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CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 IN OLD NEW YORK 
 
A. M. D. G. 
 
 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 IN 
 
 OLD NEW YORK 
 
 A Chronicle of Catholicity in the 
 City of New York from 1524 to 1808. 
 
 By WILLIAM HARPER BENNETT, 
 
 NEW rORK 
 SCHWARTZ, KIRWIN AND FAUSS 
 
 1909. 
 
 C;^V-^^ 
 
mibil ©bstat 
 
 Umprlmatur 
 
 
 Remigius Lafort, S.T.L., 
 
 ►J<JOHN M. FARLEY, D.D., 
 
 Archbhhop of Neiv York. 
 
 New York, February 7, 1909. 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 Ftb 21 1809 
 
 Copyrigm Entry 
 OlXss <«J XXe. No. 
 
 Copyright, 1909, by William Harper Bennett. 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Ives Co. 
 New York 
 
^ 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Herein is chronicled the coming of Cathohcs 
 to what is now the Western MetropoHs between 
 the years 1524 and 1808. The following pages set 
 forth the manner of men they were, the reasons 
 for their coming and some of the things they ob- 
 served, what they accomplished and what some of 
 them suffered. The history of the long narrow 
 island between the East and North rivers is inter- 
 woven, because of these visitors, settlers or cap- 
 tives, with the histories of the whole Western 
 hemisphere, and of England, Ireland, Scotland, 
 France, Spain, Italy, Holland, Germany and 
 Africa. 
 
 He who attempts to tell the story of Cath- 
 olicity in New York must wander far afield and 
 gather cubes from many lands to construct the 
 wondrous mosaic pictures of its rise, its progress 
 and its present greatness. 
 
 On the threshold of life the men and women 
 whose careers are recorded herein received Cath- 
 olic baptism. A few won the martyr's crown, 
 the lives of others were saintly, many were faith- 
 ful to the end, an appalling number, because of a 
 lack of spiritual succor in the early days, lost the 
 Faith, and some others, among them a few who 
 should have been " leaders in Israel," became a 
 reproach to their forebears. 
 
 A mustard seed was planted here and the 
 strong winds of persecution sought to uproot the 
 
vi INTRODUCTORY 
 
 tender shoot, but the gentle rains of sacrifice nur- 
 tured it, and it has grown into a mighty tree with 
 the roots deep in the soil, a very king among 
 trees, and the sunlight of God's favor falls upon 
 it in benediction. 
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 Among the many who have kindly responded to requests 
 for information and assistance in the compilation of these 
 pages were Martin I. J. Griffin, of Philadelphia, Pa. All 
 writers on American Catholic historical matters must ex- 
 press grateful acknowledgment for assistance from this 
 indefatigable researcher; Marc F. Vallette, LL.D.; the 
 Right Reverend Monsignor T. E. Hamel, V.G., of Laval 
 University, Quebec, P. Q. ; The Reverend A. Gosselin, of 
 the Seminary of Quebec, P. Q.; the Honorable C. Langelier, 
 of Quebec, P. Q.; Patrick O'Reilly, of Granard, Ireland; 
 A, R. Macdonald, of the New York State Education Depart- 
 ment; Charles G. Herbermann, Ph.D., LL.D.; Robert and 
 George B. McGinnis, of New York City; Francis Gottsberger, 
 of Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 [APTEE PAGE 
 
 I — Concerning Giovanni da Verrazano and Some 
 Others who Crossed the Western Ocean and 
 Touched the Coast of the New Land at Lati- 
 tude 40° North 1 
 
 II — In which the Dutch Settle on the Island of 
 Manants and Thereto Comes One of the 
 Society of Jesus who had Suffered for 
 Christ's Sake . . . . . .15 
 
 III — In which an English Earl Palatine Comes to 
 New Amsterdam, and with His Amazing 
 Claim Kindles the Wrath of William the 
 "Testy" 37 
 
 IV — New Amsterdam again Becomes a Haven of 
 Refuge for a Jesuit Missionary to the Iro- 
 quois ........ 42 
 
 V — Father Simon Le Moyne's Visit to New Am- 
 sterdam and What He Saw There . . 45 
 
 VI — New York's First Catholic Ruler finds Him- 
 self Enmeshed in Difficulties . . .65 
 
 VII — In which a Catholic Governor Proclaims 
 
 Civil and Religious Freedom . . .82 
 
 VIII — How a German Usurper Ruled with a High 
 
 Hand and ended His Career on the Gallows . 112 
 
 IX — In which the Presence in the City of " Pap- 
 ists " French Prisoners and Jesuits Makes the 
 New Yorkers Nervous . . . .186 
 
 X — In which " La Renomee " Having Departed, 
 Governor Bellomont Waxes Bold Against 
 Priests and Becomes Solicitous for the Souls 
 of the Indians ...... 206 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 XI — In which Many of the " Poor Persecuted 
 Protestants " from tlie Palatinate are Dis- 
 covered to be " Papists " . . . . 220 
 
 XII — In which the Enslaving of Spanish Freemen 
 
 Leads to a Bloody Reckoning . . . 233 
 
 XIII — In which a Case of Burglary is Transformed 
 
 into a "Popish" Plot . . . . 250 
 
 XIV — In which Many French and Spanish Pris- 
 oners of War and Refugees Come to the City, 
 Including an Apostate Recollect . . .289 
 
 XV — Concerning New York Privateersmen and 
 
 Their Inhuman Traffic in Spanish Freemen . 296 
 
 XVI — In which Acadian Exiles and French Pris- 
 oners of War Swell the City's Population . 3l6 
 
 XVII — Concerning Some Catholics who Fought and 
 Labored for American Independence and 
 Others who Fought Against it . . . 334! 
 
 XVIII — Concerning Catholics and Catholicity in New 
 York During the Closing Years of the Eigh- 
 teenth Century . . . . . .361 
 
 XIX — Concerning Catholics and Catholicity in the 
 City from the Dawn of the Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury until the Erection of the City into an 
 Episcopal See ...... 389 
 
 XX — Concerning Catholicity in the City at the Be- 
 ginning of the Nineteenth Century until the 
 Erection of the City into an Episcopal See. 
 (^Concluded) . ' 432 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 View of New Amsterdam 
 Giovanni da Verrazano 
 Father Isaac Jogues, S.J. 
 King James II, of England . 
 Jacob Leisler's House and the Fort 
 Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur D'Iberville 
 Charles Carroll of Carrollton 
 Most Reverend John Carroll 
 St. Peter's Church 
 Federal Hall 
 Daniel Carroll 
 Right Reverend Richard Luke Con- 
 canen, O.S.D. . . . . . 
 
 Frontispiece 
 To face p. 9 
 36 
 110 
 128 
 204. 
 342 
 368 
 379 
 389 
 398 
 
 459 
 
CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS IN 
 OLD NEW YORK 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CONCERNING GIOVANNI DA VERRAZANO AND SOME 
 OTHERS WHO CROSSED THE WESTERN OCEAN 
 AND TOUCHED THE COAST OF THE NEW LAND AT 
 LATITUDE 40° NORTH 
 
 For days the little caravel " Dauphin " had 
 been sailing north by day and lying at anchor 
 by night. Westward a low, sandy coast, dotted 
 here and there, after nightfall, with the watch 
 fires of the natives, eastward the mysterious 
 ocean. 
 
 Giovanni da Verrazano, a typical sea rover of 
 the sixteenth century, was master of the cockle- 
 shell and he had been dispatched by King Francis 
 I, of France, to seek a shorter northern passage 
 to the Moluccas or Spice Islands, in the Malay 
 Archipelago, than by the southern strait dis- 
 covered by Magellan. Val di Grave, a little 
 village near Florence, was Verrazano's birth- 
 place. Here, about 1485, he was born of Piero 
 Andrea di Bernardo da Verrazano and Fiametta 
 Capella his wife. Little is known of his earlier 
 years. During his boyhood Europe was elec- 
 trified by news of the discovery of a new world 
 
2 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 by Columbus and the thoughts of Verrazano, 
 Hke those of many another ItaHan lad, were 
 drawn to the vast western ocean and the unknown 
 lands beyond. He went to sea at an early age on 
 one of the vessels that traded between the coast 
 cities of Italy and the African Mediterranean 
 ports, for the silks, spices and other products of 
 the far East. He journeyed to Cairo and Syria 
 and voyaged to the East Indies in a Portuguese 
 ship. He is sujiposed to have been in the Spanish 
 service, and to have been keenly alert to acquire 
 knowledge to fit him for the venture in which he 
 was to embark later. 
 
 Hernando Cortez had conquered Mexico and 
 the capital city of the INIontezumas. Its untold 
 wealth had fallen into the hands of the invaders, 
 and fleet after fleet, laden with gold, silver and 
 precious merchandise, and guarded by warships, 
 sailed from Mexico and the West Indies to 
 Spain. Spain was jealous and covetous where 
 her new possessions and their wealth were con- 
 cerned, and she excited the cupidity of her neigh- 
 bors. There is an amazing difference between 
 international relations three hundred and eighty 
 years ago and to-day. Neutrality laws were 
 unknown. It was an age of mercenaries on land 
 and privateers or corsairs on the sea. Soldiers 
 and sailors, free rovers afloat and ashore, could 
 be hired at so much a head, and their share of 
 the plunder. Some of England's most renowned 
 naval heroes were buccaneers and slave traders. 
 Henry Morgan, the pirate, after a career stained 
 with massacre and pillage, was knighted by 
 King Charles II, and served as a Commissioner 
 of the Admiralty and Lieutenant-Governor of 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 3 
 
 Jamaica. Sir Francis Drake, when England 
 and Spain were at peace, sacked Spanish towns 
 on the Isthmus of Panama and along the coast 
 of Spanish America and on his return to England 
 was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. Sir John 
 Hawkins carried cargoes of slaves from Africa 
 to the West Indies and the Spanish main. Such 
 were the doings of eminent commanders in those 
 days, and Giovanni da Verrazano was little better 
 than his compeers. 
 
 Several richly laden galleons were captured 
 within sight of the Spanish coast and the news 
 spread through the peninsula that a daring 
 corsair, by name Juan Florentin, or John the 
 Florentine, was lying in wait off the coast for 
 homeward bound treasure ships. There is little 
 doubt that John the Florentine and Giovanni da 
 Verrazano were the same man and there is less 
 doubt that his fleet of four caravels, swift sailers 
 of light draught, were provided by King Francis 
 I of France who was a partner in the venture. 
 The Andalusian coast of Spain is high, indented 
 with wild and sterile valleys. It is sparsely in- 
 habited between the city of Cadiz and the 
 straits of Gibraltar. On these high headlands the 
 corsairs posted their watchers and when the sails 
 of a galleon, which always first sighted land at 
 Cape Trafalgar, were observed by the lookout, a 
 swift signal was flashed to the caravels below, an- 
 chors were weighed, sails spread, decks cleared 
 for action, guns manned and like birds of prey 
 the corsairs swooped down on the unsusxDccting 
 Spaniards. Verrazano's first recorded capture 
 was a ship from Hispaniola or Hayti. The 
 cargo consisted of eighty thousand gold ducats. 
 
4 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 and a quantity of pearls and sugar. The prize, 
 manned by its captors, was hurried up the coasts 
 of Portugal and Spain to the port of La 
 Rochelle, where it was condemned and sold. 
 
 After several more treasure ships were cap- 
 tured Spain began to realize that action was 
 necessary to protect her commerce. A small 
 fleet was sent out which defeated seven French 
 corsairs near Cape St. Vincent on the Spanish 
 coast and recaptured a prize. The following 
 year another Spanish fleet retook from John the 
 Florentine seven captured emigrant ships. 
 
 Three warships and three treasure ships sailed 
 from Santa Maria of the Azores for Spain in 
 May, 1523. Two of the galleons had been 
 dispatched by Hernando Cortez from Mexico, 
 the third was sent from Hayti. The cargoes, 
 the richest ever shipped from Spanish America, 
 consisting of gold, jewels, rarities and live ani- 
 mals, were valued at one and a half million dollars. 
 A strict watch for corsairs was maintained, but 
 not a sail was sighted until the fleet was within 
 thirty-five miles of Cape St. Vincent. The 
 lookout reported a sail, then another, and yet 
 another, until six caravels had risen above the 
 horizon. There was great joy on the home- 
 ward bound vessels, because their crews were 
 sure that the oncoming fleet was of Spanish 
 warships, come to escort them to port and they 
 were certain that no French corsairs would dare 
 attack so powerful an escort. On came the 
 caravels, the crews of the Spanish vessels greet- 
 ing them with welcoming shouts, but their joyous 
 huzzas were changed to cries of rage and defi- 
 ance when the decks of the caravels swarmed 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 5 
 
 with armed men who poured a murderous fire 
 into them. The cries arose: "Juan Florin!" 
 "Juan Florin!" 
 
 Sure enough, the dreaded Verrazano was in 
 command. One of the Spanish warships put 
 about and escaped, the commander of another 
 was killed. It has been the rule, of many writers 
 in the English language to describe the Spanish 
 soldier and sailor as a coward and a craven. A 
 base calumny on a brave and gallant nation, 
 whether of four centuries ago or to-day. Not- 
 withstanding their disadvantages the Spaniards 
 fought bravely but outnumbered, they were 
 compelled to surrender. Verrazano took his 
 immensely valuable capture to La Rochelle and 
 a portion of the plunder was graciously accepted 
 by King Francis. 
 
 There was an outburst of wrath in Spain over 
 this theft of a million and a half dollars by the 
 ships of a supposedly friendly nation on the high 
 seas. Fleets were sent out to scour the coasts of 
 Spain and France for Verrazano. Orders were 
 issued that no homeward bound Spanish treasure 
 ships should sail unless guarded by a powerful 
 fleet of war vessels. Verrazano again went to 
 sea with a more powerful fleet, but the Spanish 
 coast had become an exceedingly perilous cruis- 
 ing ground, and it was then the corsair bethought 
 him of a promise he had made to his royal patron, 
 Francis, to sail to the new world and seek a 
 shorter passage to the Moluccas. 
 
 Thirteen miles off the coast of the island of 
 Madeira, a Portuguese possession, lie desolate 
 rocks know as the Desiertas. Verrazano there 
 prepared his ship, the " Dauphin," a caravel of 
 
6 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 less than one hundred tons, for the venture into 
 unknown seas. He stowed a cargo of provisions, 
 arms and ammunition sufficient for an eight 
 months' voyage, and shipped a crew of sea rovers 
 as bold and fearless as himself. 
 
 January 27th, 1524, the anchor was weighed, 
 the ship headed westward and, with a gentle 
 easterly wind, the long voyage began. Until 
 mid February the caravel ploughed placid seas 
 under smiling skies, then came a change and 
 iVerrazano asserts that no sailor ever encoun- 
 tered a more terrible tempest. For three weeks 
 more the little ship held its westward way until 
 one day the lookout saw a low line of sand, 
 fringed with the white foam of breakers. This 
 was in latitude 34° north. The crew saw col- 
 umns of smoke rising from great fires and knew 
 the land was inhabited. The fires had been 
 kindled by the Indians who, in the early spring, 
 flocked to the ocean shore to feast on shellfish, 
 and to manufacture from the shells wampum or 
 seawan, as their legal tender was called. As no 
 harbor was visible the vessel coasted southward 
 for some distance, but not finding a bay the 
 course was changed and she stood northward, 
 Verrazano keeping a sharp lookout for an inlet. 
 Passing the mouth of what we call Chesapeake 
 Bay in the night, he landed next day, with a body 
 of men crossed the neck of land and beheld the 
 great expanse of waters. This he concluded was 
 the Indian Ocean, and he redoubled his search 
 for an inlet, anchoring by night and sailing b}^ 
 day. Landing parties were kindly received by 
 the natives, but their kindness and civility were 
 illy requited by the theft of an Indian boy. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 7 
 
 Holding their northward course, the voyagers 
 were becoming wearied with the sameness of the 
 sandy coast until one day, in about latitude 40° 
 north, there was a change in the coast and the 
 sandy bar ended in a low point of land, off which 
 the " Dauphin " arrived about the last of April, 
 1524. This designated on Maiollo's map, drawn 
 three years later, as C. de S. Maria, the Cape of 
 St. Mary, is known to-day as Sandy Hook. 
 Rounding the point the "Dauphin" cast anchor in 
 a spacious roadstead, the first European vessel 
 to enter the bay of what was to become the great 
 western metropolis. Manning the ship's boat 
 Verrazano started on an exploring expedition. 
 What he saw he told his royal patron later in 
 these words: "At the end of one hundred 
 leagues we discovered a very delightful place 
 among some small hills, eminences, between 
 which ran a very great river (una grandissima 
 riviera) to the ocean, which was deep within to 
 the mouth, and from the sea to the enlargement 
 of the bay the rise of the tide was eight feet, and 
 through it any heavy ship can pass. As in good 
 duty we did not wish to run the risk of pene- 
 trating the coast without knowledge of the 
 mouth of the river, we took the boat and entered 
 the river within the country where we found it 
 to be thickly inhabited and the people resembling 
 the others we had seen, adorned with bird's 
 feathers of different colors, coming towards us 
 with evident delight, uttering very loud cries of 
 admiration, indicating, if we had to land with 
 the boat, where it was most safe. We entered 
 the said river within the country about half a 
 league, where we saw it formed a most beautiful 
 
8 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 lake (un bellissimo lago), about three leagues in 
 compass, upon which we saw boats, thirty in 
 number, moving from one part to another with 
 innumerable people, who passed from shore to 
 shore to see us. Very suddenly, as is wont to 
 happen to those navigating, an impetuous con- 
 trary wind blew in from the sea, compelling us 
 to return to the ship. We departed from this 
 region with much displeasure on account of its 
 extent and attractiveness, for we believed that it 
 was not without some resources of wealth as all 
 the hills indicated the existence of minerals in 
 them." 
 
 Whether a priest accompanied Verrazano on 
 his voyage and offered the Divine Sacrifice dur- 
 ing the stay of the "Dauphin" in the Great River, 
 as Verrazano called it, there is no record. The 
 Reverend J, Morgan Dix, D.D., writing of 
 Verrazano's voyage, says: "Whether any one 
 of the priestly order accompanied Verrazano on 
 this voyage cannot be positively affirmed; it is 
 altogether likely; indeed it would be next to 
 impossible that this should not have been the case. 
 Religious services of some kind or other were 
 undoubtedly held, while his ship lay in the port 
 which he has so accurately described ; for he says 
 elsewhere of the natives : ' They are very easily 
 persuaded, and imitated us with earnestness and 
 fervor in all they saw us do in our act of 
 worship ! ' " 
 
 Sailing between Cape St. Mary and " Angui- 
 leme," as he named a point of land on what is 
 now Long Island, he sent a boat ashore on what 
 is now Rockaway Beach and again at Quogue. 
 Passing Montauk Point and Block Island he ob- 
 
GIOVANNI DA VERRAZANO 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 9 
 
 served the mouth of the Thames River and 
 anchored in Narragansett Bay. 
 
 Rounding" Cape Cod, he sailed until he reached 
 a point on the Maine coast. Here, his naval 
 stores and provisions running low, he refilled his 
 water casks and set sail for France, arriving at 
 Dieppe twenty-eight days later, July 8th. Of 
 his subsequent career little authentic is known. 
 The year after his voyage his patron, Francis I, 
 was taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia. Rich- 
 ard Hakluyt, an English historian of the times, 
 says that Verrazano laid before Henry VIII the 
 results of his voyage and a map of his discoveries. 
 Of the whereabouts of this map nothing is known. 
 In 1526 Verrazano, who was then about forty-six 
 years old, entered into an agreement with Philipe 
 Chabot, Admiral of France, Preudhomme, Gen- 
 eral of Normandy and others, to go on a mercan- 
 tile venture as commander or pilot of a squadron 
 of three ships. Although termed a mercantile 
 venture this voyage was probably a privateer- 
 ing cruise in Spanish waters, but nothing definite 
 is known of its results. This is the last authentic 
 record concerning Verrazano. 
 
 A Spanish historian writes that in the autumn 
 of 1527 Verrazano, while cruising off the Spanish 
 coast, was attacked by a fleet of six Biscayan 
 ships and was captured. He endeavored to 
 bribe his captors offering them thirty thousand 
 ducats to release him. While on the way from 
 Cadiz to Madrid he and his guards were over- 
 taken by a Judge of Cadiz with an order from 
 the Emperor, Charles V, by virtue of which 
 Verrazano was put to death. The historian 
 Ramusio, says that on a second voyage to 
 
10 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 America Verrazano was captured, killed and 
 eaten by Canadian Indians. 
 
 The year following Verrazano' s discovery of 
 what is now called New York Bay, another 
 caravel sailed past the low lying spit of land into 
 the great roadstead. It flew the banner of Spain 
 and was commanded by the renowned pilot 
 Estavan Gomez. He named Verrazano's Cape 
 of St. Mary, Cabo de Arenas or Sandy Cape, 
 which was later transformed into Sandy Hook. 
 The Bay of New York was named by him St. 
 Christobel and the great river of the mountains, 
 the San Antonio, according to Diego Ribera's 
 map. Gomez was born in Spain in 1474 or 
 1478. 
 
