THE COLONIES AFTER THE REVOLUTION OF 1688.
We must now take a hasty glance at the colonies, which we left at the
eve of the Revolution of 1688, and discover how this great change
affected them.
We have seen the Grand Model constitution of Carolina fall before the
wishes of the people, and a more practical and popular form of
government take its place. In 1694, considerable dissatisfaction existed
in the colony owing to contentions between Dissenters and Churchmen,
who, though forming but a small minority, yet demanded exclusive
privileges. It was therefore advised by Thomas Smith, who had succeeded
Philip Ludwell as governor, that in order to give respectability to the
office, and to restore harmony between the contending parties, one of
the proprietaries himself should be sent out as governor. The young Earl
of Shaftesbury was elected to this office, but he declining it, John
Archdale, an honest Quaker proprietary, was chosen.
Archdale, as might be expected, gave the Dissenters a majority in the
council, as they formed a majority in the colony; he also appeased the
discontent which the system of quit-rents had caused, by remitting them
for three or four years, and forgiving the arrears due—a very politic
act, as it would have been next to impossible to collect them. He was a
wise and humane man, and not only succeeded in quieting the discontents
and disputes of the colonists, but established an amicable relationship
with the Indians by an act of humanity. He protected the natives round
Cape Fear from kidnappers, and they in return engaged to befriend
shipwrecked mariners on their coast. Spite of his peace principles, he
yet raised a militia-force for the defence of the colony, excusing
however all from being enrolled who could plead scruples of conscience
against it. With the Spaniards of St. Augustine he also established
friendly relations, by ransoming four Indian Catholic priests, prisoners
among the Yamasees, and sending them back to St. Augustine. “I shall
return your kindness,” was the reply of the Spaniard; and when an
English vessel soon afterwards was wrecked on the coast of Florida, and
the crew taken captive by Indians, they were ransomed by him.
Archdale soon brought the affairs of Carolina into a flourishing
condition; the fame of her prosperity attracted to her soil industrious
Scotch emigrants, as well as settlers from Massachusetts; she was in
fact looked upon as a sort of “American Canaan flowing with milk and
honey.”
Archdale having thus, by his wisdom, patience and labour, laid a firm
foundation for a most glorious superstructure, he appointed Joseph
Blake, son of that Joseph Blake, brother of the admiral, who twenty
years before led a colony of Dissenters into Carolina, as his successor,
and returned to England. Scarcely, however, was Archdale gone, than
Blake, to satisfy the importunate church party, endowed the episcopal
church at Charleston with a parsonage and annual stipend; and though the
Huguenots, who had suffered so long disabilities on account of religion
and country, were very properly enfranchised, yet were Catholics
excluded from liberty of conscience, which was granted to all other
Christians. Again religious, or rather _irreligious_, contentions raged
violently. Nathaniel Moore, the successor of Blake, not only established
the episcopal form of worship, but excluded all Dissenters from any
share in the government. The Dissenters, indignant at this arbitrary and
unjust exclusion, appealed to the British parliament in 1706, and these
acts were declared contrary to the laws of the charter. They were
repealed therefore by the colonial assembly; but though the disabilities
of the Dissenters were removed, the Church of England remained the
established religion of the province until the American Revolution.
Party spirit and strife had entered the colony, not only as regarded
religion, but on the questions of finance and quit-rents; nevertheless
the colony continued to flourish.
Rice, of which a bag had accidentally been brought to Charleston in a
vessel from Madagascar at the time of Archdale’s government, and
distributed among various planters, had been cultivated at first as a
matter of curiosity, but was now becoming a staple product of the
colony, and a great source of wealth. So important had it become indeed,
in 1704, that an act of parliament placed it amongst the “enumerated
articles.” The cultivation of this grain led to the large importations
of negroes which yearly took place into Carolina.
The fur-traders of Carolina adventured far into the interior; the oak of
the inland forest was cleft into staves for the West Indies, and the
pine furnished masts, boards and joists, tar and turpentine. These naval
stores, however, were rather the produce of the hardier North Carolina,
where but few negro slaves were to be found, and the inhabitants were of
a much more sturdy and independent character. “North Carolina,” says the
historian, “like ancient Rome, was famed as the sanctuary of runaways.
Seventy years after its origin, it is described as a country where there
is scarce any form of government; and it long continued to be said, with
but slight exaggeration, that in North Carolina every one did that which
was right in his own eyes, paying tribute neither to God nor to Cæsar.”
But in this lawless state, where there was neither church nor creed,
where “Quakers, Atheists, Deists and other evil-disposed persons,” lived
a life of freedom and peace, all went well; and the stone which marks
the grave, beneath the shade of a large cedar-tree, of Henderson Walker,
the governor in 1694, records simply that “North Carolina, during his
administration, enjoyed tranquillity.”
But to this irreligious state, as it was considered, the proprietaries
determined to put an end, by establishing episcopacy as the religion of
the colony; and Robert Daniel was sent over by them as deputy-governor
for this purpose. The apple of discord was now thrown into the colony,
and long and bitter disputes followed, the Quakers being accused as the
principal fomenters of these distractions. The colony was broken up into
two factions, and each party in 1706 had their own governor and their
own house of representatives, neither of which were able to gain the
ascendancy—the one, of which Thomas Cary was head, wanting a legal
sanction; the other, led by William Glover, popular favour. At length,
Edward Hyde, a relative of Queen Anne’s, was sent over, in the hope of
restoring order; and he, as deputy-governor of North Carolina, was to
receive as usual his commission from Tynte, the governor of South
Carolina; but Tynte was dead when he arrived, and the turbulent people
of North Carolina paid him no respect. Affairs grew desperate; the
friends of Hyde took up arms to assert his power, and called in the aid
of Spotswood, an experienced soldier and governor of Virginia. But
Spotswood, though vehement against “the mutinous spirit of North
Carolina, yet pleaded the difficulties of marching forces into a country
so cut up with rivers;” besides which he had no troops but militia, and
Virginia herself, at least the counties bordering on Carolina, “were
stocked with Quakers;” and he only sent a party of marines from the
guardship as an evidence of his good disposition. Cary and the leaders
of his party having, however, appeared in Virginia with the intention,
as they said, of appealing to England in defence of their actions, were
compelled by Spotswood to take their passage in a man-of-war just then
returning.
