Colonial days in old New York

by Alice Morse Earle

It would appear to a casual observer glancing over the court-records of those early years of New York life under Dutch supremacy, that the greater number of the cases brought before the magistrates were these slander and libel cases. We could believe that no other court-room ever rang with such petty personal suits; to use Tennyson’s words, “it bubbled o’er with gossip and scandal and spite.” But in truth slander was severely punished in all the colonies, in New England, Virginia, Pennsylvania; and it is not to the detriment of the citizens of New Netherland that they were more sharp in the punishment of such offences, for it is well known, as Swift says, that the worthiest people are those most injured by slander.

The slander cases of colonial times seem most trivial and even absurd when seen through the mist of years. They could scarce reach the dignity of Piers Plowman’s definition of slanders:—

“To bakbyten, and to bosten, and to bere fals witnesse

To scornie and to scolde, sclaundres to make.”

To show their character, let me give those recorded in which Thomas Applegate of Gravesend, Long Island, took an accused part. In 1650, he was brought up before the Gravesend court for saying of a fellow-towns-man that “he thought if his debts were paid he would have little left.” For this incautious but not very heinous speech he paid a fine of forty guilders. The next year we find him prosecuted for saying of a neighbor that “he had not half a wife.” Though he at first denied this speech, he was ordered “to make publick acknowledgement of error; to stand at the publick post with a paper on his breast mentioning the reason, that he is a notorious, scandalous person.” This brought him to his senses, and he confessed his guilt, desired the slandered “half a wife” to “pass it by and remit it, which she freely did and he gave her thanks.” Next Mistress Applegate was brought up for saying that a neighbor’s wife milked the Applegate cows. She escaped punishment by proving that Penelope Prince told her so. As a climax, Thomas Applegate said to a friend that he believed that the Governor took bribes. The schout in his decision on this grave offence said Applegate “did deserve to have his tongue bored through with a hot iron;” but this fierce punishment was not awarded him, nor was he banished.

When the tailor of New Amsterdam said disrespectful words of the Governor, his sentence was that he “stand before the Governor’s door with uncovered head, after the ringing of the bell, and to declare that he falsely and scandalously issued such words and then to ask God’s pardon.”

The magistrates were very touchy of their dignity. Poor Widow Piertje Jans had her house sold on an execution; and, exasperated by the proceeding, and apparently also at the price obtained, she said bitterly to the officers, “Ye despoilers, ye bloodsuckers, ye have not sold but given away my house.” Instead of treating these as the heated words of a disappointed and unhappy woman, the officers promptly ran tattling to the Stadt Huys and whiningly complained to the Court that her words were “a sting which could not be endured.” Piertje was in turn called shameful; her words were termed “foul, villanous, injurious, nay, infamous words,” and also called a blasphemy, insult, affront, and reproach. She was accused of insulting, defaming, affronting, and reproaching the Court, and that she was in the highest degree reprimanded, particularly corrected, and severely punished; and after being forbidden to indulge in any more such blasphemies, she was released,—“bethumped with words,” as Shakespeare said,—doubtless well scared at the enormity of her offence, as well as at the enormity of the magistrate’s phraseology.

The notary Walewyn van der Veen was frequently in trouble, usually for contempt of court. And I doubt not “the little bench of justices” was sometimes rather trying in its ways to a notary who knew anything about law. On one occasion, when a case relating to a bill of exchange had been decided against him, Van der Veen spoke of their High Mightinesses the magistrates as “simpletons and blockheads.” This was the scathing sentence of his punishment:—

“That Walewyn Van der Veen, for his committed insult, shall here beg forgiveness, with uncovered head, of God, Justice, and the Worshipful Court, and moreover pay as a fine 190 guilders.”

This fine must have consumed all his fees for many a weary month thereafter, if we can judge by the meagre lawyers’ bills which have come down to us.