 When Magellan went to Spain to lay before 
 the Emperor his project for reaching the Spice 
 Islands by sailing westward, Gomez who had 
 petitioned for some caravels for an expedition to 
 make new discoveries, was set aside and he had to 
 be satisfied with the subordinate position of a 
 pilot under Magellan. He incited his crew to 
 mutiny on the voyage and returned to Europe. 
 He was a delegate to the congress held in 
 Badajos in 1524 to settle the differences between 
 Spain and Portugal over the limits of their 
 colonial discoveries. 
 
 Adventurous explorers, traders, and fishermen 
 crossed the ocean from France. Some of them 
 sailing up the " Grande " River of the mountains 
 were impressed at sight of the Palisades and 
 Weise in his "Discoveries of America to the Year 
 1525," says that the}^ were named " L'Anormee 
 Berge " (The Grand Scarp). In time the ter- 
 ritory thereabouts was known as " La Terre 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 11 
 
 d'Enorme Berge" and this became corrupted into 
 Norumbega. Gerard Mercator on a terrestrial 
 globe made in 1541 represents the " Grande " 
 River as if its channel were filled with " anormee 
 berges," which he designates with the misspelled 
 name " Anorumbega." On a map of the world, 
 made for King Henry II of France, the name 
 " Anorobagra " is applied to the Great River. 
 The French traders found the Manants, 
 as they named the Indians, living on the 
 island at the mouth of the Great River, very 
 friendly and willing to trade for their furs and 
 peltries. There was an Indian village, in what is 
 now the city of New York, located on the 
 borders of a lake covering the ground included 
 in the blocks bounded by Elm, Baxter, Worth 
 and Franklin streets. Near the south end of this 
 lake was a small island on which the French fur 
 factors erected a fortified trading house. Of the 
 date of the erection of this little fort and the 
 length of its existence there are no records. 
 These hardy adventurers pushed their expeditions 
 nearly to the head of navigation of the Great 
 River and on an island not far from Albany 
 began the erection of a castle that was unfor- 
 tunately destroyed by a freshet before its com- 
 pletion. 
 
 The Labadist missionaries, Dankers and 
 Sluyters were told by the Indians that the ruins 
 were the remains of a structure built by the 
 Spaniards and a historian surmises that as 
 De Ayllon, the founder of San Miguel Guadape, 
 that stood on the site of the present Jamestown, 
 Virginia, pushed his exploration south and east 
 of New York, the Van Rensselaer Island ruins 
 
12 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 may have been those of a fortified place erected 
 by his party. 
 
 Roberval commanded a fleet that anchored in 
 the harbor of St. John's Newfoundland, June 
 8th, 1542. His chief pilot, and commander of 
 one of his vessels, was Jehan or Jean Allef onsce, 
 a man nearly sixty years old and renowned in 
 the annals of the Norman coast. He was a 
 native of Saintonge near Cognac and Champlain 
 called him the hardiest mariner of his time. He 
 was brave, adventurous, of a haughty spirit; a 
 man of ability and greatly admired for his 
 daring as a fighter and his skill as a pilot. In 
 his earlier days he had been, like Verrazano, a 
 privateer or corsair, and his great zeal against 
 the Spaniards prompted Francis I to detain him 
 a prisoner at Poictiers as a sop to Spain. Dur- 
 ing the summer of 1542, Roberval ordered 
 Allef onsce to cruise along the coast of Labrador 
 to find if possible a passage to the West. The 
 ice was so thick that he was compelled to abandon 
 the search. Then, or at some other time, he 
 explored the St. Lawrence River to the mouth 
 of the Saguenay. Continuing his exploration 
 southward he entered Massachusetts Bay and 
 coming to Long Island Sound sailed its length. 
 
 In the National Library in Paris is preserved 
 a Cosmographie attributed to Allef onsce. What 
 is supposed to describe the western end of Long 
 Island Sound and the East River reads: " This 
 river is wider than forty leagues of latitude at its 
 mouth, and within the width is as much as thirty 
 or forty leagues, and it is full of islands, which 
 extend twelve or fourteen leagues in the sea, and 
 it is very dangerous on account of rocks and 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 13 
 
 swashings." Allefonsce here evidently describes 
 the boihng and bubbling cauldron of Hell Gate. 
 He was probably the first to sail the waters of 
 the Sound and make the passage of the turbulent 
 stretch at its western end. One can appreciate 
 the bravery of Allefonsce and his hardy crew in 
 navigating the awesome passage of this un- 
 charted strait. Rounding the island of the 
 Manants he sailed up the river past the town of 
 " Norombegue." Of the Great Scarp or Pali- 
 sades he wrote: "On the side towards the west 
 of the said town (Norombegue) there are many 
 rocks which extend to the sea about fifteen 
 miles." Norombegue was at this time an Indian 
 village, the French trading post having dis- 
 appeared, no record remaining to tell when or 
 how. Was it wiped out in a sudden uprising of 
 the Indians, such as frequently threatened 
 the little Dutch town that replaced it? Of the 
 river, Allefonsce wrote that it was salty for 
 eighty-eight miles. He sailed his ship to the 
 height of navigable water. After following the 
 sea for forty-one years the brave old Sainton- 
 geois was mortally wounded in a fight with the 
 Spaniard, Menendez, near the reef of La 
 Rochelle. Of him his eulogist Melin Saint Gelais 
 wrote : 
 
 "La mort aussi n'a point craint son effroy, 
 Ses gros canons, ses darts, son feu, sa fouldre, 
 
 Mais I'assaillant I'a mis en tel desroy, 
 
 Que rien de luy ne reste plus que poudre." 
 
 Andre The vet, a Franciscan monk, went out 
 with an expedition of French Huguenots, sent 
 by Admiral Coligny to Brazil in 1555. The 
 
14 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 expedition landed at what is now Rio Janeiro, 
 but, after a stay of ten weeks, Thevet left on a 
 homeward bound vessel that coasted the shores 
 of North America. There is no evidence that 
 he landed at any point and historians regard the 
 account of his voyage as unreliable. For thirty- 
 six years France was rent with civil war and 
 during its continuance there was a cessation of 
 French- American exploration. 
 
 Eighty-five years after the anchor of Verra- 
 zano's " Dauphin " had rested on the bottom of 
 the lower bay, Henry Hudson, supplied with 
 maps by Captain John Smith of Virginia and 
 induced by him to explore Verrazano's Great 
 River, dropped the anchor of the Dutch yacht 
 "Halve Maen" (Half Moon) in about the 
 same place and " discovered " what is now the 
 Bay of New York. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 15 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 in which the dutch settle on the island of 
 manants and thereto comes one of the 
 society of jesus who had suffered for 
 Christ's sake 
 
 Dermer, an English sea captain, sailing in 
 1619 from Virginia to New England, " met 
 on his passage with certain Hollanders who had 
 a trade in the Hudson's River some years before 
 that time." The little Dutch settlement had 
 come to stay and grew year by year. In 1614 
 there was a petition sent to the States- General 
 of the Netherlands by a syndicate of Dutch 
 merchants for a special license to trade up and 
 down that river (the Hudson) , "and they affixed 
 to their petition," says John Fiske in his " Dutch 
 and Quaker Colonies in America," a manuscript 
 map enriched with explanatory notes and memo- 
 randa. In these notes it is stated that the French 
 were the discoverers of the river and had traded 
 there with the Mohawks long before Hudson's 
 time. Even in that early day of this settlement 
 of Calvinists there were Catholic footsteps on 
 Manhattan Island. In a company of the 
 soldiers sent up the Hudson, in 1626, to garrison 
 the blockhouse at Fort Orange, or Albany, as it 
 is called, were two Catholics. 
 
 At the expiration of the twelve years truce 
 
16 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 with Spain in 1621, war between the Netherlands 
 and Spain was renewed. The httle village on 
 Manhattan Island embarked in privateering and 
 in 1643 the privateer frigate, " La Garce," com- 
 manded by Captain Blauvelt, brought into the 
 harbor a Spanish bark from Cuba laden with 
 tobacco, sugar and ebony and another from New 
 Spain with a cargo of wine. These were the 
 earliest recorded prizes carried into the port. 
 They were the forerunners of many hundreds 
 of others in its history, that added enormously to 
 its wealth and greatly to its infamy. In time 
 privateering became piracy and New York was 
 the notorious nest of the most unscrupulous buc- 
 caneers on the globe. 
 
 Catholics formed the bulk of the population 
 of France in that day and non- Catholics in 
 Spain were few, therefore when a French or 
 Spanish prize was brought into port, condemned 
 and sold, its crew, a majority of whom, it is safe 
 to say, were Catholics, were put ashore as 
 prisoners of war and held until exchanged. 
 
 It is early September, 1643. A little sloop, 
 six days out from Beverswyck, Rensselaerswyck 
 Colony, as the present City of Albany was then 
 called, has sighted the high flagstaff of Fort 
 Amsterdam, that stood at the southern extremity 
 of Manhattan Island. The orange, white and 
 blue flag is flapping lazily in the air. When the 
 sloop is abreast of the fort those on board can 
 see that it is a quadrangle three hundred feet 
 long by two hundred and fifty feet in breadth, 
 with a bastion on each corner. The fort re- 
 sembles a big mound of earth and not a very 
 secure mound at that, because there are deep 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 17 
 
 fissures in its sides and a dilapidated crumbling 
 look about it generally. Evidently its inmates 
 are aware of its condition because a number of 
 negroes, under overseers, are at work facing one 
 of the bastions with stone. On the southwest 
 corner stands a big windmill, its revolving 
 tower and long arms moving lazily. Over the 
 ramparts can be seen a large tiled roof stone 
 edifice with two high pitched gables and, rising 
 between, a tower with an odd-shaped cupola 
 topped with a weather vane. This is the church. 
 Nearby stands a brick house of goodly size sur- 
 rounded by smaller houses. Between the outer 
 wall of the fort and the waters of the bay is a 
 cluster of thatch-roofed and wooden-chimneyed 
 domiciles strangely out of place in front of the 
 fort's guns, and in a decidedly dangerous 
 position if an enemy's fleet threatened the city. 
 A short distance from the fort loom up a gal- 
 lows and pillory. 
 
 The sloop kept well out in the stream to avoid 
 the Capske, a ledge of rock that jutted out of 
 the water, now covered by Battery Park, and 
 glided through the channel between Pagganck 
 (now Governor's) Island and the point of Man- 
 hattan Island, into the East River to the anchor- 
 age ground. 
 
 A short distance along the shore the eye was 
 attracted by a big stone house, evidently but 
 recently completed. Its five stories made it 
 tower over the one and two-story houses of the 
 town. It was the new tavern or Harburg, 
 afterwards to become the Stadt Huys or 
 City Hall, until its successor was built in Wall 
 Street in 1700. The sloop's boat was lowered 
 
18 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 and into it stepped a portly man in the garb of 
 a clergyman who carefully assisted to descend 
 as strange a figure as ever entered New York. A 
 man of thirty-six years of age but seemingly of 
 twice as many years. A bronzed, dark bearded 
 face, lined and drawn with suffering, but in the 
 eyes and expression "that peace which the world 
 knows not of." Of the forefingers and left 
 thumb of his hands only the jagged red stumps 
 remain. Every finger shows a partially healed 
 wound and from all, the nails are gone. After 
 the mutilated man is seated in the stern, three or 
 four men, stout burgesses from Rensselaers- 
 wyck, follow into the boat which is rowed rapidly 
 towards the only wharf in New Amsterdam, near 
 what is now the foot of Moore Street. A little 
 group of soldiers and civilians has been attracted 
 to the dock by sight of the boat and its passen- 
 gers and ready hands assist the voyagers ashore. 
 Many and hearty are the greetings showered on 
 Dominie Johannes Megapolensis, of Rens- 
 selaerswyck, recently sent out by the Classis of 
 old Alkmaer to minister to the brethren beyond 
 the seas. 
 
 A strange pair they make, the portly minister 
 in his clerical black, and, leaning on his arm, 
 the bent broken figure in rags, partly Indian, 
 partly European, that barely covers him. The 
 sight brings the good wives and the children 
 to the doors of the houses, but there is something 
 about the wan face and the maimed hands of the 
 visitor that stills the vociferous welcomes that 
 greet the Dominie. At the sally-port of the fort 
 the stolid sentry presented his arquebuse as the 
 visitors entered and passed up the broad grass- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 19 
 
 bordered walk to the new, high gabled, brick 
 house of His Excellency, the Director General, 
 or Governor, Willem Kieft. 
 
 The visitors passed into the hall, twenty 
 feet in width, with its great brick double-faced 
 chimney and white sanded floor, and are in the 
 presence of the redoubtable Governor, " William 
 the Testy." A short man with a round red face 
 and little sharp gray eyes that seemed to pierce 
 him at whom they looked. To the Governor, 
 Dominie Megapolensis presented the strange 
 visitor as Father Isaac Jogues, a Jesuit priest of 
 New France, who had been captured and cruelly 
 tortured by the Mohawk Indians, ransomed by 
 the good burgesses of Rensselaerswyck and had, 
 at the Governor's command, been escorted by 
 the minister and burgesses to New Amsterdam 
 there to await the sailing of a ship for France. 
 
 The priest was kindly welcomed by the Gover- 
 nor and was afterwards ushered into a spotlessly 
 clean bedroom, the first he had been in for so 
 long a time, and was provided with an entire out- 
 fit of clothing to replace the filthy, ragged, semi- 
 savage garb he wore. At dinner the Governor 
 seated him beside Dominie Bogardus, the pugna- 
 cious cleric of New Amsterdam, and he was in- 
 deed the hero of the hour. That evening, when 
 the candles had been lighted, the Governor, his 
 clerical guests and the Eight Men, as the colonial 
 representatives were called, were seated in the big 
 dining room enjoying their tobacco, Kieft asked 
 the Jesuit to tell them the storj^ of his career. 
 
 One would scarcely believe that Father Jogues, 
 who had faced danger fearlessly on many occa- 
 sions, would display timidity and a lack of self 
 
20 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 confidence when asked to narrate his experiences. 
 But his courage failed him, and, for a moment, 
 he was overwhelmed with confusion. When he 
 had recovered himself he told, with modest sim- 
 plicity, his relation: 
 
 In the old historic city of Orleans, France, 
 Isaac Jogues was born January 10th, 1607. At 
 ten years of age he entered a Jesuit college and 
 at seventeen began his novitiate. He was or- 
 dained in 1636 and though intended for the 
 African mission was ordered to New France. 
 In company with Fathers Chastelain and Garnier 
 he sailed from La Rochelle. After a long 
 and dreary voyage the shores of the island of 
 Anticosti were sighted and left behind and 
 the ship plowed and plunged through the ocean- 
 like waters of the Bay of St. Lawrence with its 
 distant shores crowned with misty mountains. 
 The ship's anchors were dropped oiF the little 
 fishing and fur-trading station of Tadoussac, at 
 the mouth of the Saguenay River, and the travel- 
 worn missionaries marveled at the wild grandeur 
 of the great barren mountains that closed it in. 
 Here they caught their first sight of the red men 
 in the lodges of a band of Montagnais Indians. 
 Up the great St. Lawrence they sailed, on one 
 bank the eye ranging over a vast barrier of 
 wooded mountains, on the other viewing frown- 
 ing ramparts of walls, peaks and domes of 
 granite. It was a world of the completest 
 solitude. Passing Cape Tourmente, the Isle of 
 Orleans and the wonderful falls of Montmor- 
 ency, they saw a mighty promontory of rock that 
 thrust its front into the river and on its summit, 
 three hundred and fifty feet above, they beheld 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 21 
 
 a fortification from which floated the royal 
 banner of France. This was Quebec. Beneath 
 the cHifs nestled on the river bank a cluster of 
 warehouses, sheds and frame dwellings and a 
 zigzag path led from the river to the summit of 
 the rock. 
 
 Father Paul Le Jeune, superior of the resi- 
 dence at Quebec, greeted the voyagers and es- 
 corted them to the crest of the mount. They 
 were warmly welcomed by the officers and soldiers 
 of the garrison, the factor of the fur company, 
 the fur traders and a band of friendly Indians. 
 On their left was the fort, with its ramparts of 
 logs and earth, inclosing a turreted building of 
 stone that was occupied as a barracks, officers' 
 quarters and government offices. Near the fort 
 was the recently completed chapel. The land 
 around was cleared and cultivated, but at that 
 day Quebec boasted but one dwelling house 
 worthy of the name. 
 
 Leaving the settlement the Jesuits entered the 
 forest, reached the banks of the St. Charles River 
 and were ferried across in a canoe. In a meadow 
 two hundred yards from the river was a square 
 palisaded inclosure similar to a modern fort or 
 post in the Indian country. Within were two 
 buildings, one, which was the storehouse, stable, 
 workshop and bakery, had been partially burned 
 by the English, in an attack on Quebec, and never 
 repaired. The other of mud-plastered planks, 
 thatched with meadow grass, contained the 
 chapel, refectory, kitchen and dormitory of the 
 workmen employed about the place. Nothing 
 could be plainer or more primitive than the furni- 
 ture of the chapel and house. To complete the 
 
22 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 discomfort of the mission house the roof leaked 
 hke a sieve. Such was the residence of the Mis- 
 sion of our Lady of the Angels. 
 
 When Father Jogues and his companions 
 arrived, Father Le Jeune was the only priest at 
 the residence. Fathers Daniel, Davost, De 
 Noue and Brebeuf having left for the far off 
 Huron mission. There were no idle moments at 
 the residence. The priests said mass and ves- 
 pers, preached, heard confessions at the fort, in- 
 structed the Indians, and sought to master, by 
 the crudest methods, the Huron and Algonquin 
 Indian tongues. For recreation they labored 
 among the men with spade and hoe in the fields 
 of rye, barley, wheat and maize. At the time of 
 Father Jogues' arrival in Canada, Father Le 
 Jeune had been on the mission three years. 
 With the aid of a renegade Indian he had suc- 
 ceeded in preparing, with the greatest difficulty, 
 a dictionary of the Algonquin Indian language, 
 and had gathered a little school of Indian chil- 
 dren to whom he taught the sign of the cross, the 
 Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary and Creed. After 
 the arrival of the other priests he made short mis- 
 sionary trips among the Algonquins and his com- 
 panions, after the greatest trials and difficulties, 
 reached Ihonatiria on the shores of the Georgian 
 Bay of Lake Huron and there established a mis- 
 sion. Father Jogues was soon ordered by his 
 superior to join the Huron mission nine hundred 
 miles distant in the wildness. 
 
 At the beginning of the sixteenth century the 
 vast region, extending from the Atlantic Ocean 
 to the JNIississippi River and from Hudson's Bay 
 to the Carolinas, was divided between two great 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 23 
 
 families of tribes. The greater part of the terri- 
 tory was held by the Algonquins and in their 
 midst, through Central New York dwelt the 
 Iroquois, or Five Nations, consisting of the Mo- 
 hawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Sene- 
 cas. South of the Iroquois were the Andastes 
 and Susquehannas ; along the southern shore of 
 Lake Erie the Eries; along the northern shore 
 the Neutral Nation; on the shores of Lake 
 Huron the Hurons, and south of that Lake the 
 Tobacco Nation. At the time Father Jogues 
 started on his journey the Hurons had conquered 
 and demoralized the Algonquins, and the 
 Iroquois, the bravest, most intelligent, best 
 organized and most inhumanly ferocious of all 
 Indian nations, were slowly but surely conquer- 
 ing the Hurons. Champlain, years before, had 
 committed the grave error of assisting the 
 Hurons with arms against the Iroquois and in 
 retaliation, with but brief intervals of peace, the 
 Five Nations were the deadly scourge of the 
 French. The route to be followed by Father 
 Jogues was by way of the St. Lawrence River, 
 the Ottawa River and Lake Nipissing to Lake 
 Huron. To avoid the Iroquois the Hurons used 
 this route on their annual trading journeys to 
 Quebec, and notwithstanding this precaution 
 these expeditions were frequently attacked by 
 the wily and ferocious Iroquois. 
 
 One morning in July the Quebec basin was 
 thickly dotted with the canoe fleet of the Hurons, 
 numbering about two hundred craft, and nearly 
 eight hundred Indians landed for trade at the 
 warehouse in the lower town. Their faces and 
 bodies, glistening with paint and sunflower oil. 
 
24 CATHOLIQ FOOTSTEPS 
 
 were a curious sight to the eyes of the Europeans. 
 The day of their arrival was spent in erecting 
 their huts and tepees, the second day a solemn 
 council was held with the French officers, the 
 third and fourth days they traded their furs, and 
 tobacco for kettles, hatchets, knives, cloth, beads, 
 ironware and clothing, and on the fifth day they 
 were feasted by the Governor. Just as the rising 
 sun crimsoned the waters of the great river, next 
 morning. Fathers Jogues, Chastelain and Gar- 
 nier, barefooted, in order not to injure their frail 
 vessels, were crouched in the bottom of birch-bark 
 canoes endeavoring, with unpracticed hands to 
 assist their Indian companions, to propel the craft 
 with a paddle. 
 
