As might be expected, this bill was not allowed even a second reading, but a motion was at once passed “that it was the great essential and undoubted right of the representatives of the people of this colony to begin all bills from raising and disbursing of money,” and that the bill of the Council should be rejected. In an address to the governor it was intimated that the one thousand pounds recently voted for entertaining the Indians at the council at Albany had been used for other purposes than the public good. After four days of foolish resistance, the governor, knowing he was unable to make headway when so clearly in the wrong, passed all the bills. Then, gratifying a personal spite at the expense of the public, he dissolved the Assembly.
All this was what those who think the story of American liberty was fought out chiefly in New England would call the “teapot-tempest politics of the New York Assembly.” Yet here was the great principle upon which republican government is founded, and for which Holland revolted against Spain, and the American colonies against England; “our great example,” as Franklin declared, being the Dutch republic.
The Dutch had, centuries before, beyond the dikes of Holland, developed and fought for the doctrine of “no taxation without consent;” and Clinton, Colden, and their coadjutors were clearly in the wrong. Further, the representatives were right in hinting that Clinton and his flatterers were too anxious to improve their own fortunes, and to make the people pay for their needless junketings enjoyed in the name of public service. Those who read the local history of the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys know how burdensome to the people was the silly and costly pageantry of royal governors on their travels.
Johnson, probably with his eyes needfully opened, on reaching his home after the dissolution of the Assembly, found the outlook for the ultimate occupation of the mid-continent by the English rather gloomy. The French held the frontier of New York on its three strategic lines,—Crown Point, La Presentation, and Niagara. They were now planning to plant a mission, which should mean a fort and a church, at Onondaga Lake, near which had perhaps been—if we so interpret the inscription on the Pompey stone—a Spanish settlement once destroyed by the Senecas. Even if the stone, inscribed with the symbols and chronology of Christendom, were that of a captive, it is a mournful but interesting relic.
When Johnson heard the news, the Jesuits had already succeeded in winning the consent of the chiefs even at this ancient hearth of the Iroquois Confederacy. Such a move must be checkmated at once. Despite the raw and inclement weather of late autumn, and his desire for rest and reading, Johnson determined on a journey with its attendant exposure. He set out at once for Onondaga. Summoning the chief men, he asked them, as a proof of their many professions of friendship, to give and deed to him the land and water around Onondaga Lake, to the extent of two miles in every direction from the shores, for which he promised a handsome present. Unable to resist their friend, the sachems signed the deed made out by Johnson, who handed over money amounting to three hundred and fifty pounds, and left for home. Writing to Governor Clinton, he offered the land to the Government of New York at the price he had paid. Thus were the designs of the French again foiled.
With the country at peace, and himself released from the responsibility of Indian affairs, Johnson began to indulge himself more and more in literary pursuits, the development of the Mohawk Valley, the moral and intellectual improvement of the Indians, and the social advantage of the white settlers. He had already a pretty large collection of books from London in his mansion, but he sent an order, August 20, 1752, to a London stationer for the “Gentlemen’s Magazine,” the “Monthly Review,” the latest pamphlets, and “the newspapers regularly, and stitched up.” He persuaded many of the Mohawks to send their children to the school at Stockbridge, Mass., founded by John Sergeant in 1741, and served after his death by America’s greatest intellect, Jonathan Edwards. His uncle, the admiral, had already given seven hundred pounds to the support of this school. Johnson’s correspondence was with the Hon. Joseph Dwight, once Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, who had married Mr. Sergeant’s widow, and was deeply interested in Indian education.
In 1753 Rev. Gideon Hawley, who had taught the children of the Mohawks, Oneidas, and Tuscaroras at Stockbridge, was sent from Boston to establish a mission school on the Susquehanna River, west of Albany. Visiting Mount Johnson, the young missionary was received by the host in person at the gate. He spent a night enjoying the hospitality, and left with Johnson’s hearty godspeed. Hawley was able to pursue his work quietly until the breaking out of the war in 1756. After serving as chaplain to Col. Richard Gridley’s regiment, he spent from 1757 to 1807, nearly a half-century of his long and useful life, among the Indians at Mashpee, Mass.
Johnson was also in warm sympathy with the efforts of Dr. Eleazar Wheelock, who since 1743, when he began with Samson Occum, a Mohegan Indian, had been steadily instructing Indian youths at Lebanon, Conn. “Moor’s Indian Charity School,” as then called, was set upon a good financial basis when in 1776 Occum and Rev. Nathaniel Whitten crossed the ocean, and in England obtained an endowment of ten thousand pounds; William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, being president of the Board of Trustees. At this school, among the twenty or more Indian boys, Joseph Brant, sent by Johnson, was educated under Dr. Wheelock. Later the Wheelock school was transferred to Hanover, N. H., and named after Lord Dartmouth. On the college seal only, the Indian lads are still seen coming up to this school instead of attending Hampton in Virginia, or Carlisle in Pennsylvania. However, ancient history and tradition, after long abeyance, were revived when, in 1887, a full-blooded Sioux Indian, Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman, was graduated from Dartmouth’s classic halls.
Various other attempts were made by Johnson, especially during the last decade of his life, to interest the British authorities in Church and State in the spiritual improvement of the Indians. The evidences of his good intentions and generous purposes are seen in his correspondence. Interesting as they are, however, they bore little fruit, owing to the outbreak of the Revolution which divided both the red and the white tribes. The baronet built a church for the Canajoharie Indians, and supported religious teachers for a while at his own expense. In 1767, being a man above his sect, he would have had the Indian school, which grew into Dartmouth College, removed, and established in the Mohawk Valley. Sectarian influence and ecclesiastical jealousies at Albany prevented his plan from being carried out. The Valley was thus without a college, until Union, founded and endowed almost entirely by the Dutchmen of Schenectady, was established in 1786, free from sectarian control, as its name implies. Under Eliphalet Nott’s presidency of sixty-two years, its fame became national, and within its walls have been educated some of the most useful members of the aboriginal race called, by accident, Indians.
Admiral Warren died in Dublin, July 29, 1752, of fever; and Johnson received the news shortly before setting out to attend the Executive Council in New York, which met in October.