** This is supposed to have been written by John Lamb. To avoid being betrayed, the Sons of Liberty went to Holt's printing-house at night, and put in type and printed their hand-bills themselves, and then circulated them through the town.
Arming of the People.—Closing of the Custom house.—Arms seized by the Sons of Liberty.—Fortifications Ordered.
people took possession of the City Hall, armed themselves, and with Lamb and Willett at their head, they embargoed all vessels in the harbor laden with provisions for the British army in Boston. They did more; Andrew Elliott, the collector, forbade the landing of a cargo of rum for the patriots. Sears and Lamb ordered the vessel to Cruger's Wharf (between Coenties * and Old Slips), landed the rum, and carted it to its destination in the city; then returning to the custom-house, they demanded and received the keys, dismissed the employees, and closed the building.May 2 When they had committed this overt act of treason, they boldly gave notice of the fact to their brethren in other cities. Persons known to be engaged in sending provisions to the British ships in the harbor were seized, and general alarm pervaded the Tory ranks. ** A grand Committee of Safety, consisting of one hundred of the most respectable citizens, was now organized; a military association for practice in the use of fire-arms was formed, under Samuel Broome; a pledge (see page 384, volume i.) was circulated, and numerously signed; six hundred stand of arms were taken from the city arsenals by the committee, and distributed among the citizens; and when an Irish battalion (the last remains of the garrison in Fort George), under Major Moncrief, were on their way to a vessel bound for Boston, with a quantity of spare arms in boxes upon wagons, Marinus Willett and a small body of Sons of Liberty, encouraged by a short harangue by John Morin Scott, boldly confronted the soldiers, seized the arms, and carried them baek to the now deserted fort.Jan 23, 1775 These arms were afterward used by Gansevoort's regiment, of which Willett was lieutenant colonel.
When the Provincial Congress assembled,May 22 its complexion disappointed the people.
Toryism and timidity prevailed in that Assembly, and the elaboration of schemes for conciliation, instead of measures for defense, occupied the majority. Hard pressed by public opinion, *** and the influence of important events daily transpiring, they were obliged to yield. Four regiments were authorized to be raised; **** fortifications at King's Bridge (v) were ordered, and measures were taken to fortify the Hudson passes in the Highlands. In the mean while, the patriots gathered in force around Boston; the battle of Bunker Hill was fought; a Continental army was organized, and George Washington appointed the commander-inchief. (vi) Rumors of the approach of troops from Ireland came, and the Provincial Congress,
* This is a corruption of Countess's Slip, a name given to it in honor of the Countess Bellomont, the child-wife of Governor Bellomont. She was a mother at the age of thirteen.
** Dr. Cooper, the president of King's (now Columbia) College, becoming alarmed, soon afterward fled to Stuyvesant's house, near the East River, where he remained concealed, under the impression that the Whigs were trying to seize him. He finally escaped to the Asia man-of-war. He had written much in favor of Episcopacy in America, and was a decided Loyalist; so decided, that, next to Tryon, Colden, and Mayor Hicks, he was most detested by the Whigs. Dr. Cooper was eminent for his learning. He succeeded Dr. Johnson as president of the college in 1763. Soon after his flight he went to England. He died suddenly in Edinburgh, on the first of May, 1785, at the age of fifty years, and was buried in the Episcopal chapel there.
*** New York has been unjustly taunted for its adherence to royalty, when the curtain of the Revolutionary drama was first lifted in 1775. Family influence was very great in that colony, and through it the General Assembly and the Provincial Congress were very loyally inclined. But the masses were chiefly republican in feeling, and when Toryism was fairly crushed out of the popular Assembly by pressure from without, no state was more patriotic. With a population of only one hundred and sixty-four thousand, of whom thirty-two thousand five hundred were liable to do militia duty, New York furnished seventeen thousand seven hundred and eighty-one soldiers for the Continental army; over three thousand more than Congress required.—Judge Campbell's Address before the New York Historical Society, 1850.
**** These were commanded by colonels M'Dougal, James Clinton, Ritzema, and Wynkoop. Herman Zedwitz, a Prussian, was M'Dougal's first major. Ritzema joined the Royal army after the battle at White Plains; and about the same time Zedwitz was cashiered for attempting a treasonable correspondence with Tryon.
* (v) King's Bridge spans Spyt den Duyvel Creek, at the northern end of York Island. The first structure there was of wood, erected at the expense of the colony in 1691, and was called the King's bridge.