 Governor Montmagny, Father Le Jeune and 
 most of the garrison and inhabitants of Quebec 
 were on the river bank to wish them God speed, 
 and the cannon of the fort thundered a salute 
 that echoed and reechoed among the hills. It 
 was a journey of nine hundred miles through a 
 savage-infested wilderness with Indian com- 
 panions, sullen and terrified because of the prox- 
 imity of the dreaded Iroquois. Their only food 
 was sagamite — Indian corn crushed between 
 stones and mixed with water — a dish that Father 
 Chaumonot likens to the paste used by paper 
 hangers. The toil of the voyage was extreme. 
 There were thirty-five portages where the canoes 
 and their cargoes had to be lifted from the water 
 and carried around rapids and cataracts. Fifty 
 times they were compelled to go barefooted into 
 the rocky stream to push or haul the canoes 
 through shallow places. They read their office at 
 night, after the day's labor, by the light of the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 25 
 
 moon or the flickering campfire. In the wilder- 
 ness they meet Fathers Daniel and Davost re- 
 turning to Quebec to establish a seminary for 
 Indian children. 
 
 The returning missionaries were in a pitiful 
 plight, terribly emaciated, barefooted, clad only 
 in tattered shirts and cassocks, their breviaries 
 hanging from their necks by strips of hide. 
 They were, however, full of joy and happiness 
 but deeply regretted leaving the mission station 
 despite its terrible privations and trials. One 
 month after their departure from Quebec Father 
 Jogues and his comj)anions stepped from their 
 canoes into the Huron village of Ihonitiria on 
 the banks of Georgian Bay. They beheld a 
 great Indian settlement and in a conspicuous 
 location the Mission house of St. Joseph with a 
 high red cross reared before its entrance. The 
 JNIission house was similar in construction to all 
 the houses in the Huron and Iroquois country. 
 Its dimensions were thirty-six feet long by about 
 twenty feet wide, framed with sapling poles, the 
 tops of the poles on both sides bent into an arch 
 to form the roof. These poles were braced with 
 crosspoles and the whole closely covered with 
 overlapping sheets of bark. The Indian houses 
 were sometimes one hundred and fifty feet long 
 and without partitions. Six or more families, 
 with all their belongings, dwelt in a house, and 
 each family had its own fire along the center. 
 When we reflect that from fifty to a hundred 
 human beings, and unnumbered dogs, lived in 
 these hovels. and that the only ventilation was 
 through the bark curtained door and a slit in the 
 roof, we may gain some idea of the discomfort 
 
26 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 of such a domicile. The eyes were in a constant 
 state of inflammation from the smoke, the stom- 
 ach was sickened hy the commingled odors, and 
 the body was stung beyond endurance by the 
 myriads of fleas with which the abodes swarmed. 
 In summer the houses were intolerable from heat, 
 in winter the face was blistered by the heat from 
 the fires, while the back was frozen. Add to all 
 this the abominable customs, rites and manner of 
 life of the red men and we may obtain some faint 
 idea of the awful penances and sacrifices of the 
 pure, refined, cultured, gentle born priests who 
 left the most highly civilized country in Europe 
 to carry Christ to these barbarians. Truly they 
 sacrificed all that men can sacrifice " for the 
 greater glory of God." 
 
 Shortly after the arrival of Father Jogues at 
 the JMission he and four others of the community 
 were attacked by a contagious fever, and they 
 had scarcely regained their strength when small- 
 pox broke out and ravaged the nation. In the 
 depth of the frigid Northern winter the 
 Jesuits traveled from village to village, minis- 
 tering to the sick and striving to win them to 
 the Faith. Their success was not encouraging. 
 
 " Do they hunt in heaven, or make war, or go 
 to feasts?" asked one sufl'erer. 
 
 " Oh, no," rej^lied the priest. 
 
 " Then," said the Indian, " I won't go. It is 
 not good to be lazy." 
 
 JNIany children, in danger of death, were 
 baptized, but, after a time, the parents objected 
 to the baptism of the little ones. The greatest 
 enemies of the Jesuits were the hideously painted 
 and garbed sorcerers or medicine men whom tlie 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 27 
 
 priests say were emissaries of Satan. They had 
 great influence over the people to which their in- 
 decent rites and ceremonies contributed, and to 
 win them from their paganism seemed a hopeless 
 task. The early affection for the missionaries 
 turned to fear and hatred, they were looked upon 
 as mighty magicians, and their lives were in con- 
 stant peril. Despite the menacing attitude of the 
 savages the JNIission of the Immaculate Con- 
 ception was established at Ossossane, but two 
 years later both missions were abandoned and a 
 great central station called St. JNlarie was opened 
 on the shores of ISIatchedash Bay. In the early 
 winter of 1639, Fathers Jogues and Garnier 
 went on a mission to the far-off Tobacco Nation. 
 The forests were full of snow and in the thickly 
 falling flakes they lost their way and were com- 
 pelled to pass the first night in a spruce swamp, 
 sleeping on the ground, on evergreen boughs. 
 The storm ceased, and " Praised be God," said 
 one of the priests, " we passed a good night." 
 
 They visited every village in the nation and 
 were rebuffed and driven from each. When they 
 departed they w^ere followed by a band of In- 
 dians, with intent to kill them, but they escaped 
 among the mountains in the darkness. Two 
 years later Fathers Jogues and Raymbault pene- 
 trated as far west as the Sault Sainte Marie, in 
 the present State of Michigan, and preached 
 Christ to tw^o thousand O jib way or Chippeway 
 Indians. 
 
 Father Jogues on his return was ordered to 
 Quebec, to obtain altar supplies, clothing and 
 writing materials for the Mission and trinkets 
 for the Indians. The lower regions of New 
 
28 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 France swarmed with wandering bands of 
 Iroquois and the passage of the St. Lawrence 
 River was extremely perilous. Father Jogues 
 reached Quebec safely and six weeks later 
 started on the return voyage with a flotilla of 
 twelve canoes filled with Huron braves, a few 
 Huron converts and Rene Goupil and William 
 Couture, two laymen of the Mission who had de- 
 voted their lives to the work. 
 
 On the second day out while among the 
 Islands of Lake St. Peter, the boats hugging 
 the wooded shore to avoid the current, the voy- 
 agers were appalled at hearing the Iroquois war 
 whoop, the most terrifying of human sounds. 
 This was followed by a volley of shot from the 
 shore and the appearance from the opposite bank 
 of a number of Iroquois war canoes crowded with 
 savages. The Hurons were panic stricken, and 
 leaping ashore disappeared in the forest. Father 
 Jogues, with a few converts made a stand for 
 awhile, but was overpowered. The priest hastily 
 baptized the Indians who had been under 
 instructions. He was urged to fly but refused. 
 William Couture had escaped but unwilling to 
 desert Father Jogues returned, and, in his ex- 
 citement, killed, with his gun, a great Chief. 
 He was set upon, his clothing torn off, his 
 finger nails pulled out and his fingers gnawed 
 by the savages. Breaking away from his cap- 
 tors Father Jogues threw his arms around 
 Couture's neck to protect him but the savages 
 dragged the men apart, stripped the priest, and 
 beat him with their clubs until he fell senseless, 
 covered with blood. With diabolical cruelty they 
 waited until he had revived then tore away his 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 29 
 
 finger nails with their teeth and mangled his 
 fingers. 
 
 More awful than any bodily suffering must 
 have been the poor priest's mental torments at 
 this fiendish mutilation of his priestly hands. It 
 deprived him of his greatest happiness on earth, 
 for the hands that touch the Sacred Body of 
 Christ must be without blemish. Rene Goupil 
 was subjected to the same tortures as his com- 
 panions. The twenty-three captives were drag- 
 ged away on a four weeks' journey to the 
 country of the Mohawk tribe of the Iroquois, 
 which lay southward. Burned by the sun and 
 fever, tortured ^vith their wounds and by swarms 
 of mosquitoes, they suffered torments. Meeting 
 an Iroquois war party on an island in Lake 
 Champlain they were compelled to run the 
 gauntlet up a rocky hill and were beaten with 
 war clubs and thorny sticks. Father Jogues, 
 drenched with blood, fell, half dead. His hands 
 were again mangled and fire was applied to his 
 body. At night the young warriors lacerated 
 his wounds and pulled out his hair and beard. 
 
 The party descended Lake George in canoes, 
 and, landing near the future site of Fort William 
 Henry, the prisoners, despite their pitiable con- 
 dition, were forced to carry heavy loads of 
 plunder. The upper Hudson was crossed. Lake 
 Saratoga passed and they arrived at a palisaded 
 Mohawk town. The entire population turned 
 out to meet them and again the poor captives 
 were compelled to run the gauntlet or " narrow 
 road of Paradise " as Father Jogues called it. 
 In the village they were placed on a high scaffold 
 and a Christian Huron captive woman was com- 
 
30 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 pelled to cut off Father Jogues' left thumb. 
 Her horror and agitation caused her to tremble 
 and hesitate thus increasing his agony a hundred 
 fold. 
 
 After suffering tortures all day the captives 
 at night were stretched on their back and their 
 ankles and wrists were tied to stakes. The 
 children amused themselves by placing live coals 
 and red hot ashes on their naked bodies which 
 they were unable to shake off. At three 
 villages these tortures were repeated and at one 
 of them Father Jogues was hung by the wrists 
 for fifteen minutes between two poles in such 
 manner that his toes could not touch the floor. 
 
 He never forgot his mission during these 
 journeyings and tortures. He exhorted his 
 companions to be of good faith and baptised a 
 number of Huron captives, using, on one oc- 
 casion, a few raindrops clinging to the husk of 
 an ear of corn given to him for food. William 
 Couture, by his bravery, won the admiration of 
 his captors, was adopted into one of their 
 families and was thenceforth safe from harm, but 
 Father Jogues and Rene Goupil daily expected 
 death. Three of the Hurons captured with them 
 were burned to death at the stake. 
 
 The good priest lost no opportunity of bap- 
 tizing dying infants, and Rene Goupil taught 
 the children to make the sign of the cross. 
 These acts aroused the superstitious terrors of 
 the old Indian in whose lodge they lived and he 
 incited two braves to murder. One day as 
 Father Jogues and Rene Goupil were walking 
 towards the village, reciting the rosary, the 
 Indians came upon them and one of them buried 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 31 
 
 his tomahawk in Goupil's brain. He fell mur- 
 muring the name of Christ and Father Jogues 
 dropped on his knees to await the fatal blow. He 
 was commanded to rise and go home, w hich he did, 
 after giving absolution to his dying companion. 
 
 Next morning, reckless of life, he searched for 
 Rene Goupil's body and found it in a torrent, 
 stripped, and mangled by dogs. He secured it 
 intending to return and give it Christian burial, 
 but in the night it w^as stolen by the Indians and 
 when he sought it later it could not be found, al- 
 though he waded for hours in the icy waters and 
 tramped long in the forests. Then this poor 
 mutilated and emaciated being, clad in his squalid 
 raiment of tattered and cast-off skins, " crouched 
 by the pitiless stream, mingled his tears with its 
 waters and, in a voice broken with groans, 
 chanted the service of the dead." 
 
 In the early winter he was carried off on the 
 annual deer hunt, during which all the game 
 taken was devoted to the Indian's god Areskoui. 
 The priest would not eat the meat offered to a 
 demon and starved in the midst of plenty. He 
 was the veriest slave and drudge of his inhuman 
 masters, he gathered their firewood, did their 
 bidding uncomplainingly and bore their cruelty 
 without a murmur, but when they mocked at 
 God or ridiculed his devotions the miserable 
 broken object of their contempt became the 
 priest of the Ever Living God and uplifted by 
 the dignity of his priesthood sternly rebuked 
 them. When he could escape from " Babylon " 
 as he called the Indian lodge and village he 
 wandered in the forest telling his beads and 
 repeating what memory still retained of his office. 
 
32 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 He carved in the bark of trees the sacred symbol 
 of redemption and the Holy Name of Jesus, and 
 there prayed. 
 
 In July, 1643, a band of Indians took him on 
 a trading trip to Fort Orange, Rensselaerswj'-ck. 
 At that day, the future capital city of the great 
 Empire state consisted of a dilapidated log fort 
 or stockade surrounded by twenty-five or thirty 
 little houses. Its one hundred inhabitants were 
 tenants of Van Rensselaer, the patroon or lord 
 of the Manor. Tidings of the capture of Father 
 Jogues had reached France and the Queen 
 Regent had asked the States-General for assist- 
 ance in rescuing him from the savages. Orders 
 had been issued to all the commandants in New 
 Netherland to deliver Father Jogues if possible. 
 Word of the priestly captive had come to 
 Rensselaer swyck, and Arendt Van Corlaer, John 
 Labadie and another had offered to ransom 
 him, but the Indians would not consider the offer. 
 When Father Jogues was taken to Rensselaers- 
 wyck a small Dutch trading sloop was lying 
 in the Hudson ready to sail for New Amster- 
 dam, and in the hold of this vessel he was hidden. 
 Arendt Van Corlear offered the missionary a 
 free passage and urged him to accept. Dominie 
 Johannes Megapolensis added his appeals to Van 
 Corlaer's. Father Jogues suffered agonies of 
 mind, full of anxiety lest his love of life and self 
 should beguile him to seek safety in flight while 
 a chance remained to save one heathen soul 
 through baptism. On the other hand he realized 
 that to remain was suicidal. When his escape 
 was discovered the Indians were infuriated and 
 threatened to destroy the settlement. Father 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 33 
 
 Jogues urged the authorities to surrender him, 
 saying, "If this trouble has been caused by me, I 
 am ready to appease it at the loss of my life. I 
 never wished to escape to the injury of the least 
 man in the Colony." A storm instantly broke out 
 among the brave, faithful Dutch sailors. Their 
 word had been pledged to save the priest if his 
 foot touched their deck, and cost what it might 
 they would keep their word. Father Jogues 
 would not hear of escaping until the trouble with 
 the savages had been settled. He was taken 
 ashore and hidden in a miserable garret, and for 
 six weeks the negotiations between the Dutch and 
 Indians for his ransom were carried on. Presents 
 of the value of one hundred dollars in gold 
 were finally accepted by the red men. Dominie 
 Megapolensis became indeed the Good Samari- 
 tan. He and some of the principal inhabitants 
 insisted on escorting the priest down the river, 
 and their six days' journey was a grand jubila- 
 tion. The minister showed constant kindness to 
 him. " Especially," relates Father Jogues, " did 
 he insist, when we came to an island to which he 
 wished to give my name. Amid the noise of the 
 cannon and bottles each showed his esteem after 
 his own fashion." Owing to Indian wars, 
 both on the mainland and Long Island shores, 
 wilfully provoked by the Dutch, New Amster- 
 dam was full of refugees crowded around the 
 ramshackle fort and Father Jogues' arrival, and 
 the fact that he was one of the, to their Calvinistic 
 minds, mysterious Jesuits, together with the 
 story of his sufferings, drew nearly the entire 
 population to the fort to see him. As he was 
 leaving the fort one day a young man, employed 
 
34 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 by a merchant of the town, ran to him, fell on his 
 knees, seized the mutilated hands, kissed them 
 and with tears streaming from his eyes, cried, 
 "Martyr of Jesus Christ! INIartyr of Jesus 
 Christ!" The humble priest, confused and em- 
 barrassed by the demonstration, embraced him 
 aif ectionately and, inquiring if he was a Calvinist, 
 was told that he was a Polish Lutheran. Passing 
 a house near the fort he glanced in at the open 
 door and was astonished to see on the chimney- 
 breast pictures of the Blessed Virgin and St. 
 Aloysius Gonzaga. He learned on inquiring, 
 that the mistress of the house was the Portuguese 
 Catholic wife of an ensign of the garrison, but 
 unfortunately she knew no language with which 
 Father Jogues was familiar. 
 
 It was a great joy to his heart, one day, to 
 have a young Irishman, just landed from a 
 JNIaryland ship, come to him in the fort and ask 
 permission to approach the tribunal of penance. 
 After hearing his confession he questioned the 
 young sailor about the progress of the Faith 
 in Lord Baltimore's colony and heard the 
 glorious story of the triumphs of the Jesuit 
 Fathers, Andrew White and John Altham, 
 among the red men on the shores of the 
 Chesapeake. The zealous priest learned one 
 secret that saddened his heart. JNIegapolensis 
 told him that years before he had abandoned the 
 Catholic faith. Father Jogues labored to win 
 him back but could make no impression on him. 
 Bidding the tolerant, kind-hearted Dutchmen of 
 New Amsterdam farewell, and armed with a 
 letter of recommendation from Director-Gen- 
 eral Kieft he sailed, November 5th, in a little 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 35 
 
 vessel of fifty tons, for Europe. As the crumb- 
 ling old fort, with its windmill and flagstaff, and 
 the shabby little huts grew dim and were finally 
 blotted out as the vessel dropped, down the bay, 
 a solitary figure stood in the ship's stern, with 
 mutilated priestly hands uplifted in benediction 
 on that community that had been so charitable 
 and merciful to him. God heard Father Jogues' 
 prayer and made this great city what it is — one 
 of the most Catholic cities in the universe and the 
 haven of the oppressed of every clime. 
 
 After suffering further hardships and ill- 
 treatment the good priest reached France, and his 
 name was upon every lip. He was bidden to the 
 royal palace of Fontainebleau where the Queen 
 INI other, Anne of Austria, kissed his mutilated 
 hands, but infinitely above all earthly honors he 
 prized and hailed with deepest joy the special 
 dispensation, sent him by the Sovereign Pontiff, 
 to say Mass notwithstanding the mutilation of 
 his hands. " It would be unjust," said the Pope, 
 " that a martyr of Christ should not drink the 
 blood of Christ." 
 
 The heart and soul of " Ondessonk," the name 
 given Father Jogues by the Indians, was in the 
 American wilderness, and in the early spring he 
 sailed for Quebec. He remained for two years 
 in IVIontreal and was sent to the Mohawk 
 country to negotiate a treaty of peace with that 
 nation, and to establish the Mission of the 
 Martyrs. He travelled over the scenes of his 
 torture and on the eve of Corpus Christi reached 
 the foot of Lake George, which he named the 
 Lake of the Blessed Sacrament. He stopped 
 at Fort Orange to express his gratitude to 
 
36 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 his Dutch friends and then began his mission- 
 ary work. In July, 1646, after a visit to 
 Montreal, he returned to his dangerous post 
 with a companion, John Lalande. They were 
 seized, carried to the town of Ossernenon and 
 tortured. On the evening of October 18th, as 
 Father Jogues was entering a lodge, a hatchet 
 was buried in his brain. John Lalande was 
 killed the next day. Their heads were displayed 
 on the palisades of the town and their bodies 
 thrown into the JVIohawk River. 
 
 At the place of their martyrdom near the 
 village of Auriesville, JNIontgomery County, 
 New York, the Society of Jesus has acquired 
 considerable land and has built a beautiful 
 shrine and erected the stations of the Cross. 
 Every summer great numbers of the faithful 
 make pilgrimages to the hallowed spot. The 
 third Plenary Council of Baltimore, 1884, 
 formally petitioned the Pope that the cause of 
 canonization of Father Jogues might be intro- 
 duced. 
 
FATHER ISAAC JOGUES, S.J. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 37 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IN WHICH AN ENGLISH EAEL PALATINE COMES TO 
 NEW AMSTERDAM AND WITH HIS AMAZING 
 CLAIM KINDLES THE WRATH OF WILLIAM THE 
 " TESTY '' 
 
 One day in the autumn of 1643, the flag that 
 was always raised on the flagstaff of Fort Am- 
 sterdam when an incoming vessel was sighted, 
 told the people in the little settlement that a ship 
 was coming up the bay. The arrival proved to be 
 from the Virginias. A party was landed at the 
 wharf and sought accommodation in the stone 
 tavern, and next day His Excellency, Governor 
 Kieft, granted an audience to Sir Edmund 
 Plowden, Lord Proprietor, Earl Palatine, 
 Governor and Captain General of New Albion 
 and the Isle of Plowden, or, as they are known 
 to-day, the State of New Jersey, Long Island 
 and all other islands within ten leagues of that 
 region. The Dutch archives are silent concern- 
 ing that interview, but when the irascible 
 Governor William Kieft was told that the Isle 
 of Plowden was Long Island, and that his 
 visitor claimed it and Manhattan Island as his 
 own, by virtue of a certain charter granted by 
 King Charles I of England under the great seal 
 of Ireland, there was a more violent explosion 
 than could have been produced by all the powder 
 
38 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 in the fort's magazine, but although Sir Ed- 
 mund's conversation was " as sweet and winning, 
 as grave and sober " as was ever English 
 gentlemen's, he was not at all disturbed by the 
 Governor's bombastic bellowings, but protested 
 firmly against the annoyances and the violence 
 to which the Dutch soldiers and settlers on the 
 Delaware subjected the people of his palatinate. 
 He was particularly bitter in his complaints 
 against Governor John Peintz of the Swedish 
 settlements on the Delaware River because of 
 the wrongs inflicted on his colonists. 
 
 Like many another Catholic and non- Catholic, 
 driven from his own country by religious perse- 
 cution. Sir Edmund had found an asylum in 
 Holland, and the gratitude he felt for that 
 shelter in time of need would not permit him to 
 quarrel with the Dutch. He purchased a half 
 interest in a New Amsterdam ship, loaded it 
 with supplies for his settlements, and after a 
 short stay in the Dutch town sailed away for 
 New Albion. He is said to have visited New 
 Amsterdam again during the administration of 
 Governor Stuyvesant. 
 