Whilst all these disturbances were going forward, North Carolina
increased greatly in population. Disturbances, in fact, in these young
American states, seem to have been merely like the ebullitions of
vigorous youth, which grows in spite of them, and through which all
their powers are brought into exercise. In 1698, the first settlements
were made on Pamlico River, the Indians of that vicinity having been
nearly destroyed by fever and the ravages of war with more powerful
tribes. In 1707, a number of French Protestants removed into Carolina
from Virginia; and a few years later, a hundred German families from the
Palatinate, whence they were driven by the devastations of war and
religious persecution, found a home there also, 250 acres of land being
assigned by the proprietaries to each family.
The Revolution produced no ill effects in Virginia. Francis Nicholson,
who in the reign of James had been expelled from New York by the
insurgents, was the first governor of Virginia under William III.; and
Andros, “fresh from imprisonment in Massachusetts,” was the second. To
Nicholson Virginia was indebted for the establishment of the College of
William and Mary, which was endowed by a gift of quit-rents from the
king and a royal domain, and by a tax of a penny on every pound weight
of tobacco exported to the other colonies. To Andros it owes the
preservation of what few annals of the province had escaped the
destruction of neglect, time and civil war.
Though the powers granted to the governor were exorbitant—“the armed
force, the revenue, the interpretation of the law, the administration of
justice, the church, all being under his control and guardianship”—the
spirit of independence was vigorous in Virginia; and when, in 1691, the
revenue being exhausted by the governor and his favourites, additional
supplies were demanded, the assembly claimed the right, and maintained
it too for some time, of nominating a treasurer of their own, and when
finally this right was refused, declined to contribute their quota for
the defence of the colonies against France. Nay indeed, being aware of
the revenue derived by the mother-country from the duties on tobacco,
“they made,” says old Quarry, “a nice inquiry into the circumstances of
government, and concluded that the assembly itself was entitled to all
the rights and privileges of an English parliament.” As regarded the
established church, also, these independent colonists carried things
very much in their own way. The Bishop of London might license, and the
governor might recommend, a minister, but if the congregation did not
like him they would not have him; and by refusing, spite of all
protests, to accept a minister as an incumbent for life, but merely as a
servant of the congregation from year to year, they kept the power in
their own hands. Virginia was the opposite of Massachusetts; and though
some of the parishes were so large that in many cases the inhabitants
lived fifty miles from the church, the assembly would not be at the
expense of altering the bounds, though it was threatened with “paganism,
atheism, or sectaries.” Finally, this obstinacy with regard to the
clergy led to a collision with the crown. In the meantime great was the
liberty and great the enjoyment of Virginia. She had no large towns, no
marts of commerce; “as to outward appearance,” it was said, “Virginia
looked like a wild desert,” and in England it was reported to be “one of
the poorest, miserablest and worst countries in all America.” Tobacco
was still the general currency, and the colony having no vessels of its
own, the merchants’ ships lay for months waiting for the cargoes which
their boats picked up at the various plantations.
The principles of liberty for which Bacon had perished were not by any
means dead. “Pernicious opinions, fatal to royal prerogative,” says an
old writer, “were improving daily;” and though the Virginians resented
any charge of republicanism, yet the colonial mind was, in effect,
strongly biased that way. From the insurrection of Bacon, for about
three-quarters of a century, Virginia enjoyed uninterrupted peace.
In 1710, Governor Spotswood penetrated the Blue Ridge, a portion of the
Allegany chain, an enterprise which had not been attempted since the
days of Sir William Berkeley; and though settlers were slow to advance
into these new regions, yet the Indian trader, gradually crossing the
Alleganies, brought back knowledge of the country on the Ohio and the
western lakes.
The English Revolution, which destroyed the doctrine of legitimacy, was
fatal to the claims of Lord Baltimore. He had left Maryland, to assert
his rights in England, just before the deposition of James, entrusting
the administration of the colony to nine deputies; and these having
hesitated for some time to proclaim the new sovereign, a rumour gained
ground of a plot between the Catholics and Indians for the murder of the
Protestants, and an armed association was formed for asserting the
rights of King William and for the defence of the protestant faith.
This rumour was utterly baseless, but the Catholics were compelled to
surrender all power of government, and the king proceeded, against every
claim of justice, to deprive Lord Baltimore of his charter, though no
charge existed against him but that of being a Catholic. In 1692, Sir
Lionel Copley arrived in Maryland as the royal commissioner, and the
whole system of government was arbitrarily changed. “The first act of
the new assembly recognised William and Mary; the second established the
Church of England as the religion of the state, to be supported by
general taxation.” Toleration was, however, secured to Protestant
Dissenters; the Quakers travelled about on their “religious visits” as
well as “a sort of wandering pretenders from New England, who deluded
even churchmen, we are told, by their extempore prayers and
preachments.” All were tolerated excepting the Catholics, they who had
been the founders of the province, and the first to acknowledge and
legislate for liberty of conscience for all; they were subjected to a
system of legalised persecution; mass was forbidden to be celebrated
publicly; catholic priests were forbidden to preach or teach, and
children were basely tempted to change their profession of religion by
the offered bribe of a portion of their parents’ property. And, pitiable
to say, Benedict, the son of Lord Baltimore, the worthy catholic
proprietary, only recovered the province by renouncing the catholic
church for that of England, in the year 1715.
