LEISLER AND THE PEOPLE.

359

The effect of the accession of William and Mary, in New England, will be noticed hereafter. Andros and his political associates were seized at Boston, and sent to England. This act was followed in New York by the seizure of Fort James. In this movement Jacob Leisler, an influential merchant and commander of militia, took a leading part. He was a German colonist; a Presbyterian in church-fellowship; an enthusiastic admirer of William of Orange, but with democratic tendencies. About five hundred men in arms rallied around him

at the fort, whence he issued this declaration: "As soon as the bearer of orders from the Prince of Orange shall have let us see' his power, then, without delay, we do intend to obey, not the orders only, but also the bearer thereof."

Leisler refused to proclaim the accession of William and Mary, until he should be officially certified of the fact. At his request, delegates from a few towns assembled in convention, formed a Committee of Safety of ten, and proceeded to organize a provisional government. They commissioned Leisler commander of the province, when Nicholson, whose time-serving policy had alienated from himself the confidence of the people, fearing the populace, fled on board a vessel and sailed for London. This flight gave Leisler and his adherents an unexpected advantage. The people consented that he should act as governor in the absence of regularly constituted authority. The aristocracy were offended because an "insolent foreigner and plebeian" was in the high seat of power. They bitterly opposed him, but he managed public affairs so well that his enemies were compelled to praise him. Van Cortlandt, Bayard and other leaders of the aristocracy retired to Albany, where a convention of the people acknowledged allegiance to William and Mary, defied the power of Leisler, and

denounced him as a treasonable usurper. Their influence in the province was great, and the communities on the Hudson generally disapproved of the mutinous proceedings in New York.

When, late in the year (1689), royal letters were received addressed to the governor, or, in his absence, to "such as, for the time being, take care for preserving the public peace and administering the law in New York," Leisler considered that his own authority had received the royal sanction. He now, with clouded judgment and inconsiderate rashness, determined to bring into obedience the aristocratic party, whose focus of strength was at Albany under the lead of Peter Schuyler, the mayor of that city. He sent his son-in-law, Jacob Milborne, with a few troops to enforce that obedience. He was resisted by argument and physical force until the awful destruction of Schenectady by the Indians in February, 1690, spread universal alarm and pointed to the necessity for uniting for the common defence. The authority of Leisler was acknowledged, for the people of the north sorely needed his help.

Another year passed by. Meanwhile the ears of the monarchs had been filled with reports of Leisler's usurpation and disloyalty, and they appointed Henry Sloughter governor of New York, who sent forward his lieutenant, Ingoldsby, to take possession of the province. When that officer arrived early in 1691, he haughtily demanded of Leisler the surrender of the fort. He did not deign to show his credentials, and Leisler properly refused compliance with his demands, at the same time treating Ingoldsby, and the few soldiers whom he brought with him, with respect. The aristocratic party were enraged by Leisler's refusal, and for several weeks the city was fearfully excited by the violence of factions. And when, in March, Governor Sloughter arrived, and Leisler sent him a letter loyally tendering to him the fort and province, that functionary, under the influence of the aristocratic leaders, answered it by sending an officer to arrest the usurper" and Milborne, and six of the "inferior insurgents," on a charge of high treason. They were taken to prison, and when they were arraigned, the two principal offenders, denying the authority of the court, refused to plead, and appealed to the king. They were condemned, and sentenced to death (as were, also, the other six); but Sloughter, who, in his sober moments, was just and honest, refused to sign the death-warrant until he should hear from the king. The implacable enemies of the "usurper," determined on causing his destruction, invited the governor to a dinner party on Staten Island on a bright day in May. One of them carried to the banquet a legally drawn death-warrant, and when the governor had been made stupid by liquor, he was induced to sign the fatal paper. It was sent to the city

EXECUTION OF LEISLER AND MILBORNE.

361 that evening, and on the following morning Leisler and Milborne were summoned to prepare for execution. Leisler sent for his wife, Alice, and their older children, and after a sorrowful parting with them, he and his sonin-law were led to the gallows in a drenching rain. They confessed their errors of judgment, but denied all intentional wrong-doing. The blamelessness of their lives confirmed their declarations of innocence. Before Sloughter was permitted to recover from his debauch, they were hanged. It was a foul murder. The governor was tortured with remorse for his act, and died of delirium tremens three months afterward.

Leisler's appeal to the king was not sent. His son repeated it. The result was the return to the families of Leisler and Milborne of their confiscated estates, and before four years had passed, the British Parliament declared them innocent of treason, by reversing the attainder. Their death created a deep feeling of sympathy for the cause of popular sovereignty, of which they were representatives and proto-martyrs. From that hour republicanism had a very vigorous growth in the province of New York, and gave future royal governors a great deal of trouble.