 Robert Evelin, of Wooten, Surrey, England, 
 who was connected with Sir Edmund Plowden 
 in his colonial ventures, explored the coast from 
 Cape May to JNIanhattan in 1634 and probably 
 landed at New Amsterdam. 
 
 Sir Edmund was considerable of a castle 
 builder, and had little idea of the rough and 
 ready life of a colonist in a new country, or of 
 the necessities of government in a colony hewn 
 out of the primeval forest. He spent about 
 eight years getting ready his plans. An Earl 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 39 
 
 Palatine possessed truly regal powers under the 
 king", and Sir Edmund intended to exercise them. 
 He divided his possessions into Manors and ap- 
 pointed his eldest son and heir, Baron of Mount 
 Royall and Governor, his younger son Baron of 
 Roymont, High Admiral, and his three daugh- 
 ters Baronesses. 
 
 There were twenty-three Indian chiefs within 
 the bounds of New Albion, and he instituted an 
 order of chivalry under the title: " The Albion 
 Knights for the conversion of the twenty-three 
 Kings of Charles (Delaware) River," and the 
 Viscounts, Barons, Baronets, Knights, Gentle- 
 men, INIerchants, adventurers and planters of the 
 Company of New Albion, forty-four in number, 
 were invested with the gorgeous insignia of the 
 order. These forty- four members of the 
 company were pledged to settle three thousand 
 able-bodied men in New Albion, but not more 
 than five hundred ever came. Several books or 
 pamphlets lauding the new land were issued. In 
 1634 Plowden gave Sir Thomas Danby a lease 
 of ten thousand acres of land on Long Island 
 and near the present site of Salem, New Jersey, 
 with privileges for a " Town and Manor of 
 Danby Fort," provided he would settle one 
 hundred planters in the province, not suffering 
 anyone to live therein who did not believe in or 
 profess the three Christian creeds — the Apostle's, 
 Athanasian and Nicene. All Christians were to 
 be welcomed to New Albion, and those who railed 
 and condemned others because of their religious 
 belief were to be severely punished. 
 
 The same year Captain Thomas Yong, of 
 Yorkshire, and his nephew, Robert Evelin, of 
 
40 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Surrey, who has been mentioned as visiting New 
 Amsterdam, voyaged to America and sailed up 
 Delaware Bay and River as far as the present 
 Trenton Falls. Some Indians told them about a 
 great inland sea four days' journey beyond the 
 mountains. They hoped to find an outlet from 
 this sea into the Pacific Ocean that would give 
 them a short passage to China. Disappointed in 
 this they sailed down the river and on its banks 
 built a trading station or fort at " Eriwomeck." 
 Plowden sailed for his domain and arrived 
 early in 1642. He visited his Manor of Wat- 
 cessit, near the present site of Salem, and there 
 had one of his officers administer the oath of 
 obedience to him as Governor, to the officers 
 of an English settlement of seventy persons who 
 had come from New Haven Colony. He had 
 completed arrangements with his associates in 
 England to send out shiploads of settlers and 
 supplies and these were to touch the coast at 
 what is now Hampton Roads, therefore he 
 spent much of his time cruising between Watces- 
 sit, Accomack and Kecoughtan, Virginia, on 
 the lookout for his ships. On one of these 
 voyages a mutiny broke out and the Captain of 
 the bark, who may have been one of the pirates, 
 so numerous in those days, conspired with the 
 crew to kill Plowden. They concluded not to 
 slay him but to put him ashore on an uninhabited 
 island infested with bears and wolves. As the 
 bark sailed away, after landing the Knight, two 
 young retainers, who knew nothing of the plot, 
 leaped overboard and swam ashore. For four 
 days the three men were without food or shelter. 
 A passing sloop saw their distress signals and 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 41 
 
 took them to Accomack. Sir Edmund was 
 nearly dead from exposure and hunger. The 
 mutineers put in at Fort Elfsborg, in the 
 Swedish Delaware possessions, and were arrested. 
 The prisoners, bark and cargo were handed over 
 to Plowden after he had paid a heavy bill of 
 expenses to the Swedish Governor, John Peintz, 
 and the traitorous Captain was put to death. 
 
 The colony was doomed to failure. Very few 
 ships with settlers arrived, and those that did were 
 refused entrance to the Delaware by Peintz and 
 the Dutch commander. The struggling little 
 settlements that had been started were con- 
 tinually harassed by the Swedes and Dutch. 
 Poor Plowden went to Boston in 1648 and 
 told Governor John Winthrop that he had lost 
 the estate he brought over and that all his 
 people had scattered. His intention was to sail 
 to England for settlers and supplies and to 
 return, provided he could obtain sufficient force 
 to drive out the Swedes. 
 
 After a stay of seven j^ears in the new world 
 he went home, but the outbreak of civil war in 
 England thwarted his hopes of success with his 
 colon3^ It is likely that many of his Catholic 
 colonists sought asylum in the colony of Mary- 
 land. There were Catholic Plowdens in that 
 state at a recent date. Sir Edmund died at 
 Wanstead, England, in 1659. 
 
42 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 NEW AMSTERDAM AGAIN BECOMES A HAVEN OF 
 REFUGE FOR A JESUIT MISSIONARY TO THE 
 IRIQUOIS 
 
 A YEAR after Father Jogues' departure for 
 Europe a sloop sailed down the Hudson and on 
 its deck was another battered and mutilated 
 victim of Indian ferocity, the Jesuit Father, 
 Francis Joseph Bressani. He was born in 
 Rome, Italy, and at the age of fifteen entered the 
 Jesuit novitiate. He spent many years as pro- 
 fessor of literature, philosophy and mathematics 
 and finally asked to be sent on the Canadian 
 mission. After laboring for two years among 
 the Algonquins he was ordered to the Huron 
 mission, and in company with a Frenchman and 
 four Indians started on his long journey with 
 a flotilla of Huron canoes. While on Lake St. 
 Peter, the same lake on which Father Jogues 
 was captured, the canoes ran into a Mohawk 
 ambuscade and Father Bressani was taken 
 prisoner. Led to a fishing camp on the banks 
 of the upper Hudson he was compelled to run 
 the gauntlet. His hand was split open between 
 the fingers, several of his fingers were cut off, 
 and his hands and feet were burned twenty-six 
 times. Bruised, bleeding and famished with 
 hunger, he was hurried to the first town on the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 43 
 
 Mohawk River. Again cruelly tortured, his left 
 hand was split open, his feet torn and mangled; 
 he was hung up by the feet, then tied on the 
 ground, food was placed on his body and hungry 
 dogs set upon it until they had torn him with 
 their teeth. His wounds, receiving no attention, 
 began to fill with corruption and worms, and he 
 became an object of disgust even to the savages. 
 
 " I could not have believed," wrote Father 
 Bressani to his Superior, " that a man was so 
 hard to kill." His frequent thought while under 
 the torture was, " What must Purgatory be?" A 
 council was held to decide his fate and, greatly to 
 his surprise, his life was spared and he was given 
 to an old Indian woman to take the place of a dead 
 relative. Because of his frightful condition the 
 old squaw did not want him and sent him to Fort 
 Orange to be sold to the Dutch. They ransomed 
 him for a large sum and with true Christian kind- 
 ness nursed him back to health and strength, 
 provided him with clothing, " of which he stood 
 in much need," and sent him to Governor Kieft 
 at New Amsterdam. The Governor received him 
 as kindly and hospitably as he had Father 
 Jogues, and before he sailed for La Rochelle, 
 France, gave him a letter of safe-conduct in 
 which he wrote: "Christian charity requires that 
 he be humanely treated by those into whose hands 
 he may happen to fall. Wherefore we request all 
 Governors, viceroys or their lieutenants and 
 captains that they would afford him their favor 
 in going and returning, promising to do the 
 same on like occasion." 
 
 When Father Bressani reached Rome, Pope 
 Innocent X received him as an apostle and 
 
44 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 kissed his wounds. Undeterred by his sufferings 
 he returned to Canada a year later and journeyed 
 again to the Huron country. After passing three 
 years among that tribe, he started for Quebec 
 with a party of Hurons, which on the journey 
 was attacked by the JNIohawks. The Mohawks 
 were defeated with great slaughter. After a 
 brief rest he journeyed again nine hundred miles 
 into the wilderness, to find that the red terror had 
 broken loose and that bloodshed and destruction 
 were rife. Fathers Daniel, Brebeuf and Lale- 
 mant had won martyrs' crowns. He hurried back 
 to Quebec for aid, and a year passed before he 
 could return. On his way he was attacked and 
 wounded by the Iroquois, but, escaping capture, 
 he met a party of Hurons, the sight of whom, 
 and the tidings they bore, caused him greater 
 pain and suffering than Iroquois tortures. They 
 were the first party of Hurons driven from 
 their country by the victorious Iroquois and were 
 seeking safety under the guns of Quebec. They 
 told the harrowing story of the massacre of 
 priests and converts and the destruction of the 
 mission stations. The work established and car- 
 ried on at such cost of blood, sufferings, labor 
 and treasure was wiped out. The Huron mis- 
 sion was ended. Father Bressani returned to 
 Italy and, after many years of missionary labor, 
 died at Florence in 1672. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 45 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 FATHER SIMON LE MOYNE's VISIT TO NEW AMSTER- 
 DAM AND WHAT HE SAW THERE 
 
 Governor Peter Stuyvesant came to New 
 Amsterdam in May, 1647. On the voyage the 
 fleet had taken a Spanish prize and carried its 
 crew to the town on Manhattan Island as 
 prisoners of war. Eight years later Dominie 
 Megapolensis, writing to the Classis of Amster- 
 dam, said: "For Me have here Papists, Men- 
 nonites and Lutherans among the Dutch." Thir- 
 teen years after Father Bressani's visit to New 
 Amsterdam another Catholic priest, the third 
 of whom we have any record, stepped ashore 
 on the wharf at the foot of the present Moore 
 Street. He was the French Jesuit, Father 
 Simon Le JNIoyne, who came from the North to 
 minister to the few Catholics in New Amster- 
 dam and some French sailors who had recently 
 arrived in the port with a prize. There had been 
 many changes in New Amsterdam since Father 
 Bressani's visit. Governor Willem Kieft and 
 Dominie Bogardus had sailed for Holland in the 
 ship " Princess " in 1647. The ill-fated vessel 
 was wrecked on the coast of Wales and Kieft, 
 Bogardus and eighty-two others perished. The 
 pulpit of the church in the fort was now occupied 
 by Dominie Megapolensis, who had removed 
 
46 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 from Rensselaerswyck to New Amsterdam in 
 1649. 
 
 The maimed and pitiable condition of Fathers 
 Jogues and Bressani had touched the heart of 
 the Dominie and he had been to them a good 
 Samaritan, but Father Le INIoyne's coming was 
 a diiFerent matter entirely. He was a hale, 
 hearty, vigorous Jesuit priest, about fifty-three 
 years of age, visiting the place to discharge the 
 duties of his sacred office, so the Dominie pre- 
 pared to give him battle, but not in a personally 
 offensive way. 
 
 Highly educated men were few in New Am- 
 sterdam in those days, and the learned Dominie 
 was so delighted at the arrival of a foeman 
 worthy of his steel, that he first fell on Father Le 
 Moyne's neck and then on his theology, but he 
 quickly found that the learned Jesuit, while al- 
 ways ready to chat with him, declined to be drawn 
 into theological debate. 
 
 During the eight days of his stay in New Am- 
 sterdam Father Le Moyne visited every part of 
 the little city, for New Amsterdam had been 
 raised to the dignity of a city, and very proud 
 and jealous were its burghers of their rights. 
 The government of Director and Council had 
 given way to the administration of a Schout, 
 whose duties were a combination of Mayor, 
 Sheriff and District Attorney, two Burgomas- 
 ters and five Schepens, who acted as a Board of 
 Aldermen and sat as a court of justice in civil 
 and criminal actions. But Peter Stuyvesant was 
 a masterful man, a regular " Czar of Moscovy " 
 one of the officials called him, and he was con- 
 tinually interfering in the management of the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 47 
 
 city's affairs. This caused considerable friction 
 and trouble. 
 
 The first place visited by Father Le Moyne 
 was Fort Amsterdam, little altered since Father 
 Bressani passed through its sally-port, except 
 that the slaves were at work preparing stone for 
 a base wall around it to preserve its earthworks 
 from the depredations of hogs and goats. In 
 the Governor's house Father Le Moyne was pre- 
 sented to the great Stuyvesant, a haughty, 
 determined looking man, a little above the aver- 
 age height but splendidly proportioned. He was 
 of dark complexion, with shaven chin and a very 
 slight mustache shading his lip. A wide shirt 
 collar fell over his velvet coat ^vith slashed 
 sleeves. His very full hose were tied at the knee 
 with a handsome scarf. He had lost a leg 
 in an attack on the Portuguese island of St. 
 Martin thirteen years before, and its wooden 
 substitute was banded with silver, which gave rise 
 to Stuyvesant's nickname " Silver Leg." Father 
 Le Moyne was graciously welcomed by the 
 Governor, who alive to every opportunity to ex- 
 tend the colony's commerce, besought the priest 
 to secure from Governor d'Aillebout, of New 
 France, permission for Dutch vessels to visit the 
 St. Lawrence River for trading purposes. 
 Father Le Moyne promised to act as Stuyves- 
 ant's emissary and, shortly after his return to 
 Quebec, secured consent for New Netherland 
 vessels to go to Quebec and trade on the same 
 terms as French ships. 
 
 In his walks about the city. Father Le Moyne 
 learned that in the past year the first map of 
 the city had been drawn, showing seventeen 
 
48 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 streets, and that the a\erage price of lots 
 was $50. There were one hundred and t^yenty 
 houses sheltering one thousand people. At this 
 time there were less than seventy houses and 
 four hundred people in Quebec. As he walked 
 down Winckel Straat or the shop street, now 
 Whitehall Street, towards the Strand, Father 
 Le Moyne remarked the number of farmers' 
 wagons filled with country produce of all kinds, 
 and the crowd clustered around them, and was 
 told that the year before the corporation had 
 passed an ordinance providing for holding mar- 
 ket every Saturday on the Strand, around 
 the house of Hans Kierstede. Passing into 
 Perel Straat, now Pearl Street, he pursued 
 his way until he reached a bridge at Bridge 
 Street, crossing a stream that flowed into the 
 East River. This stream, it was explained to 
 him, was the drain or ditch for a tract of marshy 
 ground. After a few dwellings had been built 
 on its banks it was called the Heere-Graft or 
 Great Canal. The priest stood on the bridge 
 for a moment to watch three men at work driving 
 heavy planks into the mud banks of the ditch. 
 A few years later this work was finished and the 
 Heere-Graft became one of the most popular 
 thoroughfares in New Amsterdam, with its 
 plank banked canal, its paved street on both sides 
 of the stream and its little Dutch houses. The 
 people loved it because it carried them back in 
 memory to old Holland. It probably made 
 them a trifle homesick. Canals in all cities, ex- 
 cept possibly Dutch ones, become the receptacle 
 for the city's refuse. The Heere-Graft, under 
 English masters, proved no exce23tion to this rule 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 49 
 
 and was filled in. You would scarcely recognize 
 the Heere-Graft in the modern Broad Street. 
 On the other side of the bridge Perel Straat be- 
 came Hoogh Straat, and a short walk brought 
 the priest to the Stadt-Huys or City Hall, which 
 at the time of Father Jogues' visit was the 
 Harburg or tavern. It was a stone building, 
 fifty feet square, three stories high in the walls 
 with two more stories in the high pitched roof. 
 He entered the imposing court room and looked 
 with interest on the arms of New Amsterdam 
 painted in glowing colors on the window panes; 
 on the arms of the city, painted in old Holland, 
 hanging over the justice's cushioned bench, 
 flanked with the orange, white and blue flag of 
 the Dutch West India Company and the red, 
 white and blue colors of the Netherlands. 
 
 Leaving the court room he entered the school 
 room, in the same building, and at a sign from 
 Schoolmaster Harmanus Van Hoboken, who 
 was also chorister and sexton of the church in the 
 fort, the healthy looking, tow-headed youngsters 
 arose, bowed and smiled at the visitor, who bowed 
 and smiled back at them. Out into the air again 
 where the waters of the East River, flashing 
 in the sunlight, dazzled his eyes for a moment, 
 he walked to the shore and saw the recently 
 completed public improvement, the " Shoeinge," 
 which consisted of heavy planking stuck on 
 end into the mud at the water's edge and 
 filled in behind with earth and rubbish to pro- 
 tect the shore from the encroachments of the 
 river during storms and high tides. It took 
 three years' time and all kinds of threats and 
 penalties to compel the property owners along 
 
50 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 the river bank to do the planking, and when it 
 was finished they all wondered why they had not 
 done it long before. The Shoeinge extended 
 from Broad to Wall Street. 
 
 Continuing north along the Shoeinge Father 
 Le Moyne came to T'Water Poort or Water 
 Gate, a large gate in a wooden stockade that 
 stretched across the island from river to river, a 
 distance of 2,340 feet. Three years previous 
 there was serious trouble between New England 
 and New Netherland, and the New Netherlanders 
 feared that the New EfUglanders would attack 
 New Amsterdam from the land side, or north, so 
 they decided to put up a palisade. Planks, 
 twelve feet high, pointed at the tops, were driven 
 three feet into the ground and every thirteen feet 
 posts seven inches thick were driven, to which 
 were nailed split rails to give the palisade stabil- 
 ity. Behind it a breastwork of earth four feet 
 high and three feet at the top was thrown up and 
 a ditch two feet wide and two feet deep dug. 
 When this work was finished and the Dutchmen 
 mounted the breastwork and peeped out over the 
 palisade, they felt that New Amsterdam was safe 
 even if every Puritan and Indian in New Eng- 
 land came to attack it. When Father Le 
 Moyne looked north over the wall his eyes 
 rested on a few farm houses in clearings and the 
 green trees of the forest. The only sounds he 
 heard were the voices and laughter of the women 
 washing clothes in the stream that ran through 
 a beautiful little valley known as " Maagte 
 paetje," Maiden's Path, or, as we know its suc- 
 cessor to-day, Maiden Lane. 
 
 He continued his walk along the breastwork. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 51 
 
 passing" the few buildings or hovels, most of 
 them occupied as tap houses or taverns, until he 
 reached the Land Gate, across the Heere Straat, 
 and stood on the corner of what is now Broadway 
 and Wall Street. A road led north past the 
 Common on which now stand the Post Office, 
 City Hall and other public buildings, and then 
 turned northeast, following the line of Park Row 
 to the bouweries or farms, at what is now 
 Chatham Square and beyond. Passing down 
 Heere Straat on his right near the wall were the 
 public orchard and garden. Next to them 
 several substantial houses with large gardens 
 extending to the North River, which in those 
 days flowed to about the line of the present 
 Church Street. The principal building, of 
 stone, was the home of that bluff sea captain. 
 Burgomaster Paulus Leedertsen Van der Grift. 
 The ground rose south of Van der Grift's house, 
 and on an eminence was the first burial ground, 
 with a frontage of nearly two hundred feet on 
 the street. Next came three or four small houses 
 of unpretentious appearance. On the eastern 
 side of the street were much poorer dwellings, 
 many of them mere frame hovels, with roofs 
 thatched with straw or rushes, and chimneys of 
 wood, plastered with mortar; but every home, 
 however humble, had its garden, a mass of glow- 
 ing colors in the season of flowers, that extended 
 back two hundred and fifty feet to the Heere 
 Graft. 
 
 He finally reached the Parade. On its 
 western side were two popular taverns, one of 
 them Captain Martin Cregier's, a very im- 
 portant personage in his day. The fashionable 
 
52 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 store came next, then the residence of the Pro- 
 vincial Secretary and the parsonage of Dominie 
 JNIegapolensis ; all good, substantial buildings. 
 When Father Le Moyne called at the parsonage 
 to pay his respects to the Dominie and to thank 
 him for the kindness he had extended to members 
 of the Society of Jesus, it was but natural that 
 the minister should seek to learn something of the 
 life of his priestly guest. 
 
 Father Le Moyne had entered the Society of 
 Jesus at nineteen, and had come to New France 
 in 1638. He was the first priest to open the 
 mission among the Mohawk and Onondaga Na- 
 tions. In 1654, the Iroquois wanted peace with 
 the French, and in July of that year. Father 
 Le JNIoyne visited the Onondaga castle of the 
 Iroquois and addressed a great council of the 
 Indians. His sixteen years among the red men 
 had not been passed in vain. He had mastered 
 their language and every trick of their oratory, 
 and in the long speech he made he presented to 
 them nineteen wampum belts. His speech was 
 a triumph, and the chiefs begged him to select a 
 spot on the banks of beautiful Lake Ganentaa 
 for a French settlement. During his stay of ten 
 days at Onondaga, he discovered the rich salt 
 springs. These springs are owned by the 
 State and seven million bushels of salt a year 
 have been produced from them. The French 
 settlement at Lake Ganentaa flourished for 
 a while, but it was discovered that the treacherous 
 Onondagas were conspiring to massacre the 
 settlers, and they abandoned the place and 
 escaped by a ruse. Acting Governor d'Aille- 
 bout, of New France, in retaliation for the treach- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 53 
 
 ery of the Indians, seized every Iroquois Indian 
 in Canada. These events closed the Iroquois 
 mission field for the time, and Father Le INIoyne 
 took advantage of the opportunity to visit Rens- 
 selaerswyek and New Amsterdam. His mis- 
 sionary work completed, he bade adieu to his New 
 Amsterdam friends and took passage on a sloop 
 for Fort Orange. 
 
