusetts and Connecticut.
They claimed that they ought to have been kept in session, in order that
they might have been advised with, and their opinions consulted from
time to time as to the matters under consideration.
In this last point, especially, the Dutch blood was roused; for although
in monarchical England the power of making treaties is vested in the
sovereign, yet in the Dutch Republic, then a living reality before their
eyes, the States-General, like the United States Senate, shared with the
Stadtholder or President the right of treaty-making, and had the power
of veto upon all compacts. Even in Great Britain, the exercise of the
treaty-making power by the king was subject to parliamentary censure,
and ministers negotiating a disadvantageous treaty were liable to
impeachment. This right had been several times exercised in the
sixteenth and even in the fifteenth century.
The address wound up by this declaration: “No treatment your Excellency
can use toward us, no inconveniences how great soever that we may suffer
in our own persons, shall ever prevail upon us to abandon, or deter us
from steadily preserving the interest of our country.”
A committee waited upon the governor on the 9th of October, to present
the address; but the angry executive would not hear it, nor receive a
copy, and three days later replied with all the artillery of rhetoric
and abuse which he and his secretary were able to load into the
document. It was as full of vituperation as a carronade of later day was
of langrage shot. As to their complaint that the money intended for
Indian presents was not honestly distributed, he charged the House with
telling “as bold a falsehood as ever came from a body of men.” He was in
no way accountable to the Assembly for the manner in which he
distributed the money of the Crown. He charged them with violating both
the civil and military prerogatives of the king. “Nor will I,” he said,
“give up the least branch of it [the military prerogative] on any
consideration, however desirous you may be to have it, or to bear the
whole command.” He also asserted, with some attempt at humour, that
their farce of locking the door and placing the key upon the table—a
symbolic act charging breach of privilege upon the executive—was a high
insult to King George’s authority, and in so far, an act of disloyalty.
He charged that they were assuming the rights and privileges of the
House of Commons, and renouncing their subjection to the Crown and
Parliament. He had his Majesty’s express command not to suffer them to
bring some matters into the House, nor to debate upon them; and he
intimated that he had a right to stop proceedings when they seemed to
him improper or disorderly. After a tirade upon their insolence and
unbecoming conduct, his peroration was a warning not to infringe upon
the royal prerogative.
Safety-valves having thus been opened through the ink-bottles, the war
of words ceased, and both governor and legislators proceeded to
diligence in business. In expectation that Massachusetts and Connecticut
would bear their quota of expense, the governor was requested, October
15, to carry out his plan of sending gunsmiths and other mechanics to
live among and assist the tribes of the Confederacy westward of the
Mohawks. Four days after, however, news came from England ordering the
disbanding of all the levies for the expedition to Canada. This was
disheartening alike to the governors and the people of the colonies; but
some compromise measures were amicably agreed upon between Clinton and
the Assembly.
Peace, in New York City at least, seemed almost at hand, when Clinton
again attempted folly in trying to muzzle the press. The Assembly had
ordered Parker, the public printer, to publish the address and
remonstrance of the Assembly, in which they asserted the rights of the
people. The governor commanded him to desist. Parker stood by the people
and their Assembly, as against the king and his foolish governor. After
Cosby’s ignominious failure to restrain the liberty of the press by
imprisoning Zenger, this act of Clinton’s seemed like that of a madman
or a man who had no memory. The Assembly ordered Parker to print their
manifests, and to furnish each member with two copies, “that their
constituents might know it was their firm resolution to preserve the
liberty of the press.”
In a word, all this wrangle between colonial governor and Assembly was
really the cause of popular liberty against monarchy, of ordered freedom
under law against despotism. It was part of the chequered story of
liberty, in which the people of New York were in no whit behind those of
any of the colonies, but rather led them. Clinton, by his blunders, and
Colden, by his toryism, helped grandly forward the American revolution,
while the names of Parker and Zenger belong with those of the promoters
of order and freedom. When on the 25th day of November,
1747,—significant date, for on that day, only thirty-six years later,
King George’s troops and mercenaries evacuated that very city of New
York, in which Clinton had illustrated the folly of monarchy,—after
addressing, or rather berating, the people’s representatives, he
concluded his address with the significant words:—
“Your continued grasping for power, with an evident tendency to the
weakening of the dependency of the province on Great Britain,
accompanied by such notorious and public disrespect to the character of
your governor, and contempt of the king’s authority intrusted with him,
cannot longer be hid from your superiors, but must come under their
observation, and is of most dangerous example to your neighbours.”
It was, indeed, true that New York was setting what was in the eyes of
the Tories a most dangerous example to her neighbours. Most of the
people of this colony were descendants of those who had come from the
Dutch Republic, where the taxation without consent had been resisted for
centuries, and where resistance to monarchy and feudal ideas had been
exalted into a principle. It was this determined spirit, reinforced by
the lovers of liberty, whether of Huguenot, Irish, Scottish, or Welsh
blood, or men from the mother country who believed that the rights of
Englishmen were still theirs, that made New York lead all the thirteen
original colonies in outgrowing the colonial spirit. New Yorkers first
took the steps which must logically and actually lead to separation from
the transatlantic country, whose language was indeed spoken in America,
but by colonists who had continued the institutions not of monarchical
England, but of republican Holland.
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[5] I visited the site of Fort Massachusetts, March 12, 1891. Though
long ago levelled by the plough, the spot has been marked by Prof.
Arthur Latham Perry, of Williams College, who planted the handsome
elm-tree which now flourishes there. The sword, watch, and many other
interesting relics of Colonel Williams, moulded or rusted, from Fort
Massachusetts, from the battle-grounds of Lake George, Bloody Pond, and
other places famous in colonial warfare, are carefully preserved in the
college cabinet. A monument with the names of the garrison should mark
the site of Fort Massachusetts.