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 governor, 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.

The govNew Jersey united with

ernorship of

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 proprietors 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

that of New York.

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.

Penn's grand policy of a fair field for all, and no favour. But Cornbury tried to help Episcopacy in his feeble way, by making warfare upon other sects, which in New York were in the majority. In such ways, but perhaps still more through his private affairs, he came to grief. He was steeped in debauchery and never paid his debts; and when, in 1708, Queen Anne yielded to the general clamour and sent out Lord Lovelace to supersede him, no sooner had he ceased to be governor than his creditors sprang upon him. Besieged with bills innumerable from butcher and baker and candlestick maker, the unhappy Cornbury was thrown into jail and stayed there till next year, when the death of his father made him Earl of Clarendon. Then he paid up his debts and went home, leaving unsavoury memories behind him.

Lord Lovelace, nephew of the governor who succeeded Nicolls, lived but a few months after his arrival. His place was taken by our old acquaintance, Ingoldsby, once more lieutenant-governor. Danger was again threatening from Canada. The strife of Leislerian and anti-Leislerian had absorbed the attention of the province, weakened its resources, and loosened its grasp upon the Long House, insomuch that Onontio had actu- Bootless ally achieved a treaty which secured its expedition neutrality. Peter Schuyler now persuaded those barbarians to put on their war paint, and took command of them in person. A force of 1500 men from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, commanded by another of our old acquaintances, Francis Nicholson, marched to Lake

VOL. II.

against

Canada.

Champlain, while 1200 men raised by Massachusetts awaited the arrival of a promised British fleet which was to take them up the St. Lawrence. This force was to attack Quebec while Nicholson advanced upon Montreal. But the loss of the battle of Almanza made it necessary for England to send to Portugal the force designed for America; and so the expedition against Canada came to nothing.

As a partial compensation for this disappointment, Nicholson, in the course of the next year, conquered Nova Scotia. Schuyler was more than ever impressed with the necessity of driving the French from the valley of the St. Lawrence, and in order to urge the matter upon Queen Anne's ministry he went over to England in 1710, taking with him five Iroquois chiefs.1 These barbarians made as great a sensation in London as Pocahontas had done in the days of Queen Anne's great-grandfather. They were received with much ceremony by the queen, on which occasion they made a solemn speech on the necessity for conquering Onontio, and presented her with a belt of wampum. It was agreed that Canada should once more be invaded,

Visit of five Iroquois chiefs to Queen Anne's court.

Arrival

of Robert Hunter as governor.

and Colonel Robert Hunter was sent out to be governor of New York. This Scot

tish gentleman was the ablest and best of the English governors since Richard Nicolls; broad-minded and sagacious, cultivated and refined, upright and genial, a thoroughly admirable

1 One of them was a Mohawk of the Wolf clan, grandfather of the great Thayendanegea, better known as Joseph Brant.