In November, 1766, a call was issued to the merchants announcing that a petition to the House of Commons was being prepared, setting forth the grievances attending the trade of the colony, requesting redress therein, which would be produced at five o’clock on Friday evening, the 28th, at Burns’ Long Room and publicly read. The merchants and traders of the city were requested to attend and subscribed their names, as it was a matter of great importance and would probably be productive of good results.[4] We can find no further notice of the meeting or the results. The critical situation of affairs may have prevented a consummation of the project.
It was about this time that the menacing instructions to the governor in regard to compliance with the act for quartering troops arrived. England had determined to send troops to America, and required that the expense of quartering these troops should be borne by the colonies. The assembly of New York, in June, positively refused to comply with the act of parliament in this respect, agreeing only to supply barracks, furniture, etc., for two batallions of five hundred men each, declaring that they would do no more. The governor made his report and new instructions were sent out stating that it was the “indispensable duty of his majesty’s subjects in America to obey the acts of the legislature of Great Britain,” and requiring cheerful obedience to the act of parliament for quartering the King’s troops “in the full extent and meaning of the act.” The assembly did not recede from the stand they had taken at the previous session.
The aspect of affairs grew unpromising and portentious. It seriously affected trade. News from England indicated that parliament would take measures to enforce the billeting act. When the assembly of New York met in the latter part of May, 1767, the house voted a supply for the quartering of the King’s troops, which came up to the sum which had been prescribed by parliament. In the meantime it had been moved and enacted in parliament that until New York complied with the billeting act her governor should assent to no legislation, and by act of parliament a duty was placed on glass, paper, lead, colors and especially on tea. The disfranchisement of New York was of no practical effect, but it created great uneasiness and alarm in all the colonies.
The position which the Merchants’ Coffee House held in the community is shown by the fact that when Governor Moore received the news of the result of the unprecedented appeal made by Lieutenant-Governor Colden from the verdict of a jury in the case of Forsay and Cunningham he transmitted it to the people by obligingly sending intelligence to the Coffee House that the decision was that there could be no appeal from the verdict of a jury; which was very gratifying to the people, who were much stirred up over such action on the part of Colden.
The Whitehall Coffee House, opened by Rogers and Humphreys, in 1762, whose announcement indicates that they aspired to a prominent place for their house, also shows what was the custom of a house of this kind to do for its patrons. They gave notice that “a correspondence is settled in London and Bristol to remit by every opportunity all the public prints and pamphlets as soon as published; and there will be a weekly supply of New York, Boston and other American papers.” The undertaking was of short duration.
VIII
Hampden Hall
The Queen’s Head