with so much fanaticism as in some of the Puritan clergymen and professors. In the summer of 1700 he returned to New York. He had long been troubled with gout, and in the following winter died very suddenly.1

Violent pro

of the

His death was the signal for an explosion which had long been preparing. It soon appeared that some of the reports which had been circulated as to the designs of the Leislerians were well founded. That party had a majority both in the assembly and in the council, and now that Bellomont's restraining hand was removed, they brought in a bill to enable the Leisler family to institute lawsuits for damages which they alleged they had sustained at the hands of the aristocracy during the change from the House of Stuart to the House of Orange. They also brought outrageous ceedings charges against prominent members of Leislerites. the aristocratic party. They accused Robert Livingston of defalcation in his accounts, and petitioned the king to remove him from his office of secretary of Indian affairs; they made a similar charge against the late Stephanus van Cortlandt, and brought suits against his widow. In view of the anticipated passage of their Leisler Act for damages, they invited all the injured persons to bring in an inventory of their losses, and some astounding estimates followed, as when a rusty sword and dilapidated gun, which Governor Sloughter had seized, were valued at £40 (say, nearly $800).

1 His mortal remains now rest in St. Paul's churchyard. See Mrs. Lamb's History of the City of New York, ii. 446.

the crown.

This last step was unwise, for it seemed to herald a carnival of spoliation and created intense alarm. There was a rumour that Viscount Cornbury had been appointed governor, to succeed the Earl of Bellomont. A petition to the crown was prepared, urging that he might be sent Petition to with all possible haste. It had more than 600 signatures, including most of the aristocratic leaders. The chief justice and solicitorgeneral, who were fierce Leislerians, saw fit to call this paper "seditious," and indictments for high treason were brought against Nicholas Bayard and an alderman named Hutchings, at whose house the petition had been signed.

What followed would have been a ludicrous farce had it not been so execrably wicked. The intention was to avenge the death of Leisler upon the person of his old enemy, Bayard; and in the proceedings all law and decency were trampled under foot. In a scurrilous speech the solicitorgeneral accused Bayard of complicity with the pirates and of plotting to introduce Popery into New York. Such invective did duty for Shameful evidence, a jury, half packed and half trial of browbeaten, quickly found a verdict of Hutchings. "guilty," and the chief justice forthwith sentenced Bayard and Hutchings to be disembowelled and quartered. The poor alderman, it may be supposed, was to atone for Milborne. At about the same time the Leisler Act was passed by the assembly, and Livingston was turned out of his offices, while all his property was confiscated.

Bayard and

A new governor, however, was even then on his

Lord Corn

way from England. On March 7, 1702, the king breathed his last, and Anne ascended the throne. Edward Hyde, Viscount Cornbury, was grandson of the great Earl of Clarendon, the statesman and historian, and own cousin to Queen Anne. bury. The late king had appointed him gov. ernor, and Anne at once confirmed the appointment. Cornbury was a trained soldier, and not wholly wanting in ability, but his character was far from estimable. He had gross vices, and some contemptible follies. His strong likeness to his cousin Anne attracted much notice and led him often to make a guy of himself by dressing in elaborate and sumptuous female attire, like a lady of the court. His name is now chiefly remembered for this tomfoolery. Yet much good was effected by his coming to New York. One of his first acts was to dissolve the assembly. The recent scandalous trials were investigated, and those legal luminaries, the solicitor-general and the chief justice, absconded and hid themselves in Virginia under assumed names. Bayard and Hutchings were set free and reinstated in their property; Livingston was replaced in his offices and estates; the Leisler Act was quashed by the Lords of Trade; and the public alarm was allayed.

Having performed this much needed service, Cornbury went on unwittingly to perform another and soften the animosities between the Leislerites and the aristocracy by uniting them to some extent in opposition to himself. He thus introduced fresh grievances, but some of these were of a kind conducive to growth in constitutional liberty. He

obtained from the assembly a grant of £1500 for

fortifying the Narrows against French A treasurer

assembly.

fleets, and was very wroth at the sugges- for the tion that the assembly should appoint a treasurer to handle the money. What! did they distrust his integrity? So the business was left to his integrity and three years slipped by, until one fine afternoon a French warship sailed in through the Narrows, and great was the commotion. The batteries had not been built; what had been done with the £1500? Cornbury protested that he had never seen the money, but the assembly knew better. There was a sound, wholesome discussion, in the course of which the doctrine was plainly stated that the rights of a colonial assembly were precisely the same as those of the House of Commons. The matter was referred to the queen in council, and it is an interesting fact that the assembly was sustained against the governor. Henceforth it appointed a treasurer and saw that his accounts were properly audited.

It was not only with the New York assembly that Cornbury had contentions, for he was also governor of New Jersey. Since the overthrow of Andros, the history of the two provinces of East and West Jersey had been a plexus of difficulties which need not here

concern us, until in 1702 all the proprie

The gov

New Jersey united with

ernorship of

that of New York.

tors agreed in surrendering their proprietary rights of sovereignty to Queen Anne. Their ownership of their landed estates was not disturbed by this surrender. The two provinces were united into one, and thenceforward until 1738 New Jersey

was an appendage to New York, in much the same way that Delaware was an appendage to Pennsylvania. There was the same governor, but the assemblies were distinct and independent. This preserved the local life, and prevented New Jersey from being merged in New York, and Delaware from being merged in Pennsylvania. Any such absorption would have been a calamity, for what the civilized world most needs is variety and individual colour in social development, and the more that local independencies can be preserved, in so far as such preservation is compatible with general tranquillity, the better.

Governor Cornbury's first demand upon the New Jersey assembly was for a yearly salary of £2000, to be granted for twenty years. When we bear in mind that this sum represented nearly $40,000 in Disputes our present currency, we shall appreciate over salaries. the comment of the Quaker member who turned upon Cornbury with the remark, "Thee must be very needy!" The assembly voted only £1300 for three years, and thus began its bickerings with the spendthrift governor. Such contentions over salaries were flagrant during the eighteenth century, and must be taken into the account if we would understand how the Townshend Act of 1767 led directly to the War of Independence.

It was Cornbury's fate to antagonize not only the legislatures, but the dominies. There were but few Episcopalians in New York, though the civil Cornbury's government was always trying to help that church, and people already noticed that it flourished better in Pennsylvania, under

debts.