Maryland, like Virginia, had no large towns, and remained undisturbed by
either Indians or French. “Its staple was tobacco, yet hemp and flax
were raised, and all were employed as currency. In Somerset and
Dorchester the manufacture of linen and even woollen cloth was
attempted. In Maryland, white labourers being found more advantageous
than negroes, the market was always well supplied with them, the price
varying from £12 to £30. Maryland was the most southern colony which, in
1695, consented to pay its quota towards the defence of New York, thus
forming from Chesapeake to Maine an imperfect confederacy. The union was
increased by a public post. Eight times in the year letters might be
forwarded from the Potomac to Philadelphia. Public education was talked
of, and promised by the assembly, but not carried out. The population
increased, though not rapidly. In 1710 bond and free amounted to about
30,000; a bounty still continued to be offered for every wolf’s head;
the roads to the capital were marked by notches on trees; and
water-mills still solicited legislative encouragement.[13]
William Penn, more fortunate than his neighbour Lord Baltimore,
recovered his province without any compromise of principle. Within two
years after the Revolution, he had been three several times arrested and
tried, and openly acquitted; and now, in 1690, he determined once more
to visit his province, where, spite of all his efforts at good and happy
government, discontent existed. Numbers of emigrants were again prepared
to accompany him, “a convoy was granted, and the fleet ready to sail,
when, on his return from the funeral of George Fox, messengers were sent
to apprehend him.” “Three times having been tried, and three times
acquitted,” says Bancroft, “he now went into retirement. Locke would
have interceded for him, but he refused clemency, waiting rather for
justice. The delay completed the wreck of his fortunes; sorrow lowered
over his family; the wife of his youth died; his eldest son had no
vigorous hold on life; and many, even among his friends, cavilled at his
conduct.” It was a deep baptism of sorrow; but he had still powerful
advocates who interceded successfully for him. “He is my old
acquaintance,” said William of Orange, finally; “he may follow his
business as freely as ever; I have nothing to say against him.” His
innocence was fully established, and in August, 1694, he was restored to
his proprietary rights.
But for the pressure of poverty, Penn would have immediately embarked
for his province; but this he was not able to do until the last year of
the century; and in the meantime Pennsylvania was governing itself by
the members of the assembly, who acting upon Penn’s liberal permission
that “the government should be settled in a condition to please the
generality,” altered, and disputed, and altered again, paying little
regard to the men whom Penn had left in authority, until at length all
seemed settled to the public satisfaction and nothing was wanting but
concert with the proprietary.
William Penn was once more in his beloved province—no longer in the
prime of manhood, full of hope and joy, but gentle and conciliatory as
ever. “Keep to what is good in the charter and frame of government,”
said he, addressing the assembly the following spring, “and lay aside
what is burdensome, and add what may best suit the common good.” The old
charter was surrendered, which was a much easier thing than the forming
of a constitution, which should prove, as a member of the council
expressed himself, “firm and lasting to themselves and their children.”
This was a difficult undertaking, besides which, the lower counties on
the Delaware, dreading to lose the independence which they had lately
enjoyed, refused a re-union with Pennsylvania, and hot and bitter
disputes were the consequence.
In the midst of their disputes both parties were startled, and brought
again into pacific relationship, by the news that the English parliament
was about to annul every colonial charter. The occasion was momentous;
Penn, who had come to America with the hope of ending his days in this
province of his love, found it necessary immediately to return to
England, to defend the common rights of himself and Pennsylvania. His
hopes seemed in all ways destined to disappointment. At this moment his
words to the assembly were: “Since all men are mortal, think of some
suitable expedient and provision for your safety, as well in your
privileges as your property, and you will find me ready to comply with
whatever may render us happy by a nearer union of our interests. Review
again your laws; propose new ones that may better your circumstances;
and what you do, do quickly. Unanimity and despatch may contribute to
the disappointment of those that so long have sought the ruin of our
young country.”
The new constitution was called the “Charter of Privileges.” The
territories were allowed to separate themselves from Pennsylvania, as
they desired; and from that time Delaware has been an independent
province. Penn would gladly have legislated for the sanctity of marriage
among the slaves, but he was defeated: nor yet could he carry out all
his benevolent plans for the Indians, though he obtained a law for the
prevention of fraud in trading with them; and again treaties of peace
were renewed with the Onondagas and their tributaries on the
Susquehanna.
By the Charter of Privileges, which now became the fundamental law as
long as the proprietary government lasted, the legislative power was
vested in the governor and assembly to be annually chosen, to sit upon
its own adjournments, and to propose bills subject only to the assent of
the governor. Sheriffs and coroners were appointed by the people;
questions of property could not be brought before the governor and
council; and the justiciary was left to the legislature, which gave
occasion to after disputes. Entire religious liberty was established.
“And now,” says Bancroft, “having divested himself and his successors of
any power to injure, Penn had founded a democracy. By the necessities of
the case, he remained the feudal sovereign; for only as such could he
grant or have maintained the charter of colonial liberties. But time and
the people would remove the inconsistency. Having thus given freedom and
popular power to his provinces, no strifes remaining but strifes about
property, happily for himself, he departed from the young country of his
affections.”