 The next sloop that left Fort Orange for New 
 Amsterdam carried a packet of manuscript from 
 Father Le Moyne, who, having in mind the 
 perversion of Dominie Megapolensis, wrote to 
 his Calvinist friend that: " Christ hanging on 
 the wood of the cross was still ready to receive 
 his repentance or conversion." Accompanying 
 this epistle were three essays : I. " On the Suc- 
 cession of the Popes." II. " On the Council." 
 Ill " On Heretics." You can picture to your- 
 selves into what condition this adjuration threw 
 the Dominie. He locked himself in his study for 
 days, consulted with his learned co-laborer, 
 Dominie Drisius, for hours, and the result was 
 a formidable packet for Father Le Moyne, 
 handed to the skipper of the first vessel that 
 sailed to Quebec. The vessel was wrecked on 
 the voyage and the reply never reached Father 
 Le Moyne. In a letter to his Classis, in 1657, 
 Dominie JNIegapolensis wrote concerning Father 
 Le Moyne: 
 
 " This Simon Le Moyne has been with the 
 Indians from the Indian country several times 
 at Fort Orange. At last he came here to the 
 Manhattans without doubt on account of the 
 Papists residing here, and especially for the ac- 
 commodation of the French sailors who are 
 
54 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Papists, and who have arrived here with a good 
 prize." 
 
 As Father Le Moyne came to New Amster- 
 dam for the purpose of ministering to the faith- 
 ful, it is probable that he brought with him the 
 traveling chapel usually carried by the mission- 
 aries, and, if so, that he offered the Holy Sacri- 
 fice on the French ship and probably in the city. 
 When Father Le INIoyne reached Quebec, he was 
 successful in securing permission for Dutch 
 vessels to trade on the St. Lawrence River, and, 
 under date, April 7th, 1658, sent the permit and 
 wrote Governor Stuyvesant as follows: 
 
 "Very Illustrious Sir: — I send you with my love a letter 
 received in Quebec, which though written in French is sincere 
 and friendly. He who signed his name to it, a very noble 
 and also learned man, Lord Daillebout, did not wish, I think, 
 to write in Latin, because perhaps more among you know 
 French, than Latin, anjTvay because it treats of a matter con- 
 cerning the French and those who love the French only. 
 
 Furthermore he wrote it, who to-day acts as the deputy of 
 our absent Viceroy and who some time was himself Viceroy. 
 
 May it therefore bring happy, beneficial and fortunate results. 
 Dear friends of the Manhattans draw your furrow through the 
 sea to our Quebec and some time hereafter our Canadians will 
 unexpectedly with God's guidance safely reach your shores. 
 Although it is not in my power to make, as I hoped to voyage 
 with you, for I have my forest boatmen with me; yet at some 
 future day I promise to be your guest and servant. Even 
 though my pen may have taken some liberties, overlook them, 
 if you please. Illustrious Sir and take this letter as an assured 
 testimony of my regard for the Dutch, and my love for you, 
 with which I am 
 
 Illustrious Sir 
 
 Your most faithful and obedient servant, 
 
 Simon Le Moyne, S.J. 
 
 In September of the same j^ear Dominies 
 Megapolensis and Drisius joined in a letter to 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 55 
 
 the Classis of Amsterdam and the writer, 
 JVIegapolensis, told in detail of the coming of the 
 three Jesuits, Fathers Jogues, Bressani, and Le 
 JVIoyne to New Amsterdam. In this letter he 
 mentions that the JNIohawks, after putting 
 Father Jogues to death, presented Megapolensis 
 with his missal, breviary and clothing. Writing 
 of Father Bressani, INIegapolensis said: 
 
 " He wrote me a letter as the previous men- 
 tioned one (Jogues) had done, thanking me for 
 the benefits I had conferred on him. He stated 
 also that he had not argued, when with me, on 
 the subject of religion, yet he had felt deeply 
 interested in me on account of my favors to him ; 
 that he was anxious for the life of my soul, and 
 admonished me to come again into the Papal 
 Church from which I had separated myself. In 
 each case I returned such a reply that a second 
 letter was never sent me." 
 
 Concerning Father Le Moyne, the letter reads 
 in part that the priest told him of his discovery 
 in the northern wilds, of the salt springs, of an 
 oil spring and a spring of hot sulphurous water. 
 " Whether all this is true," wrote the Dominie, 
 *' or a mere Jesuit lie, I will not decide." 
 
 Father Le Moyne died at Cap de la Magde- 
 laine, November 24th, 1665. 
 
 A crowded conventicle in a Dutch church in 
 the city was amazed and startled one day at 
 seeing an Indian chief, a splendid specimen of 
 manhood, clad in barbaric magnificence, the 
 rosary around his neck with its crucifix resting 
 on his chest the only incongruity in his attire, 
 stride with dignity to the space in front of the 
 pulpit. There was a pause in the service and the 
 
56 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Indian, kneeling, made the sign of the cross and 
 " offered prayer to God " in the words the 
 Jesuits had taught him. The minister inter- 
 rupted the Chief's devotions and bade him 
 withdraw. In a loud voice the Chief answered: 
 " Wait, I have not yet finished my prayer. You 
 make it easily seen that you are not Christians, 
 for you do not love prayer." 
 
 The Indian was Daniel Garakonthie, " The 
 Sun Who Walks," a great chief, orator of the 
 Onondaga nation. Efforts had been made by 
 some Dutch settlers near the Onondagas to 
 proselytize the Catholic Indians, and, when 
 persuasion had failed, the converts were warned 
 not to carry their rosaries and crucifixes with 
 them to New York. Garakonthie's appearance 
 in the conventicle was his profession of faith 
 prompted by these warnings. On another of 
 his trading or ambassadorial visits to the city 
 he was asked by some Protestants if he were 
 still a Christian. " He replied boldly," says 
 the Jesuit Relation of 1679, " that his faith 
 would last as long as his life. They were so 
 edified by his reply that they praised his con- 
 stancy, and even exhorted him to persevere until 
 death. That grace was vouchsafed him by Our 
 Lord." 
 
 In the northern wilderness, not far from the 
 Onondaga's Castle, in 1661, Father Simon Le 
 Moyne met Garakonthie and a band of his red 
 men. A friendship was born between the 
 priest and the savage at that meeting that grew 
 into a deep brotherly love. In the council that 
 followed at the Castle, Garakonthie was ap- 
 pointed chief of an embassy that went to Mon- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 57 
 
 treal. In the delicate negotiations that followed 
 he displayed such wisdom and ability as to win 
 for him the admiration and respect of the 
 authorities of New France, and they found in 
 Garakonthie a constant and sincere friend. On 
 his return to the Onondaga country he secured 
 the release of all French prisoners. Again in 
 1663 he gathered all the captives in the Onon- 
 daga canton and sent them to Quebec. In this 
 way he saved twenty-six Frenchmen by ransom 
 from fiery death, sheltered, fed, and clothed 
 them, and saved the lives of sixty others by 
 secret warnings of danger. Two years later he 
 headed delegations from the Onondaga, Cayuga, 
 and Seneca nations that visited Governor de 
 Tracy at Quebec. His apostrophe to the 
 memory of his old friend. Father Le Moyne, is 
 a most touching specimen of Indian eloquence. 
 Father Julian Garnier was the missionary to the 
 Onondagas in 1668, and Garakonthie built a 
 cabin and chapel for him. 
 
 An outbreak of hostilities between the Iroquois 
 nations and the Ottawas threatened a wide- 
 spread and bloody war in 1670. Through the 
 eloquence and labor of Garakonthie all the 
 chiefs of both nations met in council at Quebec 
 for the purpose of cementing a peace. At a 
 session of the council Garakonthie addressed the 
 great assemblage and declared himself a wor- 
 shiper of Jesus Christ. Bishop Laval was 
 present, and, turning to him, Garakonthie asked 
 for baptism. Governor de Courcelles and 
 INIademoiselle de Bouteroue, a daughter of the 
 Intendant, acting as sponsors. He was named 
 Daniel. Despite his advanced years, he learned 
 
58 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 to read and write French. He died an edifying 
 death in 1675. 
 
 In the records of New Netherland, there is 
 but one instance of a Cathohc suffering for 
 conscience' sake, and he did not suffer very 
 severely or because he was a Cathohc per se. In 
 1658 one Nicholas, a Frenchman, was brought 
 before the court and charged by the sheriff of 
 Breukelen (Brooklyn) with refusing to con- 
 tribute to the support of the Dutch minister. 
 He " insolently pleaded the frivolous excuse " 
 that he was a Catholic. He was, thereupon, 
 fined twelve guilders. 
 
 In no time or place in the world's history can 
 there be found a braver, better, or more pic- 
 turesque race of men than the French Canadians 
 of old. One of them, a dashing, handsome 
 young man, about twenty years of age, the fore- 
 runner of a host who visited New York, stepped 
 from a boat one day in 1662 or 1663 and walked 
 right into the hearts of every man, woman, and 
 child in New Amsterdam. A splendid specimen 
 of manhood, save that a finger was scarred and 
 disfigured and he was minus a thumb that he 
 had lost a short time before under torture while 
 a prisoner in the hands of the ferocious Mo- 
 hawks. He returned to Canada by way of Fort 
 Orange, New Amsterdam, and Port Royal. 
 He was Francois Hertel, the son of James 
 Hertel, of Fecamp, Normand)^ and of INIary 
 Marquerie. Father Charlevoix, S.J., in his 
 " History of New France," says of Hertel, he, 
 " sanctified his captivity by a great innocence, 
 perfect resignation to the orders of heaven and 
 practices of piety, which inspired the respect even 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 59 
 
 of his enemies." While in the hands of the 
 Indians he wrote the two following letters on 
 birch bark. The first to Father Le Moyne, the 
 other to his mother : 
 
 My Reverend Father : — The very day when you left Three 
 Rivers I was captured, at about three in the afternoon by four Iro- 
 quois of the Mohawk tribe. I would not have been taken alive, 
 if, to my sorrow, I had not feared that I was not in a fit state to 
 die. If you came here, my Father, I could have the happiness 
 of confessing to you: and I do not think they would do any 
 harm; and I think that I could return home with you; I pray 
 you to pity my poor mother, who is in great trouble. You know, 
 my Father, how fond she is of me. I have heard from a 
 Frenchman, who was taken at Three Rivers on the 1st of Au- 
 gust, that she is well, and comforts herself with the hope that I 
 shall see you. There are three of us Frenchmen alive here. I 
 commend myself to your good prayers and particularly to the 
 Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. I pray you, my Father, to say a mass 
 for me. I pray you give my dutiful love to my poor mother, 
 and console her, if it pleases you. 
 
 My Father, I beg your blessing on the hand that writes to 
 you, which has one of the fingers burned in the bowl of an 
 Indian pipe, to satisfy the Majesty of God which I have offended. 
 The thumb of the other hand is cut off; but do not tell my 
 mother of it. 
 
 My Father, I pray you to honor me with a word from your 
 hand in reply, and tell me you shall come here before winter. 
 Your most humble and most obedient servant, 
 
 Francois Hertel. 
 
 My Most Dear and Honored Mother: — I know very well 
 that my capture must have distressed you very much. I ask you 
 to forgive my disobedience. It is my sins that have placed me 
 where I am. I owe my life to your prayers and those of M. 
 de Saint-Quentin, and of my sisters. I hope to see you again 
 before winter. I pray you to tell the good brethren of Notre 
 Dame to pray to God and the Holy Virgin for me, my dear 
 mother, and for you and all my sisters. 
 
 Your poor 
 
 Fanchon. 
 
60 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 In 1666 Hertel wrote to a friend in Albany a 
 very interesting letter telling his experiences 
 since leaving New Netherland, informing him of 
 his marriage and mentioning the names of many 
 Dutch friends to whom he sent his love. 
 
 Twenty-four years after he appears in an- 
 other character. Governor Frontenac, in 1690, 
 sent three parties of French and Indians into 
 New England to devastate it with fire and 
 sword. Hertel in command of the Three Rivers 
 Militia, consisting of fifty- two men, and ac- 
 companied by his three sons and two nephews, 
 surprised the settlement at Salmon Falls. 
 Thirty persons were shot or tomahawked, fifty- 
 four, mostly women or children, taken prisoners, 
 and two thousand heads of cattle and a number 
 of houses and barns burned. Piscataqua sent 
 out a body of two hundred and forty men 
 against the Canadians. The parties met at a 
 narrow bridge over the Wooster River and 
 Hertel held the enemy in check until his force 
 could continue its retreat in safety. Later in 
 the year he joined in the attack on Casco (Port- 
 land), and for valorous conduct, during the 
 attack of Phips on Quebec, was ennobled by the 
 French king. In 1703 five of Hertel's sons led 
 the attack on Deerfield, killing thirty-five of the 
 settlers and taking many prisoners to New 
 France. 
 
 Fran9ois Hertel, Sieur de Chambly, died May 
 29th, 1722, in his eightieth year. Of him Fran- 
 cis Parkman says, in his " Old Regime in 
 Canada," " To the New England of old he was 
 the abhorred chief of Popish malignants and 
 murdering savages. The New England of to- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 61 
 
 day will be more just to the brave defender of 
 his country and his faith." 
 
 The English always claimed New Netherland 
 because Cabot, the younger, was said to have 
 crossed its latitude somewhere out in the ocean, 
 and when Charles II ascended the throne of 
 England, he granted to his brother, the Duke 
 of York, large tracts of territory along the 
 Atlantic coast including the Dutch possessions. 
 Governor Stuyvesant had, in 1664, one hundred 
 and fifty soldiers and two hundred and fifty 
 citizens, capable of bearing arms, in New Am- 
 sterdam. The fort mounted twenty guns and 
 was insufficiently supplied with ammunition. 
 There had been peace between England and the 
 Netherlands for ten years but, one day in 
 August, four frigates, carrying one hundred 
 and twenty guns with five hundred British 
 regulars, later reinforced with about five hun- 
 dred New England volunteers, sailed up the bay 
 and demanded the surrender of the little Dutch 
 city. Stuyvesant w^as ready to resist, but there 
 was great disaffection among the inhabitants. 
 Two British frigates sailed past the fort M'hile 
 the gunners stood with lighted matches waiting 
 the order to fire. Dominie Johannes JNIegapo- 
 lensis and his son Samuel, a clergyman also, 
 approached Stuyvesant and the former said to 
 him: 
 
 "Of what avail are our poor guns against 
 that broadside of more than sixty? It is wrong 
 to shed blood to no purpose." 
 
 Overwhelmed with protests against resistance 
 Stuyvesant surrendered September 3rd. The 
 British flag was raised over the fort which be- 
 
62 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 came Fort James and New Amsterdam became 
 New York. 
 
 In 1665 Father Peter Smith was in the city, 
 but there is no record of the length of his stay 
 or his mission. 
 
 When the news of the capitulation of New 
 Amsterdam reached the Netherlands there was 
 an outburst of indignation both in State and 
 Church, and for a long time Stuyvesant and 
 Megapolensis were in deep disgrace.. The 
 Directors of the West India Company in 1666 
 censured Stuyvesant severely for his conduct: 
 
 "It is an act that can never be justified, that 
 a Director-General shall stand looking between 
 the gabions whilst two hostile frigates pass the 
 fort and the mouths of twenty pieces of cannon, 
 among which were several demi-cartoons, and 
 give no order to prevent it ; but, on the contrary, 
 lending an ear to preachers and other chicken- 
 hearted persons, demeaning himself as if he 
 were willing to fire, yet notwithstanding allow 
 himself to be led in from the bulwark between 
 the preachers. ..." 
 
 Dominie JNIegapolensis, in August, 1666, 
 WTote a defense of his action, at the time of the 
 surrender, to the Classis of Amsterdam and 
 requested " certain back payments due to his 
 Rev. but which still remain unpaid by the Hon. 
 West India Company." In the following 
 December the Dominie's request was rejected 
 " until his Rev. shall give further satisfaction 
 concerning the events at the surrender of New 
 Netherland to the English." 
 
 In April, 1669, the Dominie wrote to the 
 Classis of Amsterdam: 
 
7.Y OLD NETV YORK 63 
 
 " The West India Company unjustly with- 
 hold two thousand florins, justly owing me for 
 salary and due to me before the change of gov- 
 ernment by the surrender of the place to the 
 English. ... I trust that God, who has hith- 
 erto taken care of me from my youth, when I 
 relinquished Popery, and was thrust out at 
 once from my inherited estate, will also hence- 
 forth take care of me during the short remainder 
 of my life. I am now sixty-five years old and 
 have been a preacher about forty years. Of this 
 time I have been twenty-seven years here and the 
 remainder in North Holland." 
 
 Notwithstanding a certificate as to the Dutch 
 loyalty of Dominie Johannes JNIegapolensis, 
 given him by the former Dutch officials, it is evi- 
 dent his Classis still regarded him with disfavor. 
 " They falsely accuse me," he wrote, " of treach- 
 ery, of which they say I was guilty at the sur- 
 render of the English. But how wrongly I was 
 accused of this, your Reverences have been able 
 to understand, by the defense which I sent you 
 in my reply. ..." 
 
 " On Sundays we have many hearers. People 
 crowd into the church, and apparently like the 
 sermon ; but most of the listeners are not inclined 
 to contribute to the support and salary of the 
 preacher. They seem to desire, that we should 
 live upon air and not upon produce." Poor 
 Dominie Megapolensis, shorn of influence, old 
 friends and salary, died in New York, January 
 14th, 1670. 
 
 The English held New York for nine years. 
 In 1672 England declared war against Holland, 
 and in the following year a squadron of five 
 
64 
 
 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Dutch warships sailed up the bay and opened a 
 heav}^ cannonade against the fort. As a result 
 the Dutch tricolor floated again over the fort and 
 city. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 65 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 NEW York's first catholic ruler finds him- 
 self ENMESHED IN DIFFICULTIES 
 
 The Dutch warship " Muyall Tromp " sailed 
 up the bay October 15th, 1674, and dropped 
 anchor off Staten Island. A boat was lowered, 
 an officer took his place in the stern and was 
 rowed up to the city. He entered the fort and 
 was closeted for a long time with Governor 
 Anthony Colve. At the conclusion of the con- 
 ference messengers were hurried through the 
 city to summon the burgomasters and schepens 
 to a special council. 
 
 At the meeting the Governor confirmed news 
 that had reached the city in June. By a treaty, 
 signed at Westminster, in February, the Dutch 
 had ceded New Netherland to the English. 
 One week after the meeting the British frigates 
 " Diamond " and " Castle " entered the bay and 
 anchored near the shore. The bulwarks of the 
 ships were lined with English soldiers who 
 gazed with interest at the wooded shores of Staten 
 and Long Islands, brilliant in autumn foliage, 
 and at the sparkling waters of the great bay. 
 Quite as much interest in the scene was mani- 
 fested by the brilliantly attired group of men and 
 women on the after deck of the " Diamond." 
 
 The foremost personage of the gay company 
 
66 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 was the new Governor of New York, Sir Ed- 
 mund Andros, a handsome man of thirty-seven 
 years, brought up in the King's household, a 
 brave soldier and an able statesman. Beside him 
 stood his young wife. Lady Mary. When King 
 Charles had signed a new patent, reaffirming the 
 title of his brother James, Duke of York, in his 
 American possessions he had authorized him to 
 raise a company of infantry of one hundred men 
 to serve in his province. Sir Edmund, their 
 captain, was surrounded by his officers. First 
 Lieutenant Anthony Brockholls, Second Lieu- 
 tenant Christopher Billop, and Ensign Caesar 
 Knapton. In the group were Captain Philip 
 Carteret, Captain John Manning, who had sur- 
 rendered New York to Colve the previous year, 
 the Reverend Nicholas Van Rensselaer and a 
 number of colonial officials and gentlemen ad- 
 venturers. The Governor dispatched Captain 
 Carteret and Ensign Knapton to the fort in the 
 city bearing the orders of the States-General of 
 the United Netherlands for the surrender. 
 
 In due time a boat came down the bay and 
 Captain Carl Epstein and Lieutenant Carl 
 Quirrynse boarded the " Diamond " and ex- 
 pressed Governor Colve's regret at his inability 
 to formally hand over the government for eight 
 days. Andros fumed over the delaj% but the 
 English remained cooped up in their ships in the 
 bay. When the eight days had lengthened to 
 twelve a delegation of eminent merchants, Colon- 
 ial Councilor Cornelis Steenwyck, Burgomasters 
 Johannes Van Brug and Willem Beekman, 
 visited the " Diamond " and welcomed Governor 
 Andros. A week later there was an affecting 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 67 
 
 scene enacted in the Stadt Huys. Governor 
 Colve solemnly absolved the Dutch inhabitants 
 of the province from their allegiance to their 
 High Mightynesses, the States-General, and His 
 Serene Highness, the Prince of Orange. 
 
 On October 31st, 1674, a long line of barges 
 moved up the bay from the English vessels to 
 the water gate of the fort, and to the thunder of 
 cannon the Dutch flag was lowered and the 
 English flag hoisted in its place. 
 
