not exclusive. The former, elected speaker of the assembly, was a true Quaker, of a hasty yet benevolent temper, faithful in his affections, "stiff and impracticable in politics." These are they whom Lord Cornbury describes "as capable of any thing but good;" whom Quarry and other subservient counsellors accuse as "turbulent and disloyal," couraging the governments in America to throw off the royal prerogative, declaring openly that the royal instructions bind no further than they are warranted by law." The assembly, according to the usage of that day, 1707.

wait on the governor with their remonstrance.

The

66

en

April 7.

Quaker speaker reads it for them most audibly. It charges Cornbury with accepting bribes; it deals sharply with "his new methods of government," his "encroachment" on the popular liberties by "assuming a negative voice to the freeholders' election of their representatives;" "they have neither heads, hearts, nor souls, that are not forward with their utmost power lawfully to redress the miseries of their country." "Stop!" exclaimed Cornbury, as the undaunted Quaker delivered the remonstrance; and Jennings meekly and distinctly repeated the charges, with greater emphasis than before. What could Cornbury do? He attempted to retort, charging the Quakers with disloyalty and faction; and they answered, in the words of Nehemiah to Sanballat: "There is no such thing done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart.” And they left, for the instruction of future governors, this weighty truth: "To engage the affections of the people, no artifice is needful but to let them be unmolested in the enjoyment of what belongs to them of right.”

1709.

April.

Lord Cornbury had fulfilled his mission; more successful than any patriot, he had taught New York the necessity and the methods of incipient resistance. The assembly which met Lord Lovelace, his short-lived successor, began the contest that was never to cease but with independence. The crown demanded a permanent revenue, without appropriation; New York henceforward would raise only an annual revenue, and appropriate it specifically. That province was struggling to make the in

crease of the power of the assembly an open or tacit condition of every grant. The provincial revenue, as established by law, would not expire till 1709; but the war demanded extraordinary supplies; and, in 1704, the moneys voted by the assembly were to be disbursed by its own officers. The royal council, instructed from England, would have no money expended but by the warrant of the governor and council; but the delegates resolved that "it is inconvenient to allow the council to amend money bills;" and council, governor, and board of trade yielded to the fixed will of the representatives of the people. In 1705, the assembly were allowed by the queen "to name their own treasurer, when they raised extraordinary supplies;" and by degrees all legislative grants came to be regarded as such, and to be placed in the keeping of the treasurer of the assembly, beyond the control of the governor. In 1708, the delegates, after claiming for the people the choice of coroners, made a solemn declaration that "the levying of money upon her majesty's subjects in this colony, under any pretence whatsoever, without consent in general assembly, is a grievance ;" and, in 1709, as the condition of joining in an effort against Canada, the legislature assumed executive functions. In the same year, by withholding grants, they prepared to compel their future governors to an annual capitulation.

1708 to 1710.

1710.

In 1710, Cornbury's successor, Robert Hunter, the friend of Swift, the ablest in the series of the royal governors of New York, a man of good temper and discernment, whom the whig ministry enjoined to suppress the "illegal trade still carried on with the Dutch islands," and with the enemy under "flags of truce," found himself in his province powerless and without a salary. He writes of his government to a friend: "Here is the finest air to live upon in the universe: the soil bears all things, but not for me; for, according to the custom of the country, the sachems are the poorest of the people." "Sancho Panza was indeed but

a type of me." In less than five months after his Sept. 1. arrival, he was disputing with an assembly. As

they would neither grant appropriations for more

than a year, nor give up the supervision of their own treas. urer over payments from the public revenue, they were pro rogued and dissolved.

Perceiving that their conduct was grounded or perma nent motives, he made his report accordingly; and his letters reached England when Saint-John, a young man of thirty, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, had become secretary of state. In March, 1711, a bill was drawn under the superintendence of the board of trade, reciting the neglect of the general assembly of New York to continue the taxes which had been granted in all the previous sixteen years, and imposing them by act of parliament. Sir Edward Northey and Sir Robert Raymond, the attorney and solicitor generals, both approved the bill; but it was intended as a measure of intimidation, and not to be passed. Meantime, Hunter wrote to Saint-John "that the colonies were then infants at their mother's breasts, but such as would wean themselves when they came of age."

The desire to conquer Canada prevailed, in the summer of 1711, to obtain for that purpose a specific grant of bills of credit for ten thousand pounds. But when fresh instructions, with a copy of the bill for taxing New York by parliament, were laid before the assembly, no concession was made. The council, claiming the right to make amendments to the money bills, asserted that the house, like itself, existed only "by the mere grace of the crown; but the assembly, defying the opinion of the lords of trade, as concluding nothing, rose to the doctrine required by the emergency. The share of the council in legislation, they agree, comes "from the mere pleasure of the prince;" but for themselves they claim an "inherent right" to legislation, springing "not from any commission or grant from the crown, but from the free choice and election of the people, who ought not, nor justly can, be divested of their property without their

consent."

At the time of this controversy, Saint-John, better known as Lord Bolingbroke, was secretary for the colonies. Making to him a report of these proceedings, Hunter wrote: "Now the mask is thrown off. The delegates have called

in question the council's share in the legislature, trumped up an inherent right, declared the powers granted by her majesty's letters patent to be against law, and have but one short step to make towards what I am unwilling to name. The assemblies, claiming all the privileges of a house of commons, and stretching them even beyond what they were ever imagined to be there, should the councillors by the same rule lay claim to the rights of a house of peers, here is a body co-ordinate with, and consequently independent of, the great council of the realm; yet this is the plan of government they all aim at, and make no scruple to own.' "Unless some speedy and effectual remedy be applied, the disease will become desperate." "If the assembly of New York," reported the lords of trade, in 1712, "is suffered to proceed after this manner, it may prove of very dangerous consequence to that province, and of very ill example to the other governments in America, who are already but too much inclined to assume pretended rights, tending to independency on the crown." And Hunter, as he saw the province add to its population at least one third in the reign of Anne, mused within himself on "what the consequences were likely to be, when, upon such an increase, not only the support of" the royal "government, but the inclination of the people to support it at all, decreases." Again the board of trade instructed him as to what the legislature should do, and the legislature remained inflexible. The menacing mandates of the reign of Queen Anne had but increased the ill humor of New York

CHAPTER XXX.

NEW ENGLAND AFTER THE REVOLUTION.

1689.

NEW YORK would willingly have extended her boundary over a part of Connecticut; but the people of the colony themselves vindicated its liberties and the integrity of its territory. Governor Treat having, in May, May 9. 1689, resumed his office, the assembly, which soon convened, obeying the declared opinion of the freemen, organized the government according to their charter.

On the joyful news of the accession of William May 26, and Mary, every fear vanished, every countenance brightened with joy. "Great was that day," said the loyal address of Connecticut to King William, June 13. "when the Lord, who sitteth upon the floods, did divide his and your adversaries like the waters of Jordan, and did begin to magnify you like Joshua, by the deliverance of the English dominions from popery and slavery. Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore hath he made you king, to do justice and judgment." And, describing their acquiescence in the rule of Andros as "an involuntary submission to an arbitrary power," they announced that, by the consent of the major part of the freemen, they had themselves resumed the government.

In obtaining the approval of the king, Whiting, the 1690. agent of Connecticut, was aided by all the influence which the religious sympathy of the Presbyterians could enlist for New England. The English corporations had been restored; and Edward Ward gave his opinion that a surrender, of which no legal record existed, did not invalidate a patent. Somers assented. "There is no ground of doubt," reiterated Sir George Treby. And the sanctity attached to the democratic charter and government of Connecticut is an honorable proof of the respect which was