Great changes had taken place in the neighboring territory of New Jersey, which the Duke had alienated from his original magnificent domain, to its mutilation and lasting injury. Pennsylvania was formally organized as a province, and Philadelphia was planned. East New Jersey passed into the hands of twelve proprietors, who increased their number by sale to twenty-four, selected a governor, summoned a legislature, and organized the State.
While the English race, true to its instincts and traditions, was thus organizing its settlements, bringing its population into homogeneity, and preparing for a gradual but sure extension of its colonization from a firm, well-ordered base, the more adventurous French were pushing their voyages and posts along the lakes and down the Western streams, until the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi by La Salle completed the chain and added to the nominal domain of the sovereign of France the vast territory from the Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico, to which he gave the name of Louisiana.
The governor selected by the Duke of York to succeed Andros and to inaugurate the new order of government in his province was Colonel Thomas Dongan, an Irish officer who had commanded a regiment in the French service. Though a Roman Catholic, an Irishman, and a soldier, he proved himself an excellent and prudent magistrate. The instructions of the Duke required the appointment of a council of ten eminent citizens and the issue of writs for a general assembly, not to exceed eighteen, to consult with the Governor and Council with regard to the laws to be established, such laws to be subject to his approval,—the general tenor of laws as to life and property to be in conformity with the common law of England. No duties were to be levied except by the Assembly. No allusion was made to religion. No more democratic form of government existed in America, or was possible under kingly authority.
Dongan reached the city of New York, Aug. 28, 1683, and assumed the government. Installing his secretary and providing occupation for Brockholls, he summoned an assembly, and then hastened to Albany to check the attempt of Penn to extend the bounds of the territory of Pennsylvania by a purchase of the valley of the Upper Susquehanna from the Iroquois, who claimed the country by right of conquest from the Andastes. In this Dongan was successful; the Cayugas settling the question by a formal conveyance of the coveted territory to the New York Government, a cession which was later confirmed by the Mohawks. At the same time this tribe was instructed as to their behavior toward the French. The claim of New York to all the land on the south side of the lake was again renewed and assented to by the Mohawks. The astute Iroquois already recognized that only through the friendship of the English could their independence be maintained.
The New York Assembly met in October. Its first act bore the title of “The Charter of Liberties and Privileges granted by his Royal Highness to the Inhabitants of New York and its dependencies.” The supreme legislative authority, under the King and the Duke, was vested in a governor, council, and “the people met in general assembly;” the sessions, triennial as in England; franchise, free to every freeholder; the law, that of England in its most liberal provisions; freedom of conscience and religion to all peaceable persons “which profess faith in God by Jesus Christ.” In the words of the petition of right of 1628, no tax or imposition was to be laid except by act of Assembly,—in consideration of which privileges the Assembly was to grant the Duke or his heirs certain specified impost duties. The province was divided into twelve counties. Four tribunals of justice were established; namely, town courts with monthly sessions for the trial of petty cases; county or courts of sessions; a general court of oyer and terminer, to meet twice in each year; and a court of chancery or supreme court of the province, composed of the Governor and Council. An appeal to the King was reserved in every case. In addition to these there was a clause unusual in American statutes, naturalizing the foreign born residents and those who should come to reside within the limits of the province, which had already assumed the cosmopolitan character which has never since ceased to mark the city of New York. The liberal provisions of the statute gave security to all, and invited immigration from Europe, where religious intoleration was again unsettling the bases of society. It was not until the 4th of October, 1684, that the Duke signed and sealed the amended instrument, “The Charter of Franchises and Privileges to New Yorke in America,” and ordered it to be registered and sent across sea.
Connecticut making complaint of the extension of New York law over the territory within the contested boundary lines, Dongan brought the long dispute to a summary close by giving notice to the Hartford authorities that unless they withdrew their claims to territory within twenty miles of the Hudson he should renew the old New York claim to the Connecticut River as the eastern limit of the Duke’s patent, and refer the subject directly to his Highness. In reply to an invitation from Dongan, commissioners proceeded from Hartford to New York, who abandoned the pretensions set up, and accepted the line proposed by Dongan, thus finally closing the controversy.
The city of New York was now divided into six wards, certain jurisdiction conferred upon its officers, and a recorder was appointed.
Dongan with the vision of a statesman recognized the value of the friendship of the Indians. The Iroquois tribes he described as the bulwark of New York against Canada. The policy of the Duke’s governors from the time of Nicolls was unchanged. It consisted in a claim to all the territory south and southwest of the Lake of Canada (Ontario), and the confining of the French to the territory to the northward by the help of Indian allies. The French officers by negotiation and threat endeavored first to impose their authority on the several tribes of the Iroquois confederacy, and failing in this to divide them. But Dongan, carefully observing their manœuvres, obtained from a council of chiefs a written submission to the King of England, which was recorded on two white dressed deer-skins. The presence on the occasion at Albany of Lord Howard of Effingham, the Governor of Virginia, added greatly in the eyes of the Indians to this solemn engagement. Four nations bound themselves to the covenant, and asked that the arms of the Duke of York should be put upon their castles; and Dongan gave notice of the same to the Canadian Government, in witness that they were within his jurisdiction and under his protection. But in this submission the Indians recognized no subjection. The Iroquois still claimed his perfect freedom.
The claim of Massachusetts to territory westward of the Hudson was another perplexing element in the Indian question. In answer to a renewal of this demand, Dongan set up his claim as the Duke’s governor to jurisdiction over the towns which Massachusetts had organized on land covered by the Duke’s patent on the west side of the Connecticut River; but the matter being soon disposed of by the cancelling, for various offences, of the Massachusetts patent by the King, through the operation of a writ of quo warranto, the Duke had no further contestant to his claims. The New Jersey boundary was also matter of dispute, but Dongan, at first of his own motion, and later by specific instruction from the Duke, took care to prevent Penn from acquiring any part of New Jersey or from interfering with the Indian trade.