The efforts of Governor Clinton to reconcile the assembly by giving his assent to all the bills passed by them in their first session did not prevent their assuming greater powers than the House of Commons. He could not obtain from them either money or men for the Cape Breton expedition, set on foot by Governor Shirley of Massachusetts. Trying to regain control of colonial politics, he stirred up a bitter feeling among the popular party men; and after years of struggle, during which the home government afforded him little comfort and support, Clinton was willing to throw up his commission as governor of New York in 1751, and return to England and resume his station as admiral.
The French of Canada had used many artifices and had been indefatigable in their endeavors to gain over the Six Nations. They had cajoled many of them to desert their own tribes and remove to Canada, and had instigated others, whom they could induce to desert, to go to war with the Catawba Indians, friends of South Carolina, thereby endangering and weakening the allegiance of the Southern Indians to the British interest. Commissioners had arrived, or were to come, from all the other colonies, to meet the Six Nations at Albany and renew the covenant chain. If Quidor (the Indian name for the governor of New York) were to be absent on such an occasion, especially a Quidor who already had made an excellent impression on the king’s red allies, the council conceived that the meeting would not only be without result, but that the Indians, considering themselves slighted, would turn a more willing ear to the French, and thus endanger the existence of the colonies. Clinton was luckily a man who considered duty higher than any personal comfort, and on the 1st of July, 1751, opened the conference with the Indians which may be said to have been one of the most important in the history of the English colonies. Colonel William Johnson was induced to withdraw his resignation as Indian agent, which had made the Six Nations very uneasy, and a peace was made between the Iroquois, of New York, and the Catawbas, which also included their friends among the Southern Indians. There is not space to say much of the Indian policy pursued by Governor Clinton and other royal governors of New York. To use the Indian explanation, “they took example from the sun, which has its regular course; and as the sun is certain in its motion, New York was certain to the Indians in the course of their mutual affairs, and deviated not in the least.” New York alone had to bear the expenses (£1,150) of this conference, since Massachusetts, Connecticut, and South Carolina refused to contribute, while New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were not represented. The other colonies also refused to help New York in keeping the Iroquois in good humor by supplying smiths to live in the Indian territory and repair the savages’ guns and hatchets. New York has the benefit of the Indian trade, they said; let her bear the burden. Pennsylvania, most interested of all the middle colonies in keeping the Indians friendly, had soon learned the evils of neglecting them. Armed parties of French and savages came down into the valley of the Ohio in 1753, creating great confusion among the Indians of Pennsylvania, and inducing nearly all, the Delawares alone excepted, to join the French, as their best recourse in the indifference of the English. At the same time the New York Indians became dissatisfied at their treatment by the general assembly, which would not allow the forts in the Indian country, at Oswego and at Albany, to be maintained, preferring to trust to the activity of the Indians for keeping the French and their savage allies from devastating the northern frontier. Disgusted with the constant struggle which the jealousy of the assembly and their encroachments upon the royal prerogatives always kept alive, Clinton finally resigned in October of 1753; astonishing the council, and especially his political enemy De Lancey, the chief justice, before he surrendered the office to his newly arrived successor, Sir Danvers Osborn, by the production of a letter from the Duke of Newcastle, secretary of state, dated October 27, 1747, which gave Clinton a leave of absence to come to England, and covered De Lancey’s commission as lieutenant-governor. This stroke of Clinton’s did not succeed very well. It is true, Sir Danvers’ presence deprived the new lieutenant-governor of the pleasure of showing himself as chief magistrate of the province, but it was to be only for a few days. Sir Danvers, perceiving that the assembly of New York was not a body easily led by royal commands, exclaimed, “What have I come here for?” and hanged himself two days after taking the necessary oath; and thus the lieutenant-governor, De Lancey, came into power.
GOV. JAMES DE LANCEY.
From a plate in Valentine’s N. Y. City Manual, 1851. Cf. Lamb’s New York, i. 543.
De Lancey soon discovered himself in a dilemma. The oaths which he had taken when entering upon his new office, and which he must have had self-respect enough to consider binding, compelled him to maintain the royal prerogatives and several obnoxious laws made for the colonies by Parliament. On the other side, his political career and his bearing of past years forced him to work for the continuation of the popularity which his opposition to the very things he had sworn to do had gained him. De Lancey was skilful enough to avoid both horns of this dilemma. The assembly, rejoicing to see a man of their own thinking at the head of affairs, passed money and other laws in accordance with the lieutenant-governor’s suggestions, and quietly pocketed his rebukes, when he saw fit to administer any. The two most important events during his term were of such a nature that he could do nothing, or only very little, to prevent or further action.
On the 11th of January, 1754, a great number of people assembled in the city of New York, on account of a late agreement of the merchants and others not to receive or pass copper half-pence in payment at any other rate than fourteen to the shilling. The crowd kept increasing until two o’clock in the afternoon, when the arrest of the man beating the drum and of two others throwing half-pence into the mass quieted them.
GOV. CADWALLADER COLDEN.