IRISH STARS IN THE ARCHIVES OF NEW YORK PROVINCE.
BY HON. HUGH HASTINGS, FORMER STATE HISTORIAN OF NEW YORK.
The Irish have never been known as explorers or as discoverers. Their forte is recognized as establishing success where others have tried and failed. Stranded as they were on their desert habitat, we can easily understand why the early annals of our country are not more frequently embellished by Irish names. As early as October 12, 1605, Sir Arthur Chichester wrote from Ireland to the English prime minister, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, that it “was absurd folly to run over the world in search of colonies in Virginia or Guiana, whilst Ireland was lying desolate.” The first expedition that left England—almost three years before Henry Hudson discovered the river that bears his name—brought over the first Irishman to America, Francis Maguire, who arrived at Jamestown Virginia, with Captain Christopher Newport, May 6, new style, 1607. Maguire remained in the new country for nearly a year and returned to England with Newport. He wrote an account of his voyage to Virginia and submitted it to the Privy Council of Spain.
Many years elapse before an Irish name is discovered among the early settlers of New York, and then it is so overwhelmed and encumbered with Dutch orthography and Dutch pronunciation as to be well nigh indistinguishable, even to its owner if he ever ran over it. Against an ancient Dutch muster roll profound knowledge must bow deferentially. The most expert linguist stands in awe of it, and his most skilful expedients are often baffled in efforts to translate it, for the Seventeenth Century Dutch scrivener knew, read, saw, felt, thought, recognized nothing but Dutch—nor were mustees, Indians and negroes exempt from this classification. All were clothed in Dutch orthographical habiliments as religiously as they were fed with suppawn at breakfast, whether it was welcome or not.
When the time arrived, however, for Irish names to appear officially in the Archives of the Province of New York, it is supremely gratifying to us, who are proud of our Irish blood and the State and country in which we live, to discover two bright particular stars blazing steadily from a firmament black with corruption.
When Thomas Dongan, a gallant soldier and experienced man of affairs, arrived in New York City, in the fiftieth year of his age, as governor of the province, liberty of action was restrained as arbitrarily as liberty of speech was repressed. The printing press was embargoed. Freedom of worship was circumscribed. Quakers and Jews were ostracized and driven from the pale. Dongan was charged by his royal master with three important duties:
1. To call an assembly of representatives of New York. 2. To allure the Indians from the French. 3. To introduce the Roman Catholic religion into the Province.
The first was easy of accomplishment, for the governor was simply required to carry out the King’s orders, which were most agreeable to the persons directly affected. The second was facilitated by the governor’s recognized status as a Catholic. The third was impossible, because of the anomalous position of the King and the avowed and deep-rooted hostility of the people to the church of Rome. Furthermore, in the prosecution of his work toward the fulfillment of these obligations the governor invariably was balked by the prurient meddling of his royal master.
The General Assembly met at Fort James in the Battery, New York, in October, 1683, held a three weeks’ session and passed fourteen measures, including the famous “Charter of Liberties and Privileges.” In this act occurred the first official mention of “the people” in a constitutional document in America, or, as it reads, the supreme authority under the King and the duke “shall forever reside in a governor, council and the people met in general assembly.” It was also provided that the representatives should appoint their times of meeting and that they could adjourn from interval to interval at their will; that no tax should be imposed but by the consent of the governor, the council of twenty-one and the representatives; and that no billeting of troops in time of peace should be tolerated. Full and free liberty was granted to all persons professing faith in God by Jesus Christ, unmolested to exercise the mode of worship agreeable to them, provided “the good people be not disturbed.” To Albany and New York were given charters.
In this connection before proceeding to the consideration of the broader lines of Dongan’s policy and of the matters he accomplished or failed to accomplish, it may not be amiss to glance at some of the restrictions placed upon and some of the liberties enjoyed by the New Yorker of that period. The population of the province was estimated at 20,000 souls. None but freemen were permitted to sell by retail or exercise any handicraft trade; a tax of £3, 12s. was laid upon every merchant and shopkeeper and of £1, 4s. upon every handicraft man when set free; only freemen or a resident of the city three years were permitted to trade upon Hudson river; all the inhabitants on the Hudson river were prohibited from trading across the sea; bakers were required to keep good household bread made of flour, as “the meals come from the mill”; no flour bolted or “bisket” should be made for exportation but in the city; no flour or bread should be imported into the city from any other part of the province; the assize for bread was established every three months.
A few ancient police regulations of Dongan’s time will forcibly appeal to the modern dweller in New York. Servile work on the Lord’s day was proscribed under a penalty of ten shillings, with double the fine for each repetition. Children were forbidden from gathering in the streets or places to play on that day. Public houses were prohibited from selling liquor on the Sabbath during divine service unless to travellers. Constables were compelled to walk the streets with their staffs to see that the law was fulfilled, and were further required to return the names of all strangers that come to reside within the ward as masters of public houses were ordered to report all strangers that come to lodge or live with them, as the custom is today in every European city. In the days of Dongan twenty carmen and no more were appointed under proper regulations—one of which demanded that they fill up, amend and repair the breaches in the streets and highways, in and about the city, when required by the Mayor, gratis. No negro or other slave was permitted to drive any cart, except brewers’ drays, within the city. The carrying of concealed weapons was interdicted.
The high hopes the colonists had entertained of the liberal and enlightened policy James had outlined by Dongan’s introduction were soon dashed to the ground and they suffered all the pangs of a crushing disappointment. The Assembly promised by the Charter of Liberties was never convened, for in February, 1685, Charles II, King of England, died. His brother, the Duke of York, ascended the throne and as James the King promptly repudiated the Colonial policy of James the Duke, the charter was vetoed, the Assembly was abolished and the province was precipitated backward to the old Monarchial order of things.
Dongan in the meantime had won the affection and confidence of the Iroquois, partly by means of his religious professions and by his tact and straightforwardness in dealing with them. The innocent-hearted child of the forest trusted Corlear most implicitly in spite of French intrigue and French subsidies. It was the influence which Dongan had gained that restrained the tribes from a contemplated foray in Virginia. With the Indian situation confidently in his hand, Dongan was checked by his King, who had entered into a religious coalition with Louis XIV, the most powerful sovereign in Europe. James ordered the governor to prevent the Iroquois from attending a council in Canada to entertain proposals for peace. The lieutenant on the ground, unbiased by notions of European politics, far better understood the situation in New York than his royal master three thousand miles away. The governor was more far-sighted than his King. Dongan diligently aspired to annihilate French supremacy over the Indians, but questioned the wisdom of using Jesuits, whose predilections for the French were well known to him. The Iroquois were loyal to New York and had never forgiven the French for the seizure of their sachems by order of Louis XIV. Dongan faithfully attempted to foster the former sentiment, as he never neglected an opportunity to remind his red allies of the latter prejudice. The efficacious methods he had pursued were destroyed by the treaty of neutrality which inhibited New England and France from assisting Indians who were at war with one another.
Dongan’s crowning offense, however, in the eyes of his King was his failure to force his faith upon a people who were in no mood, as later events proved, to permit their religious prejudices to be tampered with. Again were the prudence and the wisdom of the lieutenant demonstrated at the expense of the intelligence of the King. Dongan’s loyalty and devotion to his church never was doubted nor questioned. The course he pursued reflects the highest credit upon his conservatism, his courage and his fidelity to religious principle. If any event were needed in the life of a King to prove deficiency in judgment, and incompetence as a ruler, the action of the unfortunate James II in superseding Thomas Dongan at this critical time and for the specific cause selected would prove sufficient and convincing.
