The Governor of Canada was notified that the Five Nations were the subjects of the King of England, and would be protected as such. The new governor visited Albany, and held a conference with the delegates from the Five Nations, and renewed the old covenant of Corlaer. The Indians showing signs of restlessness all along the frontier as far as Casco Bay, the viceroy endeavored to settle the difficulties between Canada and the New York tribes, and engaged his good offices to secure the return of the prisoners from France. On his return to Boston Andros left the affairs of the New York government in the charge of Nicholson. Dongan retired to his farm at Hempstead on Long Island. Though peaceful, the new dominion was not at rest. The liberty of conscience declared by the King was not precisely that which each dissenting denomination desired. Gradually men of each grew to believe that James was indifferent to all religions that were not of the true faith; and regarding the simple manner in which by legal form he had stripped them of their chartered rights, began to fear that by an act as legal he might strip them of their liberty of worship. The test Act which he had refused to obey, to the loss of his dignities and honors as Duke, might be altered to the ruin of its authors. A Roman Catholic test might take the place of the Protestant form. The King reigned, and a son was born to him, who doubtless would be educated in the papist faith of the Stuarts. William of Orange was only near the throne.
GREAT SEAL OF ANDROS.
[See authorities in Memorial History of Boston, ii. 9.—Ed.]
While the colonies were thus agitated, a spirit of quiet resistance was spreading in England, where alarm was great at the arbitrary manner in which charters were stricken down. Property was threatened. In the American colonies the agitation was chiefly religious. Among their inhabitants were Huguenot families whom the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 had ruthlessly driven from their homes to a shelter on the distant continent. The crisis was at hand. Strangely enough, it was precipitated by the declaration of liberty of conscience and the abrogation of the test oath against Dissenters which King James had commissioned Andros to proclaim in America. This liberty of conscience included liberty to Catholics, which the Protestants would have none of. The abrogation of the test oath opened the way to preferment and honor to Catholics, which the Protestants were equally averse to. Ordered to read the proclamation in the churches, seven bishops, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, refused to obey the command. The prelates were committed, tried, and acquitted. Encouraged by this victory, the great Whig houses of England now addressed an invitation to William of Orange, who was already, with naval and military force, secretly prepared to cross the sea. On the 5th of November the great Stadtholder landed on the shores of Devon, and proclaimed himself the maintainer of English liberties. Thus a declaration of liberty of conscience brought about the fall of a Catholic king. The news caused great excitement in the colonies.
Andros, who had but lately returned to Boston from an expedition to the northeastern frontier of Maine, where he had established posts for protection against the tribes who were threatening a second Indian war, was seized and imprisoned by a popular uprising. In New York the agitation was as intense. Nicholson, the lieutenant-governor, unequal to the emergency, let slip the grasp of power from his hand; and on the open revolt of Leisler, one of the militia captains, who seized the fort, he determined to sail for England, and the control of the province passed to a committee of safety. The revolt of Leisler forms the opening of a new chapter in the story of the New York province.
[CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.]
THERE are several comprehensive general histories of what is now the State of New York. The first edition[697] of Smith’s History was dedicated to the Earl of Halifax, First Lord Commissioner of Trade and Plantations. The dedication bears date New York, June 15, 1756. It is illustrated with a folding frontispiece plate, entitled “The South View of Oswego on Lake Ontario.” In his Preface the author states that his researches while engaged under appointment of the New York Assembly in a review and digest of the laws of the province, a work in which he was associated with William Livingston, induced the preparation of this the first History of the colony. He excuses himself from an attention to details, which he considered would not interest the British public, and declares his purpose to confine himself to a “summary account of the first rise and present state” of the colony. He presents it as a “narrative or thread of simple facts,” rather than as a history.