Penn left James Logan, for many years the colonial secretary and member
of the council, the agent of his private property, who was able, by his
mild but firm character, to maintain Penn’s rights against the
encroaching, mean spirit of the colonists, whose selfish bargaining
contrasted so painfully with the broad liberality of the proprietary.
In England, the virtue and sacrifices of William Penn were not without
acknowledgment; he retained his province. His poverty might have induced
him to part with it to the crown; but insisting on the liberties which
he had granted being unannulled, the crown hardly set any value upon it;
and when, distressed and worn out with the angry and unworthy disputes
of the province with him on questions of property, he threatened to
resign his powers to government, the province, like a spoiled child
threatened with the rod, yielded at once and promised no further
offending. The early Pennsylvanians were in fact spoiled by the kindness
and concessions of Penn; they were incapable of comprehending the
breadth of his practical Christianity; they almost despised him for it,
and treated him with no consideration.
Writs had been issued by James II. against the charters both of East and
West Jersey, and the whole province was placed under the jurisdiction of
Andros, governor of New York. The Revolution terminated the authority of
Andros; and from June, 1689, to August, 1693, New Jersey had no regular
government whatever, both the east and west portions being broken up
into factions, headed by different proprietaries, which kept the country
in a very unsettled state. At length the proprietaries, threatened by
parliament, and finding no means of settling their contending claims, as
well as a great falling off in their profits, agreed to surrender their
authority to the crown; and in the first year of Queen Anne’s reign, New
Jersey became a royal province, the claims of private property being in
every case respected.
On the surrender of the proprietary claims to government, the two
Jerseys were united in one province, and the government conferred on
Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, of whom we shall hear more anon.
The commission and instructions to Lord Cornbury formed the constitution
of New Jersey. The legislative power was vested in the governor with the
consent of the royal council and representatives of the people; the
elective franchise required a property qualification; all laws were
subject to a veto of the governor and the crown. The governor, with
consent of his council, instituted courts of law and appointed their
officers; the people had no part in the justiciary. Liberty of
conscience was granted to all but Catholics; and favour was invoked for
the Church of England.[14] Two of the royal instructions deserve notice:
First, “great inconveniences,” says the queen, “may arise by the liberty
of printing in our province of New Jersey; therefore, no book, pamphlet,
or other matter whatsoever may be printed without a licence.” Secondly,
the “traffic in merchantable negroes” was especially enjoined.
A change was come over the administration of New Jersey since the days
when honest Thomas Olive, the governor of West Jersey, had been
satisfied with a salary of £20 a year, and had administered justice as a
magistrate, sitting on the stump of a tree in his field. New Jersey was
now a royal united province, and a kinsman of the queen was its ruler;
but the change was not palatable to the sturdy quaker and puritan spirit
of the colony. The history of Lord Cornbury’s administration was that of
continual contention with the assemblies. But through all this, as we
shall find was the case in New York, a more vigorous spirit of liberty
awoke in the province.
The last meeting of Lord Cornbury with the assembly of New Jersey is,
however, worth recording. Samuel Jennings, speaker of the assembly, a
steadfast Quaker, was deputed to read a remonstrance to him on his
acceptance of bribes, his new method of government, his encroachment on
public liberties, and a long list of other offences, all very
plain-spoken, as befitted an assembly of which a fearless,
uncompromising Quaker was the speaker. “Stop!” exclaimed Lord Cornbury,
not relishing the nature of the remonstrance. Again Jennings repeated
the charges with greater emphasis than before. On this Lord Cornbury
retorted by charging the Quakers with disloyalty and a factious spirit;
and they, in return, replied in the words of Nehemiah to Sanballat,
“There is no such thing done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out
of thine own heart!” And finally, said they, “to engage the affections
of the people, no artifice is needful, but to let them be unmolested in
the enjoyment of what belongs to them of right.”
As regards New York, we must take up the thread of history somewhat
before the Revolution, having last parted from it when Sir Edmund
Andros, the governor, made his ineffectual attempt on Connecticut. The
government of Andros was arbitrary and unpopular, the people having no
share in the legislation, and no voice in the imposition of taxes, while
the popular institutions of New Jersey on the one hand, and Connecticut
on the other, served but to increase their dissatisfaction by contrast.
Thomas Dongan, a Catholic, succeeded Andros as governor; he arrived in
the province in 1683, and by the advice of ‘William Penn, came with
instructions from the duke to convene an assembly of representatives.
The first assembly, consisting of a council and eighteen
representatives, to the great joy of the colony, met the following year,
and a “Charter of Liberties” was granted, which declared the supreme
legislative power to reside in the governor, council and people, met in
general assembly; that every freeman and freeholder should enjoy the
elective franchise; that no freeman should suffer but by judgment of his
peers, and that all trials should be by a jury of twelve men; that no
tax should be assessed but with consent of the assembly; that no seaman
or soldier should be quartered on the inhabitants against their will;
that no martial law should exist; and that no one professing faith in
God by Jesus Christ, should at any time be in any way disquieted or
questioned for any difference of opinion in matters of religion.
In 1684, the governors of New York and Virginia met the deputies of the
Five Nations at Albany, on the Hudson, and renewed with them a treaty of
peace.
On the accession of the Duke of York to the throne, the people of his
province naturally expected, if not favour, at least the continuation of
a representative government, which, however, was in part withdrawn; an
arbitrary tax was imposed, and printing-presses forbidden. It was soon
perceived that the intention of the king was to introduce the catholic
religion into the province, and the officers appointed by him were of
that faith; this added to the general dissatisfaction.
The exiled governor, Dongan, was recalled by James II., shortly before
his abdication, and Francis Nicholson, lieutenant-general of Andros, who
was now governor of New England, succeeded him. Dread of the
establishment of Popery added to general discontent, and the want of
perfect good feeling between the Dutch and English inhabitants of the
province caused any change to be welcomed with joy; accordingly the news
of the deposition of James, and the accession of William and Mary, was
received with enthusiasm, and the people rose in rebellion to the
existing government.
Jacob Leisler, a Dutch merchant and captain of militia, whose
temperament, however, unfitted him for the command, was elected by the
insurgents as their leader. Opposed to this faction were the large Dutch
landholders, some English merchants, the friends of episcopacy, and the
government party; nevertheless, at the head of several hundred men and a
few companies of militia, and with the general populace in his favour,
Leisler, at the commencement of June, took possession of the Fort of New
York, in the name of William and Mary, to whom an address was sent,
which in due course was received without disapprobation by King William.
Dongan, who had not yet left the harbour, was joined by Nicholson, thus
deprived of his authority, and the two hastened to England. The
magistrates in the meantime, unable to resist this popular movement,
after seeing Leisler appointed by a committee of safety as temporary
governor of the province, retired to Albany on the Hudson, where,
denying the authority of Leisler, they yet continued their
administration in the name of William and Mary. Milborne, the son-in-law
of Leisler, who had just arrived from England, was appointed by him
secretary of the province, and sent to demand the surrender of the Fort
of Albany, which of course was refused.
About this time, a letter arriving from the king, addressed to “Francis
Nicholson, or to such as, for the time being, take care for the
preserving the peace and administering the law in New York,” together
with a royal commission; Leisler, in Nicholson’s absence, regarded his
own authority as now sanctioned by the monarch.
In the meantime, France having espoused the cause of James, war was
declared with England, and the little party at Albany, alarmed by the
hostile inroads of the French and their Indian allies on the frontier
settlements, and weakened by internal discord, yielded up the fort to
Milborne.
The horrors of intercolonial war were now beginning. As soon as the
declaration of war between France and England was known, Count Fontenac,
who had but lately arrived in Canada—a man of extraordinary capacity and
energy of character, although approaching seventy years of age—prepared
to visit, upon the English frontier, some of the miseries which Canada
herself had so lately suffered from the hands of the Five Nations. Three
several expeditions were planned, all of which were successful. The
war-parties consisted principally of converted Indians, chiefly Mohawks;
the fruits of the self-denying perseverance of the French missionaries
being made use of for the most barbarous purposes. Religious zeal was
added to native ferocity; the English were represented not only as
enemies but as heretics, to destroy whom it was their duty as
Christians, and their glory as soldiers.
In January, 1690, whilst the province of New York was convulsed by
internal tumults, one of these war-parties, advancing in single file
through the deep snow, a track being made by the snow-shoes of the
foremost, arrived at Schenactady, a Dutch village on the Mohawk, after
twenty-two days’ march. It was midnight, and the inhabitants were
asleep, fearless of danger, when at once the awful war-whoop roused
them, and the most dreadful scenes of murder, fire and devastation
succeeded. Sixty lay dead in the street; seven-and-twenty were taken
prisoners; the rest, half naked, fled towards Albany amid driving snow,
some perishing by the way, others losing their limbs by the intensity of
the cold. The terror of this attack decided the party who held it to
give up Albany to Leisler.
The whole of the following summer was spent in fruitless preparation and
attempts, in conjunction with Connecticut, to protect their frontiers,
and invade Canada; but all ended in unsuccess, and distrust and
confusion prevailed throughout the miserable province. In January of
1691, Richard Ingoldsby arrived from England with a commission as
captain, and announcing the speedy arrival of Colonel Sloughter as
governor. He demanded possession of the fort, but not producing any
order from the king, nor yet from the expected governor to that purpose,
Leisler refused to yield, promising him courteously, at the same time,
aid as a military officer. Ingoldsby, angry at opposition, and supported
by the enemies of Leisler, proceeded to land his troops, at the same
time denouncing Leisler and his garrison as traitors. The passions of
the militia were roused, and, greatly to the grief and dismay of
Leisler, shots were fired, by which several lives were lost.
On March 19th, Colonel Sloughter, “a profligate, needy, and
narrow-minded adventurer,” entered the harbour. Leisler immediately sent
messengers to receive his orders; the messengers were detained; the next
morning he wrote, inquiring to whom he should surrender the fort.
Sloughter’s only reply was an order to Ingoldsby to arrest Leisler and
his council. The following day Leisler, Milborne, and six others, were
under arrest and brought up to trial before a special court, composed of
the adverse party. Six of the prisoners were immediately found guilty of
high treason, but afterwards reprieved. Leisler and Milborne, denying
the jurisdiction of the court by which they were tried, refused to
plead, and appealed to the king. But they were condemned of high treason
as mutes, and sentenced to death. Nevertheless, Sloughter hesitated to
carry the sentence into execution, until the will of the king should be
known, writing to him “that certainly never greater villains lived.”
The friends of Leisler boldly defended his conduct, but the opposite
party was now in power, and the execution of Leisler and his son-in-law
was demanded; still Sloughter hesitated, but nothing could allay the
bitter hatred of Leisler’s enemies. At a dinner-party, therefore, when
Sloughter was intoxicated, they obtained from him the signatures of the
death-warrants, and before he had recovered his senses, the executions
had taken place.