We all have read and listened to the marvellous tales of that jaunty terror of the seas, Captain William Kidd, and been brought up from childhood on the mournful ballad of William Moore—household names both of them—but how many remember the importance of the influence exercised in those days by the governor of New York, Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont, in the formation of the expedition organized by the former and in the apprehension of the culprit for the murder of the latter. The times were scandalously corrupt and corrupt individuals lived extravagantly up to the times. Land-grabbing was practised as an art in New York then as it is practised in Oregon today. Indian rings and land grants were common and notorious and flourished brazenly. Officers of the Crown who should have crushed them were often ringleaders in organizing them; ministers of the gospel, who should have interceded for and protected the innocent child of the forest, basely betrayed their trust, and were leagued in corruption to acquire vast tracts of valuable land from the confiding aboriginal owner. The governor of the province seldom arose above his environment. As a rule he possessed no capabilities for the position. If he were not bankrupt he was ignorant, or a degenerate representative of the nobility, despatched to New York to repair or redeem his shattered fortune or to make one by whatever means he might employ, the province being regarded by the home authorities as a common receptacle to be utilized for the purposes named. Sympathy for the colonists on the part of a governor was displayed as seldom as integrity or interest in the future of the province. The ambition of the governor seemed to be bounded by perquisites and he generally left the shores of New York for England with a fortune that placed him on a plane with the richest men of the old world. Privateering was a prolific source of revenue. No man with ready cash disdained identity with it. It was countenanced by so gracious a ruler as William III, who encouraged and patronized it. A change of flag only was necessary to convert an innocent privateer into a ferocious and bloodthirsty pirate. These wild rovers of the sea respected neither vessel nor nation. Many bore commissions from James II and from William III and many bore none at all. Governor Fletcher was their acknowledged friend and alleged co-partner in their villainies. New York City was their recognized headquarters.
It was because Bellomont had established a reputation as a man of resolution and of integrity that he was chosen by his King as governor of New York. His orders imposed obligations that reflected credit upon his abilities as an executive of the purest virtue and the strongest character. Discontent and disorder were rampant because of the cruel murder of Leisler and Milborne. Uneasiness and anxiety prevailed throughout the province because of the threatened attitude of the Indians. The rapacity and greed of his predecessor, Fletcher, had engendered enmities and jealousies that even the mighty resources of the King were powerless to allay.
Bellomont’s requisition for a frigate to suppress piracy was vetoed, for the reason that England needed her entire available marine force for service in home waters because of the war with France. The suggestion of a private ship was more successful and met with the financial assistance of the King, the duke of Shrewsbury, lord chancellor Somers, the Earls of Oxford and Romney, Robert Livingston and others, Bellomont assuming the responsibility of equipment. It was this ship, the Adventure, which was turned over to William Kidd, a resident of New York, then in London. Kidd, beyond question, ranks as the transcendent specimen of his class. He was a navigator par excellence, a man of the world; a type that, when pushed by fortune into any orbit, commands the situation by the power of his own robust characteristics. Kidd’s orders were simple. He was to prey upon French commerce and to destroy pirates. In the first desideratum he proved a failure; in the second, by becoming a pirate himself he achieved a brilliant and, in the end, a fatal success. Upon his career on the high seas, as a privateer and pirate, it is not necessary to dilate. Two years after his departure from Plymouth he arrived in New York, only to find that his friend, Governor Fletcher, and other piratical sympathizers were no longer in control of the affairs of the province. Kidd sailed Eastward along the Sound and buried part of his plunder on Gardiner’s Island. He then proceeded to Boston, where he appeared on the streets in the gorgeous raiment of a man of fashion. Governor Bellomont happened to meet him, recognized him, arrested him and shipped him to Europe. Kidd was tried and convicted for the murder of William Moore—and was hanged as a pirate.
In the meantime Bellomont deplored the legacy his predecessor, Fletcher, had left him: A divided people, an empty purse, a few miserable, naked, half-starved soldiers, not half the number the King allowed pay for; the fortifications and the governor’s house very much out of repair, and “in a word the whole government was out of frame.” The province was rent with turmoil and turbulence in consequence of the Leisler-Milborne rebellion. The new governor’s sympathies had been drawn toward the martyr Leisler, whose enemies in the aristocratic party resisted almost to the point of violence Bellomont’s efforts to make restitution for a monstrous crime. As a rebuke to the rascality of his predecessor Bellomont had declared: “I will take care there shall be no misapplication of the public money; I will pocket none of it myself nor shall there be embezzlement by others.” To this standard he unflinchingly held. No breath of scandal, no charge of prostitution of duty for self-aggrandizement tainted his reputation. He loyally protected the interests of those whom he was sent to govern. He was distinctively a statesman of the constructive school, in marked contradistinction to many of those governors who preceded and who followed him, who pursued a policy of confiscation or of destruction—of confiscation in grabbing everything in sight and of destruction by undermining the liberties of the people and by attempted restriction of their God-given rights. Under Bellomont’s short administration the frontiers were strengthened, a library was established, printing was encouraged, shipping promoted and education, which had been neglected, stimulated. His untimely death, however, prevented the development of many beneficent reforms which he had under contemplation.
Under the cloak of politics repressive religious measures were adopted and inhuman persecutions practised. Dongan, an Irish Catholic, favored an act permitting Jews to exercise their religion, but the New York Common Council vetoed the proposition, while Bellomont, an Irish church of England worshipper, approved the measure proscribing priests, on the ground that Catholic prelates uniformly labored to excite the Indians against the Anglo-Americans. Both governors recommend themselves to posterity for enlightened statesmanship that throws into deep obscurity the times in which they lived. Dongan brought to the province of New York the first semblance of a representative form of government; under Lord Bellomont the first spark of American Independence flashes, by the demand that the colonists repudiate the laws of England because the colonists are not represented in the parliament that frames these laws. The board of trade of London directs Bellomont to check this heresy because “the independence the Colonists thirst for is so notorious.”
During the Colonial epoch England assigned many men to govern New York. The governor possessed unlimited despotic powers. He exercised authority denied to the King. He not only made the laws but interpreted and executed them, and when necessary unmade them. He usurped the prerogatives of the Assembly and of the courts; his council was merely an aggregation of automatons who danced when he pulled the string. No act of the Assembly was placed on the statute book without his signature and no decision of the court was valid until he, as chief justice, passed judgment, and in this respect he exercised powers denied to the King, for his Majesty, while permitted to sit on the king’s bench, was prohibited from expressing judgment. There were two governors of early New York who never have been brought under the ban of usurping the functions of the coördinate branches of government nor of debasing the powers confided to them by their superiors, Thomas Dongan and the Earl of Bellomont. No charge ever has been brought that they carried away money unworthily raised or dishonestly made. Nor has either ever been accused of using his high position for unmeritorious or discreditable purposes. Both, however, have received the encomiums and praise of historians of England and America as rulers and statesmen of the highest degree of efficiency and honesty at a time when the standard of morals and of statesmanship was lamentably low and unquestionably debased. Toward both every Irishman and every New Yorker should turn with sentiments of the strongest esteem and admiration of the highest calibre, not only in commendation of the success they gained in the fulfillment of official obligations in the face of discouraging and corrupt environment, but for the sturdy and sterling manhood they displayed in the maintenance of their official honor and in the normal performance of their official duty.
In this connection it may not be amiss for us to pay a deserved tribute to Dr. Edmund Bailey O’Callaghan, a native of Ireland, who was more instrumental in awakening the study of the Dutch language and of our priceless Dutch records than any other man since the creation of the State of New York. Dr. O’Callaghan represented the type of the pushing, aggressive and scholarly Irishman. Two years of his early life were devoted to the study of medicine in Paris. At the age of twenty-six he crossed the ocean, settled in Canada and at once became prominent in the agitation for Catholic emancipation in Ireland and England. He became secretary of an organization for Irish immigrants to America, edited a newspaper in Montreal, and was sent to the Provincial Parliament, where his activity and ability placed him in the front rank as a leader. His radical views and conduct, however, brought a mob of tories to his office and led to the destruction of his type, press and establishment. His neighbors, however, made it so unpleasant that he was compelled to seek refuge in the United States when he was forty years of age. He established his residence in Albany, was fortunate in the selection of his most intimate friend, Chancellor Reuben Hyde Walworth, practised his profession with more or less success, and at the same time conducted an industrial paper called the Northern Light. It was at this period that, during the anti-rent disturbances, he undertook the study of the Dutch language. His “History of New Netherlands” made him famous and stimulated the study of Colonial records and Colonial research throughout the United States.
HONORABLE JAMES FITZGERALD.
Justice of Supreme Court of the State of New York.