Governor Andros, being a soldier and man of affairs, had seen to this
critical matter in person, going himself to the stronghold of the Mohawks
and establishing a permanent board of Indian commissioners to keep warm
the alliance with the powerful confederacy which the Mohawks represented.
He was as efficient in the proper affairs of his own province of New
York as he was arbitrary in pushing for authority beyond its borders in
the Jerseys. And Colonel Thomas Dongan, whom the Duke of York selected
to succeed him in the government of the colony, was no less watchful
and competent. Had his Grace known as well how to choose servants and
counsellors in England, he had fared better, and might have kept his
throne when he came to it. Colonel Dongan was a soldier, an Irishman,
and a Roman Catholic, and had served in the armies of France,—no good
school for an English governor,—and yet he proved himself a wise ruler
in a colony in which the Duke, his master, saw fit to permit liberty of
conscience and to observe a very liberal policy in affairs.
[Illustration: MEDAL PRESENTED BY JAMES II. TO THE KING OF THE POTOMACKS]
Colonel Nicolls had established a singular government in New York at the
very outset, nineteen years ago. There was nobody in all its organization
to represent the colonists. Its officers were appointed; its decrees
were absolute. But its decrees were also liberal and just, made in the
interest of the colony as well as in the interest of the Duke. Andros had
been knighted for his services there, and was Sir Edmund when he went
home in 1681 to explain his quarrel with Philip Carteret; and no wonder,
for he had done a notable thing. He had strictly enforced the laws of
trade, admitting no vessel to discharge her cargo at the great bay where
his government was which had not paid duties or made clearances as the
English statutes commanded; and, instead of breeding rebellion by what he
did, had linked New York to the home ports in England by a direct trade
across sea, which every year grew greater, and which steadily tended to
make his province the chief home in all America of loyalty and cordial
feeling for the mother country, a chief port of entry for English ideas
and English sympathies.
Colonel Dongan did no less for the Duke’s authority, but in another
way. In his treaty with the Indians, that notable treaty of August,
1684, he did no more than confirm the policy of Sir Edmund and the
Dutch. What made the treaty so impressive an event was the presence and
co-operation of Lord Howard of Effingham, now governor of Virginia. It
was an agreement establishing not merely the safety of the borders of
New York, but also the claim of the English to a sort of sovereignty
and overlordship over all the great stretches of the continent south
and southwest of Lake Ontario. It concerned Virginia no less than it
concerned New York; and the redskins regarded it the more because of the
presence of the ruler of the English in far-away Virginia, as well as of
the Duke’s governor in New York.
Colonel Dongan had been instructed to play a very different _rôle_ in the
internal government of his province from that which Andros had played.
Despite the very liberal measures adopted and the sound public spirit
shown by the Duke’s governors hitherto, it was not in English nature
to be satisfied for twenty years together without such an assembly to
speak and act for the people as every other colony had, north and south.
Emphatic protests and a strong appeal crossed the sea close upon the
heels of Sir Edmund Andros in 1681,—speaking not so much discontent
with the Duke’s governor as a firm and rooted objection to the form of
government, which the colony now seemed entitled to say that it had
outgrown; and the Duke thought it wise to yield. Colonel Dongan came,
in August, 1683, instructed to appoint a council and call an assembly;
and by October New York had a government like that of her neighbor
colonies. No tax or imposition was to be laid or law made except by act
of assembly,—and that looked like privilege enough. The new governor,
too, might well be to the mind of all who liked candor and capacity. He
had the blithe humor of his race, and was a man to approve and relish as
a comrade; and yet his firm purpose and clear eye in all points of action
made him also a man to respect, obey, and follow.
And then, when all things seemed settled, of a sudden the whole sky
changed, because in February, 1685, Charles II. died, and the Duke
reigned in his stead, as James II.,—a man whom all the world knew to
be a Roman Catholic, and presently discovered to be a tyrant, the more
intolerable for his solemn bigotry. The same year Louis XIV., king in
France, revoked the great Edict of Nantes, forbade the Protestants their
worship in his kingdom, and so drove fifty thousand of the best people
of France,—soldiers, men of letters, craftsmen, artificers,—forth from
the land they had enriched, to make Holland, England, Brandenburg, and
America so much the better off for their skill and thrifty industry.
By spring-time Monmouth and Argyle were in the field, and England saw
rebellion lift its head again, both in Scotland and in the south. It
was an ominous beginning for the sullen King; and the colonies were to
get their share of the change which his reign brought to Englishmen
everywhere.
[Illustration: LETTER OF DONGAN TO WILLIAM PENN]
It was a brief reign enough. James ran his course of tyranny with a sort
of bitter haste, and had finished the mad business before the fourth year
of his rule was ended. The first year (1685) saw the brutal Jeffreys
ride his bloody circuit through Somerset and Dorset, to hang, scourge,
or behead those who had incurred suspicion of sympathy, were it never so
remote or slight, with Monmouth’s rising. More than eight hundred persons
were sold into slavery over sea; three hundred and fifty said to be
rebels were hanged; women were scourged from market-town to market-town,
sent to the block, or burned; and all England stood horror-stricken to
see the King’s revenge and bitter hate. The next year saw him openly bent
upon freeing the Romish Church by his own authority from all restraint
of law. Statutes he set aside by the use of what he said was the crown’s
prerogative. He declared all creeds free; but he forbade the ministers
of the established Church to preach its Protestant doctrine. Bishops who
would not yield to his will he haled before the courts; and, lest the
ordinary courts should prove disobedient, he set up a special Court of
Ecclesiastical Commission, to do what he should bid in the discipline of
the Church. He maintained a standing army without the consent or vote
of Parliament, and levied taxes without its authorization. He was as
subservient to France as to the Church of Rome, and admitted no one to
his counsels who would not accept his creed and do his bidding.
[Illustration: JAMES II.]
It was strange the nation held its hand so long; and yet the end came
swiftly enough. By midsummer, 1688, those who were ready to risk their
lives and fortunes for England’s constitution had urgently prayed
William, Prince of Orange, to come into England, put James from his
throne, and save their liberties. William was husband to Mary, James’s
daughter; was a Protestant, a statesman, and a man of honor. He came with
an army at his back. But it was not necessary to conquer England. She
knew her straits and was ready and glad to receive him. James miserably
fled; the Parliament accepted his flight as a voluntary abdication;
and the throne went by act of Parliament to William and Mary. Thus was
accomplished what men who loved the ancient liberties of England were
afterwards to look back to as “the glorious Revolution of 1688.” No
king should henceforth pretend to any right to rule without consent of
the Parliament, or in despite of the liberties of the nation which had
executed Charles, ousted James, and re-established the throne in such
fashion as suited its sense of justice and its own security. It was the
formal setting up, as public law of England, of the bold doctrine of the
people’s rights which Sir Edwin Sandys had preached from his place in the
Commons seventy-six years ago to the deep displeasing of James I. The
momentous thing was over and complete by February, 1689; and it was then
just four years since Charles II. died.
For the northern colonies in America those four years had meant a
memorable change of government, as ill to live under, almost, as the
tyranny in England. For a little while after the loss of her charter
in 1684 affairs had moved on smoothly and without serious incident in
Massachusetts, though half-heartedly enough, it was plain, under a
provisional government, waiting to see what the crown would do. The
death of King Charles delayed a settlement; but James, when he came to
the throne, very promptly showed what he meant to do. He resolved to put
Massachusetts and the colonies lying immediately about her into the hands
of a royal governor and an appointed council, without an assembly or any
other arrangement for a participation of the people in the management of
their affairs. At first (May, 1686) he named Joseph Dudley “President
of the Council for Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, and Maine, and the
Narragansett country, or King’s Province,” but gave him no authority to
alter law or impose taxes. But that was only a temporary arrangement.
The real change came with the arrival of Sir Edmund Andros, in December,
1686, to be “Governor-General and Vice-Admiral”; and Plymouth was added
to his government.
[Illustration: WILLIAM III.]
Joseph Dudley had been unwelcome enough. It was a bitter thing for the
people of Massachusetts to have this man, whom they deemed a traitor,
nothing less, set over them. He was the son of Thomas Dudley, the stern
Puritan of their day of first exile and settlement, who had been second
to great Winthrop in the founding of the colony. And now Thomas Dudley’s
son, once their agent in London to defend their charter, had consented
to serve the crown in the overthrow of their liberties. But Andros was
worse. Dudley was at least timid and time-serving and doubtful of his
power; but Sir Edmund came with instructions and with a temper of command
which no one could mistake. He meant no rank injustice, indeed, but he
was no statesman, knew only the rough way of the soldier in carrying out
his instructions, and had very definite and unpalatable instructions to
carry out. He was bidden appoint persons of the best character and estate
to his council, and to disturb the existing law of the colonies as little
as possible; but he was also commanded to allow no printing press within
his jurisdiction; to insist upon a universal toleration in matters of
religion,—especially upon the encouragement of the worship of the Church
of England; and to execute with vigilance and vigor the laws of trade. He
was given, too, a small number of royal troops for his support, whose red
coats were sadly unwelcome in Boston. Worst of all, he was authorized to
govern and to lay taxes without an assembly.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF LAWSON’S “A NEW VOYAGE TO CAROLINA”]
This was evidently the sort of government the King meant to set up
everywhere in the colonies. He had instructed the officers of the crown
almost at the very outset of his reign to secure the annulment of the
other colonial charters, and suits had already been prosecuted in the
courts against Connecticut and Rhode Island, against the Carolina
grants, and even against those he had himself given only the other day
in New Jersey. The next year after Andros’s coming (1687) he turned upon
Maryland. New York and Virginia were already practically his own, to deal
with as he pleased. The same year Andros went to Boston, Governor Dongan,
of New York, was instructed to forbid the popular assemblies granted but
three years before. He was commanded, too, as Andros was, “to allow no
printing press.” James meant to be master everywhere, and to permit not
so much as a word of public comment upon what his servants did; and all
America felt the change. Before the first month of his administration
was over, Andros, acting upon the King’s command, had dissolved the
government of Rhode Island, and assumed control of its affairs. The next
year he did the same in Connecticut; and in 1688 New York and the Jerseys
were nominally added to his government, Francis Nicholson acting as his
deputy there.
The chief general _authorities_ for the history of Pennsylvania
during the seventeenth century and the first years of the
eighteenth are the second volumes of Bancroft and Hildreth;
the second volume of Bryant and Gay’s _Popular History of the
United States_; John Fiske’s _Dutch and Quaker Colonies_; F.
D. Stone’s _The Founding of Pennsylvania_, in the third volume
of Winsor’s _Narrative and Critical History of America_; S. M.
Janney’s _Life of William Penn_; C. B. Keen’s _New Sweden, or
the Swedes on the Delaware_, in the fourth volume of Winsor;
Thomas F. Gordon’s _History of Pennsylvania from its Discovery
by Europeans to 1776_; Samuel Hazard’s _Annals of Pennsylvania
from the Discovery of the Delaware, 1609-1682_; and Robert
Proud’s _History of Pennsylvania from the Original Settlement
in 1681 till after the Year 1742_.
The chief _sources_ are to be found in Samuel Hazard’s
_Pennsylvania Archives_; _Minutes of the Provincial Council
of Pennsylvania_; _Colonial Records of Pennsylvania_; _Duke
of Yorke’s Book of Laws_ (1676-1682) and _Charter to William
Penn and Laws of the Province of Pennsylvania passed between
1682 and 1700_, compiled by Staughton George and others;
_Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of
the Province of Pennsylvania_; _Memoirs_ of the Pennsylvania
Historical Society; Ben Perley Poore’s _The Federal and State
Constitutions_, _Colonial Charters, and other Organic Laws of
the United States_; _The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and
Biography_; and Stedman and Hutchinson’s _Library of American
Literature_.
X. THE REVOLUTION
Happily the new tyranny had no longer life in America than in England.
It came promptly enough to its end when the news reached the colonies of
James’s disgrace and flight and William’s coming. The Boston people rose,
as if by a common instinct; seized Andros and his officers; seized the
fort; seized even the King’s frigate lying in the harbor; and resumed
their old government under their old magistrates, to await further
tidings from over sea. The other colonies round about followed suit. Sir
Edmund had got himself well hated. He was an honest, well-meaning man
enough, a plain and not very quick-witted soldier who executed his orders
quite literally; but he was arbitrary and harsh, and showed sometimes
an unwise and ugly temper when he was opposed. And the orders he tried
to execute were intolerable to the people of the once free colony he
governed. He levied taxes by the authority of the crown; he demanded
quit-rents of all the land owners of the colony, because the loss of
the charter, he was told by the law officers in England, destroyed the
right of the colonists to the land they had acquired under it; he forbade
even the ordinary town meetings; and he sought to crush opposition by
harsh punishments. To these Puritans it was no small part of the trying
experience that he encouraged some to set up a society to worship after
the manner of the Church of England, and use the hated prayer-book;
and that in 1688 the Episcopal congregation thus formed built a place
of worship, which they called King’s Chapel, in Boston. It was a happy
day when they got rid of the hateful tyranny; and an assurance of better
times when they presently learned that the new government at home
approved what they had done, and were willing that they should send Sir
Edmund and his fellow prisoners to England for trial.
The action of the people was no less prompt and decisive in New York,
James’s own province. Francis Nicholson, Andros’s deputy in New York
and the Jerseys, was as little liked there as Andros himself was in
Boston. Both he and the members of his council, because they supported
him, were looked upon as tools of a papist king, and New York was Dutch
and Protestant. The two regiments of the King’s regulars Sir Edmund
had brought with him upon his second coming out, to be governor of all
the northern coast, were Irish Catholics every man, and Nicholson had
come out as commander of one of them. To the uneasy suspicions of the
critical Protestants of the little seaport, affairs wore the ugly look
of having brought them into the power of men who must of necessity prove
the enemies of a Protestant king. With news of the revolution in England,
moreover, came also news of war with France, the ousted King’s Romish
friend and ally; and the King’s officers fell into an evident panic.
While they hesitated what to do, a captain of the men-at-arms they had
called together for their defence seized the fort and the government in
the name of the Prince of Orange. This was Jacob Leisler. He had come to
the colony close upon thirty years before (1660), as a soldier in the
employ of the Dutch West India Company; had thriven in trade and made
a place of influence for himself among the colonists; and now stepped
forth as their champion against the officers of the papist King whom the
Parliament had deposed.
[Illustration: EARLY NEW YORK PRINTING BY WILLIAM BRADFORD]
It was the news of war that chiefly wrought upon the fears of the town.
It was yet spring-time, 1689, and the news that war had actually begun
reached New York, a hasty rumor, before the fact. But it spoke truth,
nevertheless; and no man could be ignorant what special interest New York
had in the matter. Louis of France was in fact planning that very spring
how he should make the place his own, to the undoing of the English in
America. With the coming of summer his plans were complete. The veteran,
indomitable Frontenac, master, if any man was, of the strategy of the
forest, was to go back to Canada to take a force of one thousand French
regulars and six hundred Canadians through the northern wilderness to
Albany, thence to sweep down the river and meet the King’s fleet, sent
timely out of France, at New York; and France was to be mistress at the
centre of the continent before another winter was out, ready to strike a
final blow, first at the Iroquois behind her in the forests, and then at
the English on the northern coasts. France made no sign as yet; the whole
plan kept covert in Paris, a closely guarded secret; no one in America
knew what was afoot. But some seemed able to divine. A keen foreboding
quickened the faculties of all who thought upon the hazard of fortunes in
the struggle that had all but come; the air seemed full of something,—who
could tell what?—and rumors crept through the forests and along the
coasts in which men seemed to guess what Louis planned.
[Illustration: AN INVENTORY OF GOODS, SIGNED BY PAUL RICHARD AND JACOB
LEISLER]
Not a few new-comers to the busy settlements which lay about the bay
at New York had special reason to fear to see Louis strike. It was but
four years since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Many a Huguenot
family had found welcome there and a refuge from death, and knew not
what fresh misfortune might overtake them should their insensate King
take also these free coasts of the New World. Every rumor bred a deeper
uneasiness. No ship came in at the Narrows which did not seem for a
moment to be come out of France, no group of ships that did not look like
a fleet of French frigates. Nothing was so easy as to throw the simpler
people of the little town into a state of mind to be glad of any friendly
leadership which seemed to make them safe against plotting Catholics,
whether out of France or out of England. Leisler was sure of the sympathy
of the crowd, and seemed to it to give proof of honesty in all that he
did. As a matter of fact, there was no danger. Colonel Dongan had done
his work too well in the diplomacy of the forest. He had won the Iroquois
to an alliance of which they gave, that very summer, instant and timely
proof. As if some English statesman had set their work for them, they
made King Louis’s plans impossible before ever they were put upon the
field. Frontenac reached Canada in October to find that all the northern
wilderness had been swept as with a flame by the fierce warriors of the
great confederacy. The fur trade of the lakes was cut off; the posts upon
the frontiers were taken and plundered; Montreal itself was barely saved
from capture and destruction. There could be no expedition to Albany
after that season’s work of rapine and slaughter.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA FRAME OF GOVERNMENT]
But New York did not know how safe it was; and Leisler had his day. It
might have been well enough, had he stopped with thrusting Nicholson
aside and assuming to play the new King’s partisan and governor till the
air should clear. But he did not. For a year and a half he maintained
himself as governor, in the new King’s name, but without his authority.
He even resisted commissioned officers of the King, until a governor sent
from England came; and then he was hanged for treason. It was a sad,
unjust end. The man had been hot-headed, arbitrary, blind, and wilful,
and had done much that the law could not sanction in order to have his
own way; but he had done all, even that which was the deepest folly, in
good faith. He had meant to serve the community he ruled, and had planned
no treason against the King. There had been not a little of the heat
of parties at the bottom of the trouble. The greater land owners, the
King’s officials, and the rich merchants had wished Nicholson to keep
the government until the new King should send some one in his stead. The
small tradesmen, the artisans, and the sailors of the town heard that
there was war with France, and that a French fleet was coming against the
place, and believed that the rich men and the officials among them were
no lovers of common men’s liberties, or of a Protestant church, either;
and Leisler was their leader. His condemnation was a thing resolved upon
and hurried to its execution in New York, not commanded from over sea;
and in 1695 Parliament itself took off the stain of treason from his name.
[Illustration: GOVERNOR SLOUGHTER SIGNING THE DEATH WARRANT OF LEISLER]