Benjamin Fletcher succeeded Sloughter as governor of New York. He was a man of violent passions, weak judgment, greedy, dishonest and cowardly, and as dissolute as his predecessor. How he came to be intrusted with the governorship at all, and especially with the large powers of commander of the militia of Connecticut, New York and New Jersey with which he was invested, is a problem not easily solved. He soon disgusted all parties; and the recklessness of his administration caused more decided resistance to imperial power than ever before. Among his acts of petty tyranny, which displayed his folly and weakness, was his visit to Hartford, with Colonel Bayard and others, late in the autumn of 1693, to assert his disputed military authority there, by ordering out the Connecticut militia. at a season when parades had ceased. The charter of the colony denied Fletcher's jurisdiction, and the Assembly, then in session, promptly gave utterance to that denial on this occasion. "I will not set my foot out of this colony, till I have seen his majesty's commission obeyed," said Fletcher to the governor of Connecticut. The latter yielded so much as to allow Captain Wadsworth to call out the train-bands of Hartford.

When the troops were assembled, Fletcher stepped forward to take the command, and ordered Bayard to read his excellency's commission. At that moment Captain Wadsworth ordered the drums to be beaten. "Silence!" angrily cried the petulant governor, and Bayard began to read again. "Drum! drum! I say," shouted Wadsworth; and the sonorous roll drowned the voice of Bayard. Fletcher, in a rage, stamped his foot and cried

"Silence!" and threatened the captain with punishment for insubordination. Whereupon Wadsworth stepped boldly in front of the governor and said, while his hand rested on the handle of his sword: "If my drummers are interrupted again, I'll make the sunlight shine through you. We deny and defy your authority." The cowardly governor sullenly folded up his commission, pocketed it and the affront, and with his retinue returned to New York in a very angry mood. He complained to the king. The matter was compromised by making Fletcher commander of the Connecticut militia only in time of war.

During the whole of Fletcher's administration of seven years, party rancor, kindled by the death of Leisler, burned intensely, and, at one time, menaced the province with civil war. At the same time it was threatened with a destructive invasion by the French and Indians from Canada, under the guidance of the venerable Count Frontenac, the energetic governor of that province. These foes were then traversing the wilderness in northern

DEMOCRACY IN NEW YORK.

363 New York, seeking for a passage through the country of the Five Nations to the English settlements below. Fortunately the governor listened to the wise advice of Mayor Schuyler, of Albany, who had a marvellous influence over the Iroquois Confederacy; and under his leadership, about three hundred English and as many Mohawk warriors beat back the foe to the St. Lawrence. They so desolated the French settlements in the vicinity of Lake Champlain, slaying about three hundred French and Indians at the north end of the lake, that Frontenac was glad to remain quiet at Montreal. Although the New York Assembly was filled with the bitter enemies of Leisler, they, as boldly as he, asserted the supremacy of the people, and would suffer no encroachments on colonial rights and privileges. They rebuked the interference of the governor in legislation, by insisting upon amendments to bills, and drew from him, on one occasion, the reproachful words which tell of their independence and firmness: "There never was an amendment desired by the Council Board, but what was rejected. It is a sign of a stubborn ill-temper." With that "stubborn ill-temper" of the Assembly, Fletcher was almost continually in conflict; and when, in 1698, he was superseded by the Earl of Bellamont, he seemed as glad to leave the province as the people were to get rid of him.

Bellamont was an honest and energetic Irish peer. He had been on the Committee of Parliament appointed to make inquiry concerning the trial and death of Leisler, and was well acquainted with the questions which divided the factions. He rebuked the little aristocratic oligarchy who had hovered around Fletcher; and his wise and liberal course strengthened the republican cause. It opened the way to just legislation, and the ascendency of liberal men in the Assembly. That body, in the year 1700, on receiving a letter from the king, asking them to indemnify the family of Leisler from a "gracious sense of the father's services and sufferings," confirmed the verdict of Parliament in favor of the innocence of the martyr by granting the request.

Bellamont labored earnestly to reform existing abuses in the management of public affairs. It was a sharp commentary on the character of his predecessor, when he uttered the promise: "I will pocket none of the public money myself, nor shall there be any embezzlement by others." Such confidence had the Assembly in his integrity, that they voted a revenue for six years and placed it at the disposition of the governor. Notwithstanding his character was above reproach, it passed under a cloud because of his unfortunate connection with the famous pirate, Captain William Kidd. The story may be briefly told :

English commerce suffered greatly from the depredations of pirates and