 The province was formally handed over to 
 Governor Andros, and Governor Colve, after 
 graciously presenting his coach and horses to his 
 successor, embarked on a Dutch warship and 
 sailed away. So ended Dutch sovereignty over 
 the western metropolis. Unto this day, despite 
 years of English rule and the fact that the teem- 
 ing population of the city is made up of men 
 from every clime under the sun, there is much 
 about New York that evidences its Dutch origin 
 and rule, and although we may be alien to the 
 Hollander in blood and creed, we have in our 
 hearts an afl'ection for him and for his record 
 in the city he founded and fostered. He left us 
 a goodly inheritance. 
 
 At the time Andros landed in New York, as 
 he renamed the city. Catholics were not popular 
 in old England. In 1673 a measure known as the 
 Test Act had been passed requiring all persons 
 holding civil or military office in England, Wales 
 and the Channel Islands to take the oath of alle- 
 giance and supremacy of the King in all matters ; 
 publicly to receive the sacrament, as they called 
 it, of the Lord's Supper, according to the usage 
 of the Protestant Church of England and to 
 
68 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 sign a declaration against that doctrine most 
 dear to the CathoHc heart — Transubstantiation. 
 James, Duke of York, the proprietor of the 
 province of New York, a gallant sailor and able 
 statesman, was Charles' successor to the English 
 throne. He was a convert to the Faith, but for 
 reasons of state had not publicly announced his 
 conversion. The English Protestants did not 
 want a Catholic King, and suspecting that 
 James had embraced the Faith directed the Test 
 Act against him. Then with manly candor 
 James openly professed his faith and resigned 
 all his offices under the Crown, including that of 
 Lord High Admiral of England. With a true 
 Christian spirit he gave, in his instructions to 
 Governor Andros, the following order concern- 
 ing religion in his possessions: 
 
 " You shall permit all persons of what religion 
 soever, quietly to inhabit within the precincts of 
 your jurisdiction, without giving them any dis- 
 turbance or disquiet whatsoever, for or by reason 
 of their differing opinions in the matter of re- 
 ligion; Provided they give no disturbance to the 
 public peace nor do molest or disquiet others in 
 the free exercise of their religion." 
 
 The second in command under Andros was 
 First Lieutenant Anthony Brockholls. Lieu- 
 tenant Brockholls was a native of Claughton in 
 Lancashire, England. He was of a Catholic 
 family that had its seat in the place for centuries. 
 The Test Act, which would have excluded him 
 from public employment in England, was not 
 operative in the colonies. The Governor and his 
 household made the old residence in the fort their 
 home, and the soldiers were quartered in the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 69 
 
 barracks vacated by the Dutch. Owing to lack 
 of room in the fort the officers found accommo- 
 dation in the ancient stone warehouse erected by 
 the Dutch West India Company, which had been 
 renovated for their occupancy. With but Httle 
 disturbance the city accepted the change of 
 masters, although Andros was compelled to 
 arrest eight of the prominent citizens on a charge 
 of treason for quibbling over the oath of 
 allegiance. On November 10th a Mayor, Alder- 
 men and Sheriff were sworn in. In May of the 
 following year Andros left New York to visit 
 the Duke's possessions on the Delaware River, 
 and BrockhoUs administered the government as 
 Commander-in-Chief, and filled the same office 
 in August during the absence of Andros in 
 Albany. In July both, with a retinue of 
 officers and soldiers, made a tour of Long Island 
 on horseback for the purpose of disarming the 
 Indians, who threatened trouble; of reviewing 
 the militia; restoring quiet, and reasserting the 
 Duke's authority in the eighteen settlements 
 on the island. Companies of individuals had 
 crossed the Sound from New England and 
 had settled wherever a suitable place was decided 
 on. They were not under the control of any 
 colonial government nor had they any political 
 relationship with one another. On one question 
 they agreed — that no one should be considered a 
 free man or allowed to vote unless he was one of 
 " God's Elect," in other words, a member of one 
 of the New England Puritan Churches. The 
 only code they recognized was the Mosaic law, 
 and they held that all civil as well as religious 
 authority resided, of right, in the Church. 
 
70 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Every settlement had its infallible and sov- 
 ereign pontiff in its minister, and of one of them 
 — the Rev. Thomas James, pastor of East- 
 hampton from 1650 to 1696 — it is written: 
 
 " He was not to be stayed by any man so but 
 that his grain should be first ground at the mill 
 on the second day of every week." Woe betide 
 the man who crossed the Reverend Mr. James 
 in things temporal or spiritual. 
 
 During the Dutch ascendency Southold, 
 Southampton, Easthampton and other towns 
 had placed themselves under the protection of 
 Connecticut, and when New York was restored 
 to the English they petitioned for continued pro- 
 tection, and the General Court at New Haven 
 granted the petition; but Governor Andros was 
 not willing to be legislated out of such a slice of 
 his master's possessions and promptly ordered 
 the towns to restore the Duke's overseers and 
 constables " under the penalty of being declared 
 rebels." They failed to obey, the court was not 
 allowed to hold sessions on the island, and Andros 
 the following spring, crossed the East River to 
 bring the discontented Long Islanders into sub- 
 jection to the law. Discontent had been rife 
 there during the administrations of his pre- 
 decessors and continued during and after his 
 term of office. 
 
 The Jesuit Father Pierson, or Pierron, vis- 
 ited the English colonies along the Atlantic sea- 
 board in 1674, and, no, doubt, passed through 
 New York. 
 
 In October Brockholls was sent up the Hud- 
 son River to take command in Albany. The 
 Canadians and eastern Indians had been murder- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 71 
 
 ing settlers and burning settlements, and Hadley, 
 Deerfield, Northfield, and Springfield had been 
 destroyed. Brockholls' mission was to negotiate 
 with the Iroquois to attack the eastern Indians. 
 A large band of JNIohawks took the warpath, and 
 fifty miles east of Albany attacked and drove 
 back Philip, Sachem of the Wampanoags, a son 
 of the great Chief Massasoit. Poor Philip! 
 He was killed the following year. His mangled 
 right hand was exhibited for money to " New 
 England curiosity," and his braves, who were 
 not hanged, were sold into slavery in the 
 West Indies. Even the grandson of the 
 Chief, who was an early friend of the New 
 Englanders, " was made a victim of Puritan 
 avarice." 
 
 The Indian troubles settled, Brockholls re- 
 turned to New York and, a year later, with 
 Ensign Knapton and Colonial Secretary Nicolls 
 sailed for Pemaquid in command of a little 
 squadron of four sloops, carrying one hundred 
 soldiers and a framed blockhouse or redoubt. 
 Pemaquid, which was a part of the Duke of 
 York's possessions, was under the New York 
 government and formed that part of the present 
 State of Maine lying along the coast between 
 the Kennebec and St. Croix Rivers. It had suf- 
 fered severely during the Indian troubles, and 
 the expedition had been sent to reassert 
 the Duke's authority and to reestablish trade. 
 A suitable place was found, the redoubt brought 
 from New York was set up, surrounded by a 
 high stockade, and seven great and small guns 
 were mounted. With the firing of cannon the 
 English flag was raised, and the work was 
 
72 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 named Fort Charles in honor of the King. This 
 was the principal trading post, and Ensign 
 Knapton was left in command with a garrison of 
 fifty soldiers. 
 
 In 1674 the authorities of the city were called 
 upon to sit in judgment on the first case in- 
 volving crimes against alien freemen that are a 
 foul blot upon the pages of the city's history. 
 William Corvan, a mulatto freeman of the 
 island of Martinique, was kidnapped and carried 
 to Boston. Friendless and penniless, he was com- 
 pelled to bind himself as a servant to one 
 Thomas Thatcher for a term of seven years. 
 During the term of his indenture Thatcher 
 claimed him as a slave and carried him to New 
 York city. Corvan appealed to the New York 
 authorities and an order issued that Thatcher 
 must prove Corvan a slave within eight days, or 
 enter security in <£lOO to prove him so within 
 twelve months, otherwise, — " said mulatto shall 
 be declared free." 
 
 In the autumn of 1677 Andros sailed for Eng- 
 land, leaving Brockholls in command. During 
 that fall and winter he was a busy man. The 
 fort in New York was strengthened and the 
 worn-out gun platforms renewed. There were 
 weekly meetings of the colonial council, visiting 
 delegations of settlers with complaints and peti- 
 tions, and long drawn out pow-wows with visit- 
 ing bands of Indian chiefs. In addition there 
 was correspondence with Governor Frontenac at 
 Quebec, Governor Leverett of JNIassachusetts, 
 Commander Knapton at Pemaquid, Commander 
 Salisbury at Albany, and the Jesuit Father 
 Bruyas in the Mohawks' country. One day a 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 73 
 
 messenger came up from Sandy Hook with a re- 
 quest from Captain Bernard Le INIoine of the 
 French warship " Golden Fleece " that he be per- 
 mitted to take his ship up the bay for wood and 
 other supplies. The council graciously accorded 
 permission, and the coming of the French 
 officers created a stir in the social circles of the 
 fort and town. 
 
 As a result of the warfare along the borders, 
 there were French prisoners in New York and 
 New England, and English prisoners in New 
 France. Exchanges were occasionally arranged 
 and in May, 1678, Messieurs Lusignan and De 
 la Chambre, the latter of Governor Frontenac's 
 guards, arrived in Albany escorting a company 
 of exchanged New England prisoners, taken in 
 an attack by French and Indians on Hatfield and 
 Hadley. The French officers, bearing a letter 
 from Governor Frontenac to Commander Brock- 
 holls, thanking him for past civilities, voyaged 
 down the Hudson to New York city. They re- 
 mained as Brockholls' guests until June and 
 returned to Albany in a birch-bark canoe bearing 
 Brockholls' answer to the Governor of New 
 France. The enslaving of Indians had become 
 a crying outrage, and in 1679 the colonial 
 council adopted the following resolution : " That 
 all Indians are free and not slaves, and cannot 
 be forced to be servants, unless those formerly 
 brought from the Baj^ of Campeches or other 
 foreign parts; any of those brought within six 
 months to be disposed out of the government, all 
 brought from foreign parts after that time to be 
 free." The following year an order was issued 
 declaring all Indians free. 
 
74 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 In May, Andros returned. With him came 
 WilHam Pinhorne, James Graham and John 
 West, who became prominent men in the colony, 
 and the Reverend James Wooley as chaplain of 
 the forces in the fort. Commander Salisbury had 
 died in Albany during the winter, and Brockholls 
 was ordered uj) the river to succeed him. With 
 John Pynchon, the representative of Massachu- 
 setts, and the Albany officials, he took part in a 
 conference with the Mohawk Indian Sachems, 
 at which, with much peace-pipe smoking, burying 
 of tomahawks, and presenting of wampum belts, 
 a treaty of friendship was entered into between 
 the JNIohawks and New Englanders. 
 
 Public affairs, however, did not occupy all the 
 commandant's time. 
 
 An Albany maiden, Susanna Schrick, had 
 attracted his attention, and admiration had 
 deepened into love. Susanna Schrick was the 
 daughter of Paulus Schrick, a native of Nurem- 
 berg. He was one of the little colony from New 
 Netherland that had settled Hartford, Conn., 
 before the coming of the English. He was a 
 property owner in Pearl Street, New Amsterdam, 
 and a free trader between New Amsterdam, 
 Albany and Holland. The course of true love 
 was interrupted by a summons to Brockholls to 
 hasten to New York to relieve Governor Andros 
 who had been ordered to England to answer 
 charges. 
 
 Complaints of ill-treatment and oppression by 
 the proprietors of East and West Jersey were 
 followed by insinuations that the Dutch were 
 favored in trade, laws hurtful to the English 
 were enacted, vessels were unduly detained for 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 75 
 
 private reasons, and that the Governor himself 
 traded in the names of others. John Lewin was 
 sent out by the Duke as his agent to investigate 
 the affairs of the colony. Andros sailed from 
 Sandy Hook in January, 1681, and before his 
 ship sighted the shores of England Brockholls 
 was enmeshed in a tangle of troubles. 
 
 In 1677 the Duke of York settled for the three 
 coming years the same rates of custom duties as 
 prevailed during the three preceding years. The 
 three years expired just as Governor Andros was 
 preparing to leave for England, and in the hurry 
 of dej)arture he forgot to provide for an exten- 
 sion. Brockholls and the council decided that 
 they had no authority to further extend the oper- 
 ation of the law and the greatest confusion re- 
 sulted. Suit was instituted by the merchants 
 against Collector Dyer, who was also mayor of 
 the city, for detaining goods for custom duties, 
 and he was compelled to deliver them free. In 
 addition to this he was indicted for high treason 
 for levying duties and thereby " traitorously 
 exercising regal power and authority over the 
 king's subjects." He pleaded not guilty, and 
 refused to surrender the seal of the city and his 
 commission as mayor. He was finally sent to 
 England to be dealt with by the king. From all 
 parts of the Duke's province arose a clamor 
 for a provincial assembly. In August a com- 
 mission arrived from London, appointing Brock- 
 holls Receiver-General in place of Dyer. The 
 merchants still refused to pay the duties, and 
 Brockholls took no measures to coerce them. He 
 wrote to Andros: 
 
 " Here it was never worse. A government 
 
76 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 wholly overthrown and in the greatest Con- 
 fusion and Disorder Possible." 
 
 Discontent became something akin to anarchy 
 on Long Island. Disorderly meetings were 
 held. Two prominent justices of the peace were 
 arrested for disaffection to the government, and 
 troubles between ministers and their congre- 
 gations on Long Island, Staten Island and in 
 Albany were carried to the distracted Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, who, nevertheless, found time 
 amidst all his perplexities to marry Susanna 
 Schrick, May 2nd, 1681. The five children re- 
 sulting from this union were all baptized in 
 the Dutch Reformed Church, of which Mrs. 
 BrockhoUs was a member. 
 
 There is an interesting incident chronicled in 
 the old Albany records, which, while it did 
 not occur in New York, is significant of the 
 time: 
 
 " December, 1681. The sheriff, ex-officio, 
 claims of Jan Van Loon fSOO Seawan for a fine 
 having greatly upbraided and injured Marten 
 Cornells, who had changed the Roman Catholic 
 religion for the Protestant, and calumniated the 
 Protestant church itself by saying among other 
 things to Marten that he had turned from God 
 to the devil." Poor Marten Cornelis! He was 
 one of the vanguard of the mightj^ and, at that 
 time, ever increasing army of apostasy. The 
 lack of priests, the allurements of the world, and 
 many other causes had combined to win tens 
 of thousands from the Faith. God rest good, 
 sturdy, brave, old Catholic Jan Van Loon! In 
 that stronghold of Calvinism he kept the Faith 
 and fought the good fight and, almost alone as 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 77 
 
 he was, did not hesitate to express his opinion of 
 Marten the apostate. 
 
 During the year 1681 troubles arose in every 
 quarter. Lady Carteret claimed Staten Island 
 as part of the Jersey grant, and Brockholls 
 sternly resisted her claim. Dissensions and dis- 
 turbances were rife in Esopus and Albany and 
 on Long Island. Connecticut claimed New 
 York territory to within ten miles of the Hudson 
 River. Even the sea contributed its share of 
 trouble in the shape of pirates. One John 
 Williams captured a ketch, a vessel resembling 
 a schooner, from the Spaniards in Cuba. He 
 renamed her " Ruth," and, turning pirate, 
 sailed for the English colonies. He committed 
 depredations in the vicinity of Accomac, Vir- 
 ginia, and made a bold attempt to kidnap no less 
 a personage than Lord Baltimore, to hold him 
 for a big ransom. Joined by another piratical 
 sloop, the " William," he sailed for the east end 
 of Long Island and captured several vessels. 
 Tidings of his lawless acts reached the fort in New 
 York and Brockholls directed that efforts be 
 made to capture all pirates on the coast, and that 
 they be sent to New York. The sloop " Planter's 
 Adventure " was hastily armed and sent on a 
 cruise against them. The authorities of Rhode 
 Island and Connecticut were aroused and captur- 
 ing two of the pirates sent them to Sir Henry 
 Chicheley, Deputy Governor of Virginia, to be 
 punished for their crimes. For a time piracy 
 became unpopular as a means of livelihood. 
 Two years prior to this time King Charles II 
 had granted to William Penn, a Quaker, son of 
 Admiral Sir William Penn, an immense region 
 
78 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 north of INIaryland, which was named Penn- 
 sylvania. Penn was always scheming to add to 
 his possessions and he induced the Duke of York, 
 in 1682, to convey to him his interest in Delaware. 
 He sailed at once for New York, and was 
 received in the fort by Commander Brockholls, 
 who inspected his deeds from the Duke, and, find- 
 ing them correct, instructed the Duke's officers 
 in the Delaware to recognize and obey the new 
 proprietor. 
 
 From New France came Sieur Peter de 
 Salvaye, an envoy from Governor Lefebvre de 
 la Barre, with a complaint. In spite of the 
 efforts of the Canadian government the fur 
 trade was attracted from Montreal to Albany, 
 because the traders could obtain better prices for 
 the peltries in the latter place. Sixty Canadians 
 had moved over the border. Sieur de Salvaye 
 had come to ask Brockholls to prevent such 
 desertions. He was assured that Governor An- 
 dros had made every effort to prevent runaways 
 from entering New York without a proper 
 passport. 
 
 In a letter to the Classis of Amsterdam, in 
 October, 1682, Dominie Henry Selyns wrote 
 concerning the Catholics: " As to papists, there 
 are none; or if there are any they attend 
 our services or that of the Lutherans," which 
 would indicate that Commander Brockholls' 
 Catholicity at that time was not aggressively 
 evident. 
 
 Many improvements were made under Andros 
 and Brockliolls in New York. The Heere- 
 Graf t, was no more. Its waterway had been filled 
 in, and the tan pits on its banks, between what 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 79 
 
 are now Beaver Street and Exchange Place, had 
 shared the same fate. The old Dutch church- 
 yard on the west side of Broadway had been sold 
 off in building lots. The ordinance providing 
 for the digging of the first public wells in the 
 center of certain streets is quaint : " Ordered that 
 wells be made by the inhabitants of the streets, 
 where they are severally made: One in Broad- 
 way, opposite Van Dyck's; one in the street 
 opposite Derick Smith's; one in the street oppo- 
 site John Cavalier's ; one in the yard of the City 
 Hall; one in the street opposite Cornells Van 
 Borsum's." 
 
 The little dock at the foot of Moore Street 
 had been extended, and formed the southern 
 side of a basin that extended to the City Hall. 
 This great dock was finished in 1683. It was 
 during the Andros administration that the " Bolt- 
 ing Act " was passed that did so much to bring 
 prosperity to New York. This bolting act 
 secured to New York citizens the exclusive 
 right to bolt or sift flour and to export sea biscuit 
 and flour. All places in the interior of the prov- 
 ince were forbidden to pursue these branches of 
 trade under penalty of forfeiture of the contra- 
 band articles. During the sixteen years that 
 this act was in force the wealth of the city was 
 trebled. Six hundred houses were erected, lots 
 increased to ten times their former value, and 
 sixty large vessels were added to the fleet hailing 
 from the port. But precisely as they are to-day, 
 after the passage of two centuries, the up-coun- 
 try New Yorkers were jealous of their city 
 brethren, and in 1694 effected the repeal of the 
 Bolting Act. 
 
80 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 The Heere Straat, that had been renamed 
 Broadway within a year after the first capture 
 of the city by the British, had been improved by 
 new buildings, and more than seventy Hned the 
 street between BowHng Green and the present 
 Wall Street. Down on the river side, between 
 what are now Wall Street and Franklin Square, 
 was known as Smit's V'ly or Smith's Valley, and 
 here twenty-four houses had sprung up outside 
 the wall along the road to the Brooklyn ferry. 
 The Water side, as the present north side of 
 Pearl Street between Wall Street and Han- 
 over Square was called, boasted forty-two build- 
 ings, and was the commercial heart of the city. 
 High Street, or Hoogh Straat, now narrow 
 Stone Street, between Hanover Square and 
 Broad Street, was a very fashionable residential 
 street in those days, and contained twenty-eight 
 dwellings, which were among the best in town, 
 and its continuation to Whitehall Street, which 
 was known as Brouwer's Straat, contained the 
 house in which Major Anthony Brockholls dwelt 
 after vacating his quarters in the fort. 
 
 It must have been with a great sigh of relief 
 that Brockholls read, early in 1682, a letter from 
 England announcing the appointment of a 
 successor to Andros, and good reason he had to 
 feel relieved. The province, from the east end 
 of Long Island to Schenectady, seethed with dis- 
 content, and from every settlement arose a cry 
 for a popular assembly. On the northern bor- 
 ders the French claimed the entire region nearly 
 as far south as Albany, and French agents and 
 soldiers were alternately negotiating with and 
 threatening the Five Nations to bring them under 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 81 
 
 French domination. On the east, Connecticut 
 was agitating- tlie boundary question, on the 
 south. New Jersey was cutting into New York's 
 trade and revenues, while WilHam Penn coveted 
 the rich and beautiful upper valley of the Sus- 
 quehanna. 
 
