Gradually a few Catholics did creep into the colony. Father Jogues on his visit in 1643 found an Irishman and a Portuguese woman, forerunners of the four hundred thousand now on Manhattan Island. Le Moyne, as we have stated, subsequently visited the island, and a Dutch domine avers that he did so in order to give the consolations of religion to some Catholic sailors and residents; but the fanaticism of Holland was here, and as an illustration of the freedom of worship supposed to exist, we find that in 1658 a Catholic in Brooklyn was punished for objecting to support a Reformed minister.
By the reduction of New York, in 1664, to the English sway, restrictions were really if not explicitly removed. James, Duke of York, was a Catholic, and his province of New York was for a time governed by Colonel Thomas Dongan, also a Catholic. His character and career are known to our readers. Under his administration Catholic priests for the first time took up their residence on the island. Unfortunately, we have little more than the names of three clergymen and some indication of the period of their stay; though hostile notices tell us of one terrible crime they perpetrated—they actually did erect a "Jesuit colledge," and taught boys Latin. The King's Farm was assigned as the place for this institution of learning; but before Catholicity could take an enduring form, James II. was hurled from his throne for trying to make the Anglican bishops speak a little toleration. As has often happened, intolerance, with the banner-cry of "Liberty," became the order of the day. New York soon enjoyed the benefit of a governor of a true bigot stamp, grandson of one of the bloodiest butchers in the blood-stained annals of Ireland, Coote, Earl of Bellomont. He disgraced the colonial legislation with penal laws against Catholics, and characteristically lied in the preamble of his act. But he was a stanch Protestant, and had some curious dealings with Captain Kidd. The result of this change in New York affairs was that the King's Farm slipped into the hands of the Episcopalians, and they built Trinity Church on it. There is some squabbling now about this property; why not settle the matter amicably by devoting it to the object originally intended—"a Jesuit colledge"?
Under the harrying that began with Leisler's usurpation of authority in the province on the fall of James, and his mad brain full of plots and "diabolical designs of the wicked and cruel papists," such Catholics as had settled in New York seem gradually to have removed elsewhere; or, if they remained, reared families who were strangers to the faith.
Thus far Catholicity in New York had a strange history. Is it a dream? Fact first: Enlightened Dutch Protestants, champions of liberty of conscience, exclude Catholics, and when they creep in, tax them to support a church against the dictates of their conscience. Fact second: Enlightened English Protestants, after a great and glorious revolution, and of course full of toleration, passed penal laws subjecting Catholic priests to imprisonment for life with murderers and criminals. Fact third: Catholics during the brief period of their influence gave the colony a legislature, a bill of rights, freedom of worship to all Christians, and a college, and first attempted to elevate and christianize the negro slave. Bishop Bayley thus narrates one of these glorious works:
"The first act of the first assembly of New York convened by Colonel Dongan was the 'Charter of Liberty,' passed October 30th, 1683, which, among other things, declares that 'no person or persons which profess faith in God by Jesus Christ shall, at any time, be any ways molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any difference of opinion, or matter of religious concernment, who do not actually disturb the civil peace of the province; but that all and every such person or persons may, from time to time and at all times, freely have, and fully enjoy, his or their judgments or consciences in matters of religion, throughout all the province—they behaving themselves peaceably and quietly, and not using this liberty to licentiousness, nor to the civil injury or outward disturbance of others.' By another enactment, all denominations then in the province were secured in their liberty and discipline, and the like privilege was granted to others who might come into it."
For fifty years the history of Catholicity on New York island is a blank. A priest was occasionally brought in as a prisoner on some Spanish ship taken by a privateer; that is all. Catholics are scarcely alluded to. But an awakening came in 1741 in one of the wildest excitements in our annals. Catholics had, indeed, nothing to do with it, and for a long time no breath implicated the few Catholics with the supposed dangers, till a silly letter of General Oglethorpe put the idea into the heads of the New York authorities. Then the negro question and the Catholic question, which have so long alternately afforded a topic for sensation, and have at times been so oddly combined, met for the first time in New York annals.
Bishop Bayley thus describes the negro plot:
"The year 1741 was made memorable by one of those popular excitements which shows that whole communities as well as individuals are sometimes liable to lose their wits. Upon a rumor of a plot made by the negroes to burn the city and massacre the inhabitants, the whole body of the people were carried away by a sudden excitement. The lieutenant-governor offered a reward of one hundred pounds and full pardon to any free white person who would make known the author or authors of certain attempts to set fire to houses in various parts of the city. A servant-girl, named Mary Burton, living with a man named Hughson, who had been previously condemned for receiving stolen goods, came forward to claim the reward, declaring that certain negroes who frequented her master's house (he kept a small tavern) had made a plot; one of the accused, named Cuffee, she declared had said that 'a great many people had too much, and others too little,' and that such an unequal state of things should not continue long.[89] The pretended disclosures increased the excitement, and the lawyers of the city, to the number of seven, with the attorney-general, were called together to take council in regard to the matter. They certainly manifested very little coolness or judgment, and may be said to have led on the unfair and unjust trials which followed. The accused had no counsel allowed them; the attorney-general and the whole bar were on the side of the prosecution; the evidence was loose and inconclusive, and came without exception from the mouths of interested persons of bad character. Yet, upon such evidence as this, four white persons were hanged, eleven negroes were burned at the stake, eighteen hanged, and fifty were transported and sold, principally in the West Indies.[90] Among those hung was the unfortunate Mr. John Ury. Whether he was really a Catholic priest or not, he was certainly condemned and hung as such. We have no other evidence upon the matter than Horsmanden's account, and from this it does not clearly appear whether he was really a priest or a nonjuring clergyman of the Church of England.[91] The most conclusive fact in favor of his being a priest is founded upon the circumstance that, when arraigned as a priest, tried as a priest, and condemned as a priest, he never formally denied it, nor exhibited any evidence of his being ordained in the Church of England.[92]
"The persons most to blame were the judges and lawyers. The speech of the attorney-general on the trial of Ury, the sentence given by Horsmanden upon certain of the negroes, and that by the chief-justice on others, are so harsh, cruel, and abusive that we could hardly believe it possible that they had uttered them, if they were not published with the authority of Horsmanden himself. It is evident, however, that their 'holy horror of Popery' had as much to do with the whole matter as their fear of insurrection among the blacks."
Of course after this attack of insanity New York was scarcely a place for a Catholic to reside. There must have been a few; but evidently they avoided attracting attention. The next Catholic sensation was that of a poor creature whose life had been a sad defiance of all religion and morality, but who, at her death, sent some money to the Rev. Mr. Inglis, rector of Trinity Church, with a request that she should be buried in the church. She was indeed interred there, till a clamor rose fierce and loud. She was not only a public sinner but a Catholic; the latter, too terrible a sin to forgive, so she was taken up; but Mr. Inglis never recovered from the stigma.