On the 16th of May, amid drenching rain, Leisler having taken leave of
his wife and his numerous family, he and his son-in-law were conducted
to the gallows outside the city-wall. “Guarded by troops,” says the
historian, “the sad procession moved on, thronged about by weeping
friends and exulting enemies. More distressed for the fate of his
son-in-law than for his own, Leisler admitted that he might have fallen
into error; and turning to the sorrowing populace, said, ‘Weep not for
us, we are going to our God; but weep for yourselves that remain behind
in misery and vexation.’” The handkerchief was bound round his face, and
he said, “I hope these eyes shall see our Lord Jesus in heaven!” These
were his last words. Livingstone, one of the leaders of the adverse
party, pressed forward to the prisoners to gratify himself with the
sight of their last moments. “I will implead thee at the bar of God for
this,” said Milborne. His last words were: “I die for the king and queen
and the Protestant religion in which I was born and bred. Father, into
thy hands I commit my spirit!” The distressed people, with cries and
tears, rushed forward to receive some last memento of their favourite
leaders, a fragment of their clothes or a lock of hair.
The rain poured down in torrents; but no rain could wash away the effect
of that blood, the shedding of which was regarded by the populace as
base murder. The appeal to the king was prosecuted by Leisler’s son; and
a committee of the Lords Commissioners of Trade ordered the estates of
the deceased to be restored to their families. But more was required;
and in 1695 the attainder was reversed, after which the bodies were
disinterred, and after lying in state, were re-buried in the old Dutch
church.
The execution of these two popular leaders did more to strengthen their
cause than their lives could possibly have done. Their friends, who were
“always distinguished by their zeal for popular power, for toleration,
for their opposition to the doctrine of legitimacy,” formed a powerful
and ultimately a successful party. Leisler and Milborne being no more,
it was not long before a contest began between the assembly, composed of
aristocratic members, and the English monarch, for their rights and
privileges as British subjects; and in the meantime the war with Canada
went on.
After four months of inefficient and turbulent administration, Governor
Sloughter died, and was succeeded by Colonel Benjamin Fletcher, a man as
unprincipled and as little fitted for his post as his predecessor.
Fletcher revived the old scheme of extending the territory of New York
from Connecticut River to Delaware Bay; and by royal commission he had
command of the militia of New Jersey and Connecticut. The war with
Canada requiring the defence of the frontiers, an address was sent to
the king requesting that the other colonies might be compelled to
furnish their quota of troops. Parliament attempted to compel this from
all the colonies north of Carolina; but several of them refused, as we
have already stated, and it was never enforced.
Inadequate as Fletcher was for the office of governor in the then
excited state of the colony, he had the prudence to be guided in Indian
affairs by Major Schuyler, who possessed great influence over the
Iroquois, by whom he was called “Quidder,” they being unable to
pronounce his Christian name of Peter. Schuyler was a brave,
intelligent, and humane man; and having great influence over the border
tribes, was extremely useful to the governor, who had the good sense to
admit him to the council. Shortly after Fletcher’s arrival, the French
having made an incursion into the Mohawk country and taken captive 300
of their warriors, were pursued by Schuyler from Albany, and by
Fletcher, who posted from New York with a body of troops. They did not
overtake the invaders; but the Iroquois, greatly pleased by the
promptitude of action exhibited by Fletcher, gave him the name of
Cayenguirago, or the Great Swift Arrow.
Fletcher, besides his commission for New York, was appointed governor of
Pennsylvania and Delaware, this being the time when Penn was deprived of
his charter.
In the spirit of the Revolution of 1688, Fletcher was a zealot for the
establishment of the episcopal church, and, under the plea of
introducing uniformity in the language and literature as well as the
religion of the colony, the inhabitants of which were a mixture of Dutch
and English, he introduced into the assembly a bill for the settlement
of episcopalian ministers of his own selection throughout the province.
This bill gave rise to a great deal of party spirit; and finally it was
agreed that ministers should be settled in certain parishes, but that
the choice should be left to the people.
“New York is the most northern colony which admitted by enactment the
partial establishment of the Anglican Church.” The dissenters kept
strict watch henceforth that the episcopacy, favoured by England, made
no further inroad on their rights.
The peace of Ryswick terminated for the present the war with the French;
and the Earl of Bellamont, a man of integrity, and with warm sympathies
for popular freedom, arriving as governor in April, 1698, the dawn of a
calmer day seemed at hand. The commission of Bellamont embraced the
whole of the British northern territory from the confines of Canada to
Connecticut and Rhode Island. His kinsman, John Nanfan, who accompanied
him, was appointed lieutenant-governor of New York. Bellamont having
served on the parliamentary committee which had inquired into the trials
of Leisler and Milborne, viewed the aggressions of the opposite party
with great disapprobation; and under his administration it was that the
stigma was removed from the memory of those injured men, and justice
done to their families.
Fletcher, “who was accused of winking at violations of the Acts of
Trade, and favouring the pirates who frequented the American harbours,”
was removed from his post on this ground, and the Earl of Bellamont was
strictly enjoined to their vigilant suppression. The buccaneers, at the
remonstrance of Spain, being no longer supported by France and England,
had now become sugar-planters, holding large possessions of slaves in
Jamaica, Hayti, and St. Domingo, which were now thriving islands through
their means. Piracy, however, still remained to a vast and increasing
extent, every sea from China to America being infested with these
profligate robbers, who were often welcomed to the colonial harbours on
account of the wealth they brought and the freedom of their expenditure.
Before Bellamont left England, a company was formed for the suppression
of piracy; and it being supposed that great wealth would accrue from the
re-capture of the pirate vessels, the king himself, the Earl of
Bellamont, the Lord Chancellor Somers, the Earls of Shrewsbury, Romney,
and Oxford, all held shares. By the advice of Robert Livingstone, a
merchant of New York, then in England, and himself a partner, the
command of a vessel fitted out for this purpose was given to Captain
Kidd, a ship-builder of New York.
Kidd, duly commissioned, hastened to Plymouth in April, 1696; but
turning pirate himself, sailed into the eastern seas, where he carried
on great depredations. The wealth he thus amassed was buried, tradition
says, on the east end of Long Island, after which, according to the same
source, he burned or sunk his ship, the famous Quedah Merchant, and had
the hardihood to take up his quarters at Boston, where, in 1698, he was
arrested by Bellamont, who also held a commission as governor of
Massachusetts, and sent to England for trial. The ship being driven back
by the storm, gave rise to a rumour, that the ministry then in power
were afraid of having Kidd brought to trial, on account of so many
powerful Whig names being implicated in his piracy. This led to an
impeachment of several of the adventurers in the House of Lords; but
Kidd, and nine of his men, being easily found guilty, were condemned and
executed for piracy and murder. The adventures and fate of Captain Kidd
form the subject of one of the very few popular ballads which the
history of America has given rise to in that country; which shows what
hold the deeds of this bold sea-robber took on the public mind.[15]
Bellamont, by his urbanity and integrity, became greatly esteemed and
beloved, both in New York and Boston. In the former place he at once
obtained the confidence of the people, by acting up to the promise which
he made in his address to the first assembly in this mercantile
colony:—“I will pocket none of the public money myself, nor shall there
be any embezzlement by others; but exact accounts shall be given you
when, and as often as, you require.” In Boston he took the direct road
to public favour, by paying attention to the ministers and popular
teachers; and while he attended the episcopal church on Sundays, he was
constant, and, by his own account, an edified attendant of the weekly
lecture. The highest salary was voted to him in Boston that had ever
been given to the governor; while in New York, spite of his
controversies with the merchants regarding the Navigation Laws, a
revenue for six years was provided for him.
Unfortunately, death soon closed the administration of this popular
governor; and after about a year of violent contentions between the
Leisler faction and the opposite party, Lord Cornbury arrived as
governor both of New York and New Jersey, as we have already mentioned.
Cornbury, though cousin of Queen Anne, was a needy and unprincipled man,
and in him the aristocratic faction immediately found an ally. With a
powerful majority in the assembly, a revenue was not only voted him for
seven years, but £2,000 for the expense of his voyage, and his salary
raised to £1,200 per annum.
In April, 1703, war having been proclaimed in England against France and
Spain, the assembly met, and £1,500 was appropriated to fortify the
Narrows, it being strictly provided that this money should be applied to
no other purpose whatever. But the fortifications were not built, and
Cornbury, dishonest as he was extravagant, made use of the money for his
own necessities; and when the assembly, the following year, expressed
their displeasure and refused to make further advances, Lord Cornbury
said, “I know of no rights that you have as an assembly but such as the
queen is pleased to allow you.”
So zealous was Lord Cornbury for the episcopal church, that he forbade
preachers or schoolmasters to exercise their vocations without a licence
from the bishop; he commenced also to persecute dissenting missionaries,
but was obliged to desist in consequence of the general indignation, the
majority of the people being themselves dissenters. Twice had he
dissolved the assembly, and the third time “proved only how rapidly the
political education had advanced under his administration. Dutch,
English, and New England men were now all of one spirit.” The real birth
of liberty in the popular heart was owing to the abuses and follies of
Lord Cornbury. For some time, we are informed, he endeavoured to
maintain his authority by a greater display of imperiousness; but
falling deeply into debt, he suffered himself to be humbled by the
assembly, whose rights he had so haughtily disputed, and became
contemptible in the eyes of the people by parading the fort in the dress
of a woman, and by similar acts of folly.
“Disguised alike with his antics and his knavery, the public indignation
at length vented itself in clamorous demands for his recall, which was
granted in 1709, when he was succeeded by Lord Lovelace. No sooner was
Cornbury divested of the dignity of office, than his creditors threw him
into prison, from which he was only released by succeeding to the
earldom of Clarendon on the death of his father.
Lord Lovelace found the assembly much wiser from the vices of Cornbury,
and they refused to advance more money than was necessary for the annual
expenditure; but all conflict on this or any other subject was spared by
the hand of death, which removed the new governor within a few weeks,
Ingoldsby, the lieutenant-governor, succeeded him. During the short time
of his administration, another attempt was made by New York and the New
England provinces to invade Canada. The design was to co-operate with
the British fleet in an attack on Quebec, and troops from Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, and New Hampshire assembled at Boston, waiting the arrival
of the squadron; while the troops of New York, New Jersey, and
Connecticut, about 1,500 in number, marched to Wood Creek, near the head
of Lake Champlain, where fortifications were erected and provisions
stored. The British fleet, however, was despatched to the aid of
Portugal instead; and, to the mortification of New York, which had
incurred for this purpose a debt of £20,000, the levies were recalled
and disbanded. Besides the regular troops, the colony had enlisted 600
Iroquois warriors, the wives and children of whom, amounting to about
1,000, they had undertaken to support at Albany. For this reason New
York refused to join in an attack upon Acadia, which was soon afterwards
made, excusing themselves to the Queen on the plea that their frontiers
were left undefended.
The following year Colonel Schuyler proceeded to England to urge upon
parliament the conquest of Canada, accompanied by five grand Mohawk
chiefs, who produced a vast sensation wherever they appeared. They
paraded the streets of London dressed in black clothes, over which they
flung scarlet mantles trimmed with gold. On the 19th of April they were
introduced to Queen Anne, when one of them, having referred to the
scheme for the conquest of Canada, said:—
“We were mightily pleased when we heard our great Queen had resolved to
send an army to conquer Canada; and immediately, in token of friendship,
we hung up the kettle and took up the hatchet, and, with one consent,
assisted Colonel Nicholson in making preparations on this side the lake;
but at length we heard that our great Queen was prevented in her design
at present, which made us sorrowful, lest the French, who had hitherto
dreaded us, should now think us unable to make war against them. The
reduction of Canada is of great weight to our free hunting; so that, if
our great Queen should be unmindful of us, we must, with our families,
forsake our country, or stand neuter, either of which would be against
us.”
So saying, he presented belts of wampum, in proof of the sincerity of
the Five Nations; and having received a gracious reply from the Queen,
withdrew.
In June, 1710, Robert Hunter arrived in New York as governor. The
history of Hunter is striking. A native of Scotland, he was in his youth
apprenticed to an apothecary, but running away from his master, he
enlisted as a common soldier. Gifted with fine talents and address, and
handsome in person, he became the friend of Swift and Addison, and the
husband of Lady Hay. Military promotion followed his marriage, and in
1707 the appointment of lieutenant-governor of Virginia was conferred
upon him. On his voyage to that province he was captured by the French;
and, now on his return to England, received a commission as governor of
New York and New Jersey.
Three thousand Germans, who had been driven from the Palatine by the
devastations of war, and taken refuge in England, accompanied the new
governor. Many of these immigrants settled in New York; others on the
Hudson, on the manor of Livingstone; and others again in Pennsylvania,
as we have already mentioned; and there, finding the country so much to
their taste, invited their friends at home to follow them, who
accordingly flocked over in great numbers.
Hunter soon came into collision with the assembly on financial
questions. The people, now too wise not to keep some power in their own
hands, made the post anything but a sinecure. “Here,” writes the
governor to his friends, “is the finest air to live upon in the
universe; the soil bears all things, but not for me; for, according to
the custom of the country, the sachems are the poorest of the people.”
And again, after three years’ experience, “I am used like a dog, I have
spent three years in such torment and vexation, that nothing in life can
ever make amends for it.”
In 1687, Andros, governor of New York, appeared in Connecticut, and
under the commission from King James, appointing him governor of all New
England, demanded the surrender of the charter from the assembly which
was then sitting. This unwelcome demand led to a long discussion, which
lasted till night, when the court was thronged with citizens. All at
once the lights were extinguished, and though the utmost decorum was
preserved under this extraordinary occurrence, yet when the candles were
re-lighted, the charter was nowhere to be found. This was a scheme for
its preservation. It was secreted by Captain Wadsworth in a hollow tree,
which is still standing, and known as the Charter Oak. Andros,
nevertheless, assumed the government of the province, which he held till
the Revolution.
The news of the accession of William and Mary diffused the utmost joy
throughout Connecticut. An address of the most loyal and scriptural
character was sent over; in which, however, they took care to make known
that their acquiescence to the rule of Andros was an involuntary
submission to an arbitrary power, and that, by the consent of the major
part of freemen, they had resumed the government.
The administration was restored by the royal sanction. “They elected,”
says Bancroft, “their own governor, council, and assembly men, all their
magistrates, and that annually. The government of Connecticut was a
perfect democracy. It rested on free labour, and upheld equality; the
people were the sources of all power.”
During the war which followed the Restoration, Colonel Fletcher,
governor of New York, was empowered by his commission to take command of
the militia of Connecticut; but this was resolutely resisted. The scene
is curious; and again we find that brave patriot, Captain Wadsworth, an
actor. Fletcher arrived at Hartford, and ordered out the troops. The
troops, with Captain Wadsworth at their head, appeared. Fletcher ordered
his commission to be read; Wadsworth ordered the drums to beat.
“Silence!” shouted Fletcher; and the drums ceased. Again the reading of
the commission commenced, and again the drums beat louder than ever.
Again Fletcher commanded silence, and in the silence which ensued,
Wadsworth, turning to Fletcher, said, with great emphasis, “If we are
interrupted again, I will make the sun shine through you!” Again the
drums beat, and Fletcher made no further attempt to command the
Connecticut forces.
We have already related how Yale College was founded in 1700. Delegates
from the churches of Connecticut met at Saybrook in 1708, and framed a
system of church government called the “Saybrook Platform,” which
obliged all the clergy of the state to meet annually in each county by
rotation, for the consideration of ecclesiastical affairs.
The colonial history of Connecticut contains from this time no events of
interest apart from the general history of the colonies. The laws,
customs, manners, and religious opinions were similar to those prevalent
in Massachusetts.
Rhode Island submitted without opposition to the authority of Andros;
but when, on the English Revolution, he was deposed in Boston, the
people assembled at Newport and resumed their former chartered
privileges, and re-elected the very officers whom Andros had deposed.
“The government was again organised on a free basis, and the old emblem
of the state—an anchor with its motto, _Hope_—became significant of the
steadfast zeal and spirit with which Rhode Island has ever cherished
religious freedom and civil rights.” “Less liberal, however, than
Connecticut,” says Bancroft, “Rhode Island attached the franchise not to
the inhabitant but to the soil; and, as a wrong principle always leads
to a practical error, it fostered family pride and a distant imitation
of the English law of primogeniture.”