82 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN WHICH A CATHOLIC GOVERNOR PROCLAIMS 
 CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 
 
 A GREAT top-heavy old frigate, said to be the 
 first of its class in the British Navy, His 
 Majesty's ship " Constant Warwick," trans- 
 formed " from twenty-six gunns and an incom- 
 parable sayler to forty-six gunns and a slug," 
 dropped anchor off Nantasket, INIassachusetts, 
 after a long and tiresome voyage, August 10th, 
 1683. The most important personage among 
 the passengers was Colonel, the Honorable 
 Thomas Dongan, who bore the Duke of York's 
 commission as his Lieutenant and Governor of 
 the Province of New York, including the district 
 of Pemaquid, Maine, and the islands of Nan- 
 tucket and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. 
 
 The Governor and his staff were received at 
 Nantasket by a troop of Boston militia and a 
 number of notables of that town, and were es- 
 corted as far as Dedham, Massachusetts. He 
 crossed the sound to Long Island, and had not 
 progressed far towards New York city before 
 learning, from delegations of Long Islanders, 
 headed by their ministers, the deep-rooted dis- 
 content of the people against " taxation without 
 representation." On this journey he met for the 
 first time the red men, remnants of the Manhas- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 83 
 
 set, Montauk, Shinnecock, Patchogue, Secatague, 
 Mericoke, Marsapeague, Corchaug, Setauket, 
 Nissequag, JNIatinecock, Rockaway and Canarsie 
 tribes. The Rev. Thomas James and a dele- 
 gation of Easthampton Puritans received the 
 new Governor and protested loudly against the 
 general order of things. They knew, of course, 
 because rumor had been busy, that the big 
 pleasant- faced affable Governor was one of the 
 hated " Papists," but did any of them suspect 
 that the figure clad in sober raiment in the gay- 
 colored and gold-laced retinue was one of the 
 "abhorred brood" of Jesuits? Father Thomas 
 Harvey, S.J., who was born in London in 1635, 
 and entered the Society of Jesus in 1665, had 
 come out with the Governor as his chaplain. 
 
 The settlements on and adjacent to Long 
 Island at that day were Southold, Southampton, 
 Hempstead, Gravesend, Flushing, Brooklyn, 
 Easthampton, Gardiner's Island, Flatbush, Shel- 
 ter Island, Huntington, Oyster Bay, Flatlands, 
 Brookhaven, Newtown, Jamaica, New Utrecht, 
 Bushwick, Smithtown, and Islip, and the larger 
 of these were visited by the Governor and his 
 suite. They journeyed westward through the 
 sandy level country of the south side or crossed 
 the island to some village in the beautiful up- 
 lands of the north shore. 
 
 Dongan was the youngest son of Sir John 
 Dongan, a member of the Irish parliament, a cap- 
 tain of horse and large landed proprietor. He 
 was born in 1634, in the manor house of Castle- 
 town, Kildrought, now known as Celbridge, in 
 County Kildare, Ireland. Authorities differ as 
 to the family origin. Some assert that the Don- 
 
84 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 gans are descended from the ancient Irish 
 O'Dunnagans, but O'Hart names them among 
 the famihes of Enghsh or Anglo-Norman de- 
 scent. Certain it is that the Dongans held places 
 of prominence in Irish history since the four- 
 teenth century. Thomas Dongan's mother was a 
 Talbot, and his maternal uncles were Archbishop 
 Talbot of Dublin and Richard Talbot, Earl of 
 Tyrconnell, Lord Deputy of Ireland under 
 James II. The Talbots and the Calverts (Lords 
 Baltimore) were distantly related, and to Don- 
 gan and Calvert belong the distinction of pro- 
 claiming religious liberty in two English- Amer- 
 ican colonies. Sir Walter Dongan, Thomas' 
 eldest brother, was deep in Irish patriotic plots 
 and was one of the Confederated Catholics 
 in the assembly in Kilkenny in 1646. He died 
 childless, and was succeeded by William, the 
 second eldest, whose patriotic adherence to Ire- 
 land and the house of Stuart compelled him 
 to abandon his estates and fly to France in 
 Cromwell's time. 
 
 This was in 1649, and Thomas, a youth of 
 fifteen, accompanied his brother across the water. 
 A commission in the French army was obtained 
 for Thomas, and he participated in every cam- 
 paign under the great Marshal Turenne until 
 the latter's death in 1675. James, Duke of York, 
 also served under Turenne until 1656, and it 
 is probable that the Duke met Dongan in 
 France, and the acquaintance afforded him op- 
 portunities of forming an estimate of Dongan's 
 character and abilities. In 1678 King Charles 
 II issued peremptory orders that all English 
 subjects must leave France. Dongan, whose 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 85 
 
 name is given as " D 'unguent " in French docu- 
 ments, had been made a colonel in 1674, and 
 the pay and emoluments of his rank were worth 
 to him <£5,000 a year. The most tempting offers 
 of promotion were made him to remain, but true, 
 as were all his house, to the Stuarts he refused 
 and was ordered out of France within forty-eight 
 hours by Louis XIV. Sixty-five thousand livres 
 arrears of pay, due him from France, he never 
 received. On his arrival in England, King 
 Charles appointed him a general officer in the 
 army organized to fight the French in Flanders, 
 and settled on him an annual pension of <£500 
 for life. He did not go to Flanders, but 
 was, the same year, made Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor of Tangiers, Africa, under Lord Inchi- 
 quin. Tangiers and Bombay had been given 
 as a dower by King Alfonso V of Portugal to 
 Princess Catherine of Braganza on her marriage 
 with Charles II in 1662. Strange as it may 
 seem, Bombay, the great East Indian port of to- 
 day, was looked upon at that time as of little 
 importance, and an immense amount of money 
 was expended fortifying and improving Tan- 
 giers, but in 1683 Charles caused the expensive 
 fortifications to be blown up and the place 
 abandoned. It became in after days a piratical 
 port. Dongan served two years in Tangiers and 
 found his expenses greater than his income. He 
 was recalled and, after a visit to Ireland, went 
 to London, and became well known and popular 
 in court and social circles. In 1682 he was 
 appointed " Governor of the Duke of York's 
 Province of New York." He was then in his 
 forty-eighth year. Before he sailed for America 
 
86 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 the Duke of York, who had again been made 
 Lord High Admiral, commissioned Dongan a 
 Vice- Admiral. 
 
 Crossing the East River, Saturday, August 
 25th, Dongan and his retinue entered the city. 
 Crowds of English, Dutch, French, Indians, and 
 negro slaves lined the streets between the walls 
 and the fort, through which the cavalcade passed, 
 and received the new Governor with vociferous 
 expressions of delight, for it had been noised 
 about that he came empowered by the Duke to 
 adjust all the difficulties that racked the province. 
 The little half-moon fort at the water gate, the 
 rough stockade across the island, and the tattered 
 soldiery must have brought an amused smile to 
 the face of the soldier of Turenne, accustomed 
 to the great fortifications and gorgeously clad 
 and disciplined armies of Europe. What a con- 
 trast, the cosmopolitan crowd along the streets 
 and the low toy-like houses, to the inhabitants and 
 huge old buildings of an ancient city of France 
 or Germany! To the boom of cannon and the 
 cheers of the people the Governor and his escort 
 entered the fort. Next day was passed as became 
 the Lord's day, and it is likely that the Holy Sac- 
 rifice of the Mass was offered within the walls of 
 the fort by Father Harvey, assisted by Father 
 Michael Forster (Gulick) , Superior or the Mary- 
 land Jesuit Mission. On Monday morning the 
 great room in the City Hall or Stadt Huys on 
 Pearl Street was crowded by the provincial offi- 
 cials, civil and military, and the ISIayor and Com- 
 mon Council of the city gathered to meet the Gov- 
 ernor, who was escorted from the fort by the 
 soldiery. After the functionaries had been pre- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 87 
 
 sented to their new ruler, he stepped outside the 
 building and his commission was read, also his 
 instructions respecting* special privileges to be 
 accorded the metropolis. There were nearly four 
 thousand inhabitants in New York at that time, 
 and it seemed as if they were all crowded in the 
 yard of the City Hall. When they heard that 
 they were to have a popular assembly, the people 
 were wild with joy, and, to the bass accompani- 
 ment of the roll of drums and the booming 
 guns of the fort, their shouts and acclamations 
 were heard on the Long Island shores. As 
 they looked at the stalwart soldierly figure of 
 the gracious, smiling Governor they felt that 
 here was a man who could and would restore 
 peace and prosperity to the province and subdue 
 both foreign and domestic foes. 
 
 Next day, on the invitation of the magis- 
 trates, the Governor was entertained at a ban- 
 quet by the Corporation in the City Hall, Mayor 
 William Beekman presiding. All the prominent 
 men of the municipality and province, Dutch, 
 English and French, were present. A chronicle 
 of the day says : " His honour received a large 
 and plentiful entertainment, and they had great 
 satisfaction in his honour's company." The 
 Irish gentleman, the soldier of Turenne, the 
 English official, the courtier of Versailles and 
 Whitehall had, by his magnetism, his affability, 
 his wit and common sense, completely captivated 
 the great men of New York. After the fes- 
 tivities the Governor took up the reins of govern- 
 ment without delay and, as instructed by the 
 Duke, selected and swore in his council and 
 appointed his provincial officials. 
 
88 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Major Anthony Brockholls was named a 
 Councilor and a member of a committee to cata- 
 logue the records of the city and province, and 
 Mark Talbot, a Catholic, who had come to New 
 York in the Governor's suite, and who was 
 doubtless related to him, was appointed on a com- 
 mittee to survey Fort James. 
 
 Word came from Albany that William Penn's 
 agents were in that place negotiating with the 
 Iroquois Indians for the upper Susquehanna 
 Valley, and Dongan sailed on the four-days 
 journey to Albany, September 6th, to put a stop 
 to the proceedings. As this chronicle deals with 
 New York city, matters affecting the province 
 at large will not be treated in detail except inas- 
 much as they affect the city. Penn's efforts to 
 secure possession of the upper Susquehanna Val- 
 ley were defeated by Dongan, but gained for the 
 New York Governor the lasting enmity of the 
 Quaker. A week later the Governor and his coun- 
 cil held a session in the fort at New York, and 
 issued a call for the freeholders of New York, 
 Long Island, Esopus, Albany and Martha's 
 Vineyard to choose representatives to appear at 
 a General Assembly to be held in New York 
 city, October 17th, to consult with the Gov- 
 ernor and council, " what laws are fit to be made 
 and established for the good weal and govern- 
 ment of the said colony and its dependencies and 
 all the inhabitants thereof." The call for the 
 assembly caused rejoicing in every part of the 
 Duke's possession, save in the eastern end of 
 Long Island, where it seems to have been re- 
 garded with suspicion as some sort of " popish " 
 plot. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 89 
 
 At a council meeting held in the fort on 
 October 4th and 5th three great Sachems of the 
 Mohawks were present with their squaws, and 
 Governor Dongan inaugurated the great strug- 
 gle with the French for the friendship and fealty 
 of the Five Nations, and for British jurisdiction 
 over them and the country south of the St. 
 Lawrence River and the lakes, that continued in 
 the council and the wilderness until his recall by 
 King James. In the documentary history of 
 New York there are no abler, stronger, wittier 
 papers than the letters that passed between Don- 
 gan and Denonville, the Governor of New 
 France, in the struggle for possession of the 
 regions that form the greater part of the Empire 
 State. Unsupported, and hampered for reasons 
 of State by his home government, Dongan, with 
 the far-seeing vision of the statesman, realized 
 the importance and value of the territory for 
 which he contended, and, in spite of all obstacles, 
 fixed the northern boundary of his province on 
 the southern shores of the great northern water- 
 ways. 
 
 So rapidly grew the new Governor's popu- 
 larity that early in October, at a meeting of the 
 sheriffs of the province, called for the purpose of 
 adopting an address of thanks to the Duke of 
 York for granting a General Assembly, a clause 
 therein read as follows: " We do, therefore, be- 
 seech your royal highness to accept our most 
 humble and most hearty thanks for sending us 
 over the honoin^able colonel Thomas Dongan, to 
 be lieutenant and governor of this province, of 
 whose integrity, justice, equity and prudence we 
 
90 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 have already had a very sufficient experience at 
 our last general court of assizes." 
 
 October 17th was the most momentous day 
 that had dawned on the little city on Manhattan 
 Island and the province of which it was the 
 capital. Seventeen representatives of the people, 
 elected by the people, met in General Assembly in 
 the fort and elected Matthias Nicolls Speaker 
 and John Spragg Clerk. Of this assembly 
 Thompson, in his " History of Long Island," 
 wrote: "And thus by the persuasions of a 
 Quaker (once so odious) did a bigoted Roman 
 Catholic prince give orders to a papistical gov- 
 ernor, to introduce a popular assembly elected 
 by the people themselves, who had before no 
 share in the government. An event similar in 
 principle and of nearly equal importance to that 
 glorious independence which their descendants 
 procured for themselves in less than a century 
 later." Unfortunately the Journal of the As- 
 sembly is not known to exist, but it is known that 
 its session lasted three weeks and that fourteen 
 acts were passed after three readings each, and 
 received the assent of the Governor and council. 
 
 Its most important enactment was: "The 
 Charter of Liberties and Priviledges granted by 
 his Royal Highness to the Inhabitants of New 
 Yorke and its dependencies," which provided 
 that the supreme authority under the King and 
 Duke " shall forever reside in a governour, 
 council and the people met in general assembly." 
 The phrase, " the people met in general assem- 
 bly," proves that to New York belongs the lead- 
 ership " in the struggle for equal rights and 
 ancient liberties." The assembly took up at 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 91 
 
 once the work of restoring order out of the 
 provincial chaos. The province and dependencies 
 were divided into the following shires or coun- 
 ties: New York, Westchester, Ulster, Albany, 
 Dutchess, Orange, Richmond, Kings, Queens, 
 Suffolk, Duke's and Cornwall. The following 
 tribunals were provided: Town courts for trial 
 of small causes, to be held on the first Wednesday 
 of each month; County courts or Courts of 
 Sessions, quarterly or semi-annually; General 
 court of Oyer and Terminer, to sit twice every 
 year in each county; and a Court of Chancery, 
 the Supreme Court of the province, to be com- 
 posed of the Governor and council, with power 
 in the Governor to appoint a Chancellor in his 
 stead. Another important act provided for the 
 naturalization of all persons residing in the prov- 
 ince professing Christianity and taking the 
 oaths of allegiance. The Governor signed the 
 Charter of Liberties, and on October 31st it was 
 solemnly proclaimed at the City Hall, to the blare 
 of trumpets and amidst the acclamations of the 
 multitude, " in the presence of his Honor the 
 Governor, the Council and Representatives and 
 Deputy Mayor and Alderman of this City." . . . 
 " Thus the principle of taxation only by consent 
 was initiated as a law of the land." 
 
 Even in those early days the " liquor question " 
 was a burning issue, because, on November 2nd, 
 the Governor was compelled to issue a procla- 
 mation that read in part that, as " greate hurt, 
 trouble and inconveniences have and do grow 
 and increase every day, from the disorders com- 
 mitted in publick drinking-houses, tap houses and 
 ordinarys, and by persons presuming to sell 
 
92 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 liquors without license, Ordered that no person 
 presume to sell under five gallons without ob- 
 taining license." 
 
 The city corporation petitioned the Governor, 
 early in November, for a charter which would 
 confirm certain " ancient customs, privileges and 
 immunities," granted in 1665, and, in addition 
 thereto, the division of the city into six wards 
 and the annual election or appointment of cor- 
 poration officers. After some hesitation the 
 Governor, in December, granted the petition, 
 and the city was divided into the South, Dock, 
 East, North, West, and Out wards. 
 
 During November a commission from Con- 
 necticut, headed by Governor Robert Treat, 
 came to New York in response to a letter from 
 Dongan demanding a settlement of the disputed 
 eastern boundary line. It was a characteristic 
 effusion: " If you do not submit," he wrote, " to 
 let us have all the land within twenty miles of 
 Hudson's River, I must claim as far as the 
 Duke's Patent goes, which is to the River Con- 
 necticut." The negotiations between the Com- 
 missioners extended over several years, and the 
 final result fixed the boundaries as they exist to- 
 day. 
 
 Early in December the Corporation sent 
 another committee to the Governor to ask ad- 
 ditional privileges for the cit}^ Upon hearing 
 their request he exclaimed: 
 
 " I wonder that having lately granted almost 
 every particular of a large and considerable 
 petition that I should so suddenly receive 
 another." 
 
 He admired their progressive spirit, however, 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 93 
 
 and before the close of 1683 had added many 
 new ordinances and conferred additional priv- 
 ileges on the city. Among the most important 
 were provisions that markets be held on Wednes- 
 days and Saturdays and be opened and closed 
 with the ringing of bells. The Brooklyn ferry 
 was granted to the city with the proviso that two 
 passenger and one cattle boat be kept on each 
 side of the river. Docks and wharves were 
 allowed the city, " provided they be kept cleared," 
 otherwise the privilege would be forfeited. It 
 was provided that the bakers of the city should 
 be under the supervision of the Mayor as to the 
 weight and price of bread. Twenty licensed 
 carmen were appointed, also chimney sweeps and 
 an " inviter to funerals." 
 
 About this time the town of Hempstead, 
 Long Island, presented the Governor with two 
 hundred acres of land, and during the following 
 year added two hundred more, making a fine 
 domain that extended from the north side of 
 Hempstead plains to Lake Success. The Gov- 
 ernor, on December 14th, dispatched Mark Tal- 
 bot to London as bearer to the Duke of York 
 of the charter and laws adopted by the assembly 
 for his confirmation. 
 
 The proprietors of East Jersey revived their 
 claim to Staten Island early in 1684, and Don- 
 gan met their pretensions with characteristic 
 vigor. A petition was sent to the Duke of York 
 urging him to annex East Jersey to his province 
 " by purchase or otherwise," on the ground that 
 the ad j acent colony was flourishing at the expense 
 of New York. The Duke deferred action on 
 this petition until he, as King, in 1688 consoli- 
 
94 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 dated all the northern an^ eastern colonies 
 except Pennsylvania. 
 
 In March the Governor issued a proclamation 
 confirming the bolting privilege granted the city 
 during the administration of Andros. At that 
 time there were twenty- four bakers in the city, 
 compelled by law to furnish a white loaf of 
 bread weighing at least twelve ounces and sold 
 at six stivers of wampum. 
 
 The authorities were called upon to deal with 
 what was probably the first labor strike during 
 this month. Twenty licensed carmen had a 
 monopoly of the cartage of the city. They re- 
 ceived threepence for cartage to any part of the 
 city and double rates outside the walls. In 
 return for the concession they formed a high- 
 way and street-cleaning force, and were obliged 
 to fill in and repair breaches in the streets and to 
 remove from tlie streets, every Saturday after- 
 noon, the refuse that had been swept together 
 by the inhabitants. Dissatisfied with this ar- 
 rangement, fifteen carmen " went on strike," 
 were promptly dismissed, and all persons, except 
 slaves, were allowed to act as carmen. A week 
 later three of the strikers submitted, were 
 pardoned and restored on acknowledging their 
 fault and paying a fine of five shillings. 
 
 One day in June of that year the guns of Fort 
 James thundered a salute and the city troops 
 turned out in honor of Lord Howard of Effing- 
 ham, Governor of Virginia, and two members 
 of his council, who had journeyed to New York 
 to urge Dongan to unite with Virginia in a war 
 on the Iroquois because of outrages committed 
 by the red men along the northern boundaries of 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 95 
 
 both INIaryland and Virginia. During his stay in 
 New York Lord Effingham was the guest of 
 Governor Dongan and was entertained by the 
 leading men of the community. The corporation 
 conferred on him the freedom of the city. 
 
 Dongan's plans made it absolutely essential 
 for him to win and retain the friendship of the 
 Five Nations, and with that end in view he 
 accompanied Lord Effingham to Albany and met 
 in council delegations of Sachems from the 
 Mohawks, Oneidas, Senecas, Onondagas and 
 Cayugas. Axes were buried, peace pipes smoked 
 and a firm peace concluded. The Indians were 
 deeply grateful to Dongan for his services as 
 mediator, and presented him with two white 
 dressed deerskins on which was wi'itten their sub- 
 mission to the Great Sachem Charles. These 
 were to be sent to the Great Sachem across the 
 waters, that he might " write on them and put 
 a great red seal to them." As British influence 
 with the Iroquois increased French influence 
 lessened. 
 
 Early in 1684 bands of Cayugas and Senecas 
 plundered several French trading parties. The 
 French Governor De la Barre, determined to 
 punish them, led an expedition to the Seneca 
 country, but, having arrived there, found his 
 forces so reduced by exposure and disease that 
 he gladly concluded a peace with the Indians, 
 early in September, greatly to the detriment of 
 French prestige. 
 
 The ringing of the bell on the church 
 in the fort in New York, September 14th, 
 announced the opening of a Latin school to the 
 inhabitants. It is likely that Father Harvey 
 
96 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 was the teacher. Several of the principal men of 
 the city sent their sons to the school, but the 
 bigotry of the people prevented its success. 
 For its maintenance Governor Dongan had re- 
 quested permission from King James to grant 
 the Duke's, later the King's farm to the school, 
 but King James refused, saying he would not 
 have his Governors " deprived of their conven- 
 iences." The King's farm was on the west side 
 of Broadway, between the modern Fulton and 
 Chambers streets. It was granted to Trinity 
 Protestant Episcopal Church by Queen Anne in 
 1705. 
 
