SOMETHING about the BOLTING ACT
Edmund Andros was sent to govern New York for the Duke of York.
The people complained a good deal because he acted as though he were a
king with absolute power. They asked that they have some voice in the
direction of their affairs. They got up a petition and sent it to the
Duke in England.
"What do the people want?" said the Duke. "If they are not satisfied,
they can always appeal to me." He did not see that they had just
appealed to him, and in vain.
Captain Manning, who had been in charge of the province when the Dutch
recaptured it, came again to New York with Andros. Many who had lost
their property by the coming of the Dutch, complained bitterly to
Andros. So the Governor, and his council, and the officers of the
city held many conferences, with the result that Captain Manning was
arrested. He was found guilty of cowardice, and his sword was broken
in front of the Stadt Huys in the presence of the citizens, and he was
declared, on the good authority of King Charles II., unfit ever again
to hold public office.
Although disgraced, Captain Manning did not seem to care much. He owned
a beautiful wooded island in the East River, to which he now retired.
He was wealthy, and there he lived and entertained royally during the
remainder of his life.
Andros did many things for the general good. When he had been Governor
four years, and when the most important product of trade was flour, a
law was made by which no one was permitted to make flour outside of the
city. This was called the Bolting Act. Flour cannot be made unless it
is "bolted"--or has the bran taken from it--and so the act came by its
name. The right to grind all the grain into flour may not now seem very
important, but it really was, for it brought all the trade to the city.
So you see the Bolting Act was a very good thing for the city, and very
bad for the people who did not live in the city. The city folks became
very prosperous indeed, but the others, because they could not make or
sell flour, became poorer day by day.
This went on for sixteen years, and then the law came to an end. But by
that time all the business of the entire province had centred in the
city so firmly that it could not be drawn away.
[Illustration]
So, after this, when you look at a picture of the Seal of New York,
and see a windmill and two barrels of flour, you will remember that the
windmill sails worked the mill, and the barrels were filled with flour
which laid the foundation of the city's fortunes; and were put on the
seal so that this fact would always be remembered. The beavers on the
seal suggest the early days when the trade in beaver skins made a city
possible. At one time there was a crown on the seal--a king's crown--but
that gave way to an eagle when the English King no longer had a claim on
New York.
Now that the province was prosperous, one would think that the people
would have been quite happy. But they were not. They did not like
Governor Andros because they thought that he taxed them too heavily, and
they sent so many petitions to the Duke of York that, in 1681, Andros
was recalled, and Colonel Thomas Dongan was appointed the new Governor.
A few years later, when the Duke of York became King James II., he
remembered how carefully Andros had carried out his orders, and
appointed him Governor of New England; where he conducted matters so
much to the satisfaction of his King that he earned the title of "The
Tyrant of New England."
When Governor Dongan reached the city and announced that the Duke had
instructed him to let the people have something to say as to how they
should be governed, he was joyfully received. It really seemed now that
everything was going to be satisfactory. But there came a sudden check.
Two years after Dongan became Governor, the Duke of York was made King
of England. He thereupon ordered Dongan to make all the laws himself,
without regard to what the people did or did not want. The power to make
the laws was a great power, but Governor Dongan was a fair and just man
and did not abuse it. The year after this he granted a charter to the
city, known ever since as the Dongan Charter, which was so just that it
is still the base on which the rights of citizens rest.
But while Dongan was popular with the King's subjects, he became
unpopular with the King. This was because he stood in the way of the
plans of his royal master whenever those plans interfered with the good
of the people. He must have known what the result would be. Whether he
knew it or not, it came in the year 1688. The King joined the colony of
New England and the colony of New York, and called this united territory
New England. Dongan then ceased to be Governor, having ruled the
province well.