 In October the assembly held its second ses- 
 sion and passed thirty-one laws that received 
 the Governor's sanction. In the early part of 
 1684 the Governor received a touching petition 
 from two brothers, Philip and Dego Dequa, two 
 free Spanish- American negroes sold into slavery. 
 Philip Dequa had been captured in a raid by the 
 buccaneer Henry Morgan on the city of Panama 
 in 1671, and his brother Dego was taken by a 
 French captain from a Spanish prize ship in 
 1673. Both were carried to Jamaica and sold as 
 slaves. One was sent to New York in 1681, the 
 other following two years later. Philip was sold 
 to David Yoakhams for £S5, and Dego to 
 Jacobus Van Courtlandt, merchant. In their 
 petition they said: " We your poore petitioners 
 are free born subjects to our King and have been 
 brought up in the wayes of Christianity and in 
 the Roman Cathblique Religion which we still 
 stand by and continue in the same and hope- 
 ing thereby in and though ye meritt of our 
 Blessed Saviour to obtain life everlasting 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 97 
 
 not doubting that ye loving God is on our side 
 and every good Christian would lend their help- 
 ing hand to assist ye poor peticioners." There 
 is no record of the final disposition of this case, 
 but the records of his time demonstrate that the 
 holding of Christians in slavery was abhorrent 
 to New York's greatest colonial Governor. 
 
 Two Canadians, Sieur Jean Bourdon and M. 
 de Salvaye, bearing a message from Governor 
 De la Barre of New France to Governor Don- 
 gan, notifying him of the expedition against the 
 Senecas, were in the city in 1684. Bourdon 
 came to Canada in 1633 or 1634. In 1637 he 
 obtained the seigneury of Dombourg (later 
 Neuville and Pointe aux Trembles), and was 
 proprietor of the fiefs of St. John and St. 
 Francis in the dependency of Quebec. After 
 Father Jogues' return from France, Bourdon 
 accompanied him on his first visit to the JNIohawk 
 villages, and was notified the following year by 
 a letter from a friend in New York of the 
 martyrdom of the saintly Jesuit. In 1656 he 
 entered Hudson Bay and took possession for the 
 French King, and a year prior to his visit to New 
 York he explored the coast of Labrador. He 
 served New France as Chief Engineer and later 
 as Attorney-General. 
 
 About this time Father Harvey baptized a 
 girl baby in the chapel of the fort who afterwards 
 gained mention in Canadian history. Sir 
 William Phips sailed up the St. Lawrence with 
 a fleet, in 1690, to attack Quebec. He captured 
 a French bark in which Madame and Md'lle de 
 la Lande and JMd'lle Jolliet were passengers. 
 After the failure of Phips' attack, Md'lle de la 
 
98 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Lande, who was the infant baptized in New 
 York, proposed to Phips to go as his repre- 
 sentative to Frontenac to arrange an exchange 
 of prisoners. Her offer was accepted, and the 
 embassy of the young French Canadian as rep- 
 resentative of the British- American Admiral was 
 successful. 
 
 Early in 1685 the news reached Dongan that 
 his brother William, who had been created 
 Baron Dongan and Viscount Claine in 1661, had 
 been advanced on the peerage to the Earldom of 
 Limerick, with remainder over, in default of 
 heirs, to the Governor. Captain Jervis Baxter, 
 a Catholic, was appointed a Provincial Councilor 
 this year and served continuously until 1688. 
 
 Governor Dongan erected a Court of Ex- 
 chequer, to be presided over by the Governor and 
 Council, to exercise jurisdiction over matters re- 
 lating to the Duke's land rents, rights and 
 revenues. In 1691 matters in exchequer were 
 placed under the jurisdiction of the Supreme 
 Court, and the Court of Exchequer ceased to 
 exist. 
 
 Ever seeking methods to develop and 
 strengthen the good relations between the Eng- 
 lish colonies, Dongan directed the city corpora- 
 tion to take steps to establish postal commu- 
 nication, and the corporation, in March, proposed 
 " that for the better correspondence between the 
 Colonies of America a post office be established 
 and the rates for riding post be, per mile, 3d. 
 for every single letter not above one hundred 
 miles; if more proportionately." 
 
 Captain Jervis Baxter returned from London 
 about mid- April with the great news that King 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 99 
 
 Charles II had died, February 6th, 1685, and 
 that the Duke of York reigned as King James 
 II. 
 
 Dongan at once issued a proclamation calling 
 on the militia of the city and county to assemble 
 in front of Fort James, April 23rd. King 
 James was solemnly proclaimed, to the booming 
 of the fort's guns, volleys of musketry and the 
 acclamations of the people. In INIay the cor- 
 poration prepared an address congratulating the 
 King on his accession, wishing him " a long, 
 peaceable and prosperous reign." About this 
 time Father Henry Harrison, S.J., joined 
 Father Harvey in New York. 
 
 In September the Jews petitioned the Gover- 
 nor " for liberty to exercise their religion." He 
 recommended their petition to the corporation, 
 which decided that no public worship was 
 tolerated by act of assembly, except based on 
 faith in Christ. There is evidence, however, that 
 the worship of the Jews in their synagogue was 
 never interfered with by the authorities. At this 
 time the valuation of property in the city was 
 placed by the assessors at £75,694. 
 
 In compliance with writs for a new assembly, 
 the elected delegates met in New York on the 
 first Monday in October. It continued in 
 session until November 3rd and passed six laws. 
 It adjourned, to reconvene September 25th, 
 1686; but instructions from London prevented 
 it from meeting again. In honor of the sup- 
 pression of the rebellion of the Duke of Mon- 
 mouth in England and the Earl of Argyle in 
 Scotland, November 20th was proclaimed a day 
 of thanksgiving in New York by the Governor. 
 
100 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Under just laws, well administered, the prov- 
 ince had grown and prospered. The population 
 had increased to 20,000, living in twenty-four 
 communities, and guarded by 4,000 foot militia, 
 300 horse and a comj^any of dragoons. 
 
 April 27th, 1686, was a red-letter day in the 
 annals of New York city. On that day, in re- 
 sponse to the petition of the corporation, the 
 Governor affixed his signature and the seal of 
 the province to a new charter. This precious 
 document can be seen in the City Hall at tlie 
 present day. It has since continued to be the 
 basis of the city's laws, rights and privileges, and 
 shows that its framers were " possessed of a 
 broad and enlightened sense of the sanctity of 
 corporate and private rights." To show its ap- 
 preciation of the Governor's act in granting the 
 charter, the corporation voted him £300, but it 
 is a question as to whether this sum was ever paid. 
 
 Charles Aubert De la Chesnaye petitioned the 
 Governor to grant him a license to bring in his 
 vessel from Quebec to New York beavers, 
 peltries and other goods for the purpose of 
 trade. The Governor granted the license. 
 
 A new commission reached the Governor on 
 June 10th appointing him the King's Captain- 
 General and Governor-in-Chief over his " Prov- 
 ince of New York and the territories depending 
 thereon in North America." Large powers were 
 given him, and he was instructed " to take all 
 possible care for the discountenance of vice and 
 encouragement of virtue and good living, that 
 by sucli example the infidels may be invited and 
 desire to partake of the Christian religion." 
 
 On July 22nd a city charter was granted by 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 101 
 
 the Governor to Albany. During the summer 
 Dongan held conferences with delegations of the 
 I'ive Nations, and promised to assist them if 
 attacked by the French. He sent trading parties 
 to the Western tribes, and these gained valuable 
 information and materials. His policy so exas- 
 perated Denonville, who had succeeded De la 
 Barre as Governor of New France, that he wrote 
 to France: " I am disposed to go straight to 
 Orange (Albany) , storm their fort and burn the 
 whole concern." A radical change in the govern- 
 ment of the province was brought about by 
 letters of instruction from the King that reached 
 Dongan from England, September 14th. They 
 told him: "You are to declare our will and 
 pleasure that said Bill or Charter of Franchises 
 be forthwith repealed and disallowed." 
 
 Further instructions directed that the Gov- 
 ernor and council continue the duties and im- 
 positions sufficient for the support of the 
 government, and that all other laws, statutes and 
 ordinances already made should continue in full 
 force and vigor in so far as they did not conflict 
 with the present instructions or any laws that the 
 council thereafter passed. The prosperity of 
 New York was safeguarded by prohibiting any 
 invasion of the Hudson River trade by East 
 Jerseymen or others, and providing that all 
 goods passing up the river should pay duty in 
 New York. 
 
 Further instructions provided for encouraging 
 the Indians to trade with the English ; to act 
 prudently with the province's Euroj)ean neigh- 
 bors, that they should have no just cause of com- 
 plaint; that laws should be adopted for the 
 
102 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 punishment of masters who were inhumanely 
 cruel to their Christian servants or slaves; that 
 the willful killing of Indians and negroes should 
 be punishable by death. Some historians relate 
 that no printing press was allowed in New York 
 by King James, but omit mentioning the quali- 
 fication, " without your (Dongan's) special leave 
 and license first obtained." About this time 
 Father Charles Gage, S.J., joined Father Har- 
 vey in New York. 
 
 In his negotiations with the Indians of the 
 Five Nations Dongan found his efforts to secure 
 the allegiance and friendship of the red men 
 thwarted by the influence and labors of the de- 
 voted French Jesuit fathers, who, incompre- 
 hensible as it seems to some people outside the 
 Church, had not ceased to be patriotic subjects 
 of the French crown when they became Jesuits. 
 Through their labors and persuasions many of the 
 Christianized Iroquois had formed a settlement 
 at Caughnawaga. Dongan, in his overtures to 
 the Iroquois, had urged them to draw back to 
 New York the Caughnawaga Indians, and had 
 promised to provide a tract of land for them at 
 Saratoga, to build a church thereon and to bring 
 over English Jesuits to minister to them. True 
 to his promise, he arranged with the patentees of 
 the Saratoga tract to occupy it, at least tempo- 
 rarily, for an Indian settlement, and it was with 
 a view to carrying out his promise that Fathers 
 Harrison and Gage joined Father Harvey in 
 New York to prepare themselves for the Indian 
 mission. These priests were in Albany at differ- 
 ent times during Dongan's administration, but 
 the difficulty of mastering the Iroquois language 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 103 
 
 and the unsettled condition of affairs on the 
 borders combined to defeat the Governor's 
 project. 
 
 Notwithstanding the Governor's and council's 
 orders in the matter of holding free Spanish 
 negroes and Indians in slavery, the abuse con- 
 tinued, and in 1687 the Governor and council 
 issued an order that " all the Christian Indyans 
 and children of Christian parents brought from 
 the towns of Campeachy and Vera Cruz, Mexico, 
 and sold as slaves in this province shall be free." 
 Later in the year Dongan proposed to the coun- 
 cil some means for the release of Spaniards and 
 other free people held as slaves, and he forbade 
 those who claimed to be their masters either to 
 sell or hide such persons pending their appeals 
 for liberty. 
 
 The Governor, February 22nd, 1687, sent to 
 the Committee of Trade in London an ex- 
 haustive and very able report on the condition of 
 the province. In it he reported La Salle's voy- 
 age down the JNIississippi, and, with far-sighted 
 statesmanship, pointed out the advantage pos- 
 session of the great valley of the Mississippi 
 would be to the French against the English and 
 Spanish. He asked permission to send an ex- 
 pedition from New York to ascend the river and 
 take possession for the English crown. 
 
 A grant of twenty-five thousand acres on 
 Staten Island was made to John Palmer, March 
 31st, and conveyed by him the following day to 
 Governor Dongan. This estate was erected into 
 " the lordship and ISIanor of Cassiltowne " in 
 memory of his ancestral estate in Ireland. In the 
 forests near by, the oak frame of a manor house 
 
104 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 was hewn and a gristmill, outbuildings and a 
 hunting lodge were erected. The manor house 
 was afterward externally modernized and stood 
 until its destruction by fire a few years ago. 
 
 About two hundred French Huguenot fam- 
 ilies, driven from France and its possessions, 
 settling in New York, had applied for letters of 
 denization. The " bigoted papist " King James, 
 in May, 1687, commanded that they should be 
 welcomed and encouraged and that as full 
 liberty should be given them to trade as was 
 possessed by the King's native-born subjects. 
 
 Notwithstanding the signing of a treaty of 
 neutrality between the English and French 
 monarchs, the troubled condition of affairs on 
 the northern border continued. Governor Den- 
 onville, despite the treaty, seized fifty Iroquois 
 who had come in friendship to confer with him, 
 and sent them to France to serve in the galleys. 
 The land of the Senecas was invaded by the 
 French, and several English trading parties from 
 Albany were captured. In July and August 
 Governor Dongan, aroused by the reports of 
 French aggression, hurried to Albany, and on the 
 5th of August he addressed a council of 
 Sachems of the Iroquois and supplied them with 
 arms and ammunition with which to defend 
 themselves against French attacks. In Septem- 
 ber John Palmer was sent to England to inform 
 the King of the condition of New York aifairs 
 and the aggressive attitude of the French. 
 Antoine Lespinard, on his return to Albany 
 from a visit to his son, who was boarding in a 
 Jesuit school at Villa Marie, on the island of, 
 Montreal, Canada, reported that the French 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 105 
 
 were jDreparing for a winter expedition against 
 Albany and that they were determined to burn 
 it because of the assistance given by the EfUghsh 
 to the Senecas. 
 
 Such was the condition of affairs when Gov- 
 ernor Dongan delivered his ultimatum to Gov- 
 ernor Denonville in which he demanded the 
 return of all English prisoners ; an indemnity for 
 all merchandise captured from trading parties; 
 the immediate demolition of a fort erected by 
 the French at Niagara, and that the Iroquois 
 Indians sent to the galleys in France be sur- 
 rendered as British subjects to the British Am- 
 bassador in Paris or to the Secretary of State in 
 London. To back up these bold demands a little 
 army of about two hundred men, hastily raised in 
 New York city and on Long Island and led by 
 the gallant Governor, journeyed up the Hudson 
 River to Albany. They found the people of the 
 city in a state of panic, due to a rumored an- 
 nouncement of the intention of the French to 
 destroy Albany and Schenectady and send their 
 inhabitants to Spain, Portugal and the West In- 
 dies. About eight hundred friendly Iroquois 
 were added to the strength of the garrison, which 
 consisted of four hundred infantry and fifty 
 cavalry. Fortifications were strengthened and 
 increased. The French Fort Chambly was at- 
 tacked by the Mohawks and Mohicans, who 
 burned houses thereabouts, killed several French- 
 men and took a number of prisoners, and it was 
 feared that a storm would burst on the English 
 settlements any day. 
 
 Denonville, shortly after assuming the Gov- 
 ernorship of New France, had dispatched a 
 
106 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 memoir on the state of affairs in Canada to 
 Versailles in which he said: " The surest remedy 
 against the English of New York would be to 
 purchase that place from the King of England, 
 who, in the present state of his affairs will, with- 
 out doubt, require money of the King (of 
 France). By that means we should be masters 
 of the Iroquois without waging war." 
 
 In this month Matthew Plowman, a Catholic, 
 was appointed Collector or Receiver-General for 
 the port of New York, but he found the prov- 
 ince in an impoverished condition due to the 
 stagnation of trade of all kinds because of the 
 border troubles. John Palmer, Dongan's am- 
 bassador to Whitehall, had convinced King 
 James that the neutrality treaty was contrary to 
 British-American interests. He induced the 
 King to recognize the Iroquois as British sub- 
 jects, and on November 10th Dongan was 
 instructed to defend and protect them; to build 
 forts wherever necessary and to employ the New 
 York militia and call on neighboring English 
 colonies for assistance. A complaint against 
 Dongan from the French King induced poor 
 distracted James, surrounded as he was by 
 traitors and under life-long obligations to Louis, 
 to agree to a proposal forbidding, until January 
 1st, 1689, any English or French commander in 
 America to commit acts of hostility against the 
 territories of either sovereign. 
 
 During January and February Dongan re- 
 mained in Albany to watch the French. Early 
 in March he sent Major Jervis Baxter down to 
 New York with a message to the council bidding 
 them consider ways and means to meet the extraor- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 107 
 
 (iinary expenses, amounting to .£8,000, caused 
 by the border troubles. The council decided 
 that New York was unable to bear the burden 
 alone and recommended that the other colonies 
 be called upon to share the expense. On the 
 28th, the Governor returned to New York dis- 
 heartened by the financial conditions. To meet 
 the expenses of the expedition to Albany he 
 had pledged his personal credit, sold his plate 
 and furniture and borrowed £2,000 from Robert 
 Livingston, giving him a mortgage on his Staten 
 Island estate to secure the debt. During the 
 French troubles he expended £10,000 of his 
 private fortune. He wrote to the governments 
 of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and New 
 Jersey for financial assistance. New England 
 promised six hundred men. The only other 
 response was from Lord Howard of Effingham, 
 who sent £500 because of his appreciation of 
 Dongan's ability. Out in the country, on Broad- 
 way, between the present Maiden Lane and Ann 
 Street, the Governor owned a beautiful garden 
 with shady walks and a great stone summer 
 house, and, no doubt, in these distracting times 
 he sought relief among his beloved flowers and 
 birds from the worry and turmoil of his office 
 in Fort James. In INIay alarming reports of 
 French activity were carried down the river, and 
 the tireless Governor again journeyed north. 
 Scouts were dispatched to the Iroquois Castles 
 to watch the movements of the French, and bands 
 of friendly lower river Indians were taken up to 
 Albany. The Governor was authorized to call 
 on the New England governments, if he deemed 
 it necessary, for the six hundred soldiers prom- 
 
108 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 ised. At the council meeting June 30th, it was 
 ordered that a mihtary watch be kept in New 
 York city, as privateers were reported off the 
 coast. Wearied by his labors and disheartened 
 by the financial condition of the province, yet 
 satisfied with his efforts to defend and preserve 
 the territory of his royal master, Dongan re- 
 turned to the city of New York the last week in 
 August and found in Fort James a letter from 
 the King that told him the many enemies he had 
 made by unwavering fidelity to his master had tri- 
 umphed. He was notified that the King had 
 decided to annex New Jersey and New York 
 to the Eastern colonies and unite all, except 
 Pennsylvania and Delaware, into the Dominion 
 of New England. 
 
 Sir Edmund Andros had been appointed Gov- 
 ernor-General. Dongan was offered the com- 
 mand of a regiment in the British army with the 
 rank of Major-General of artillery, but subse- 
 quently declined it. At the very moment when 
 his fortunes were at their lowest ebb the blow 
 fell. He had impoverished himself by his efforts 
 to hold the vast and rich territory, that to-day is 
 the Empire State, for his master. The last 
 session of the council at which Dongan presided 
 was held July 30th, 1688, and one of the last of his 
 official acts was the promulgation of a procla- 
 mation of emancipation releasing and sending 
 to their homes " all Indian slaves within this 
 Province subjects to the King of Spain that can 
 give an account of their Christian faith and say 
 the Lord's Prayer . . . and likewise them that 
 shall hereafter come to this Province." 
 
 Dongan received Governor Sir Edmund An- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 109 
 
 dros and his staff, brilliant in scarlet and gold, 
 August 11th. Colonel Nicholas Bayard's regi- 
 ment of foot and troop of horse escorted the new 
 Governor to the fort where the seal of the prov- 
 ince was broken in his presence and the seal of 
 New England ordered to be used in its stead. 
 With the courtesy that distinguished him in his 
 dealing with all men, Dongan remained in the 
 city until his successor had departed and then re- 
 tired to the shelter of his farmhouse on the shores 
 of Lake Success, near Hempstead, Long Island. 
 His bold ultimatum to Governor Denonville had 
 borne fruit. The English traders taken by the 
 French had been liberated, the surviving Iroquois 
 prisoners were freed from the chains that bound 
 them to the galleys in far-off France, and a large 
 wooden cross and a few log houses were all that 
 remained of the dismantled French fort at 
 Niagara. 
 
 The persecutions visited on James from the 
 time he announced his conversion continued, cov- 
 ertly, after he ascended the throne. His chief aim 
 was to abolish the disabilities under which Catho- 
 lics and dissenters groaned, and to establish 
 liberty of conscience throughout the realm. In 
 industry and business ability, history concedes 
 him to have been the ablest King that has ruled 
 England. Surrounded by unwise friends and 
 traitorous counsellors who, hastening him to his 
 fall, were corresponding with his son-in-law 
 William, Prince of Orange, James determined to 
 ameliorate the condition of those who suffered 
 persecution for conscience's sake and roused to 
 fever-heat the bigotry of the people by seek- 
 ing to compel the hierarchy of the Church 
 
no CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 of England to read the Declaration of In- 
 dulgence or liberty of conscience from their 
 pulpits. Secret invitations were sent by open 
 and secret foes of James to William to come to 
 England in defense of the Protestant religion. 
 The Prince of Orange landed at Torbay, No- 
 vember 5th, 1688, and shortly after multitudes 
 flocked to his standard, until James found him- 
 self deserted by all save a faithful few. 
 
 On December 11th, while endeavoring to 
 escape from London, he was captured but finally 
 made his way to France. Several attempts to 
 reseat him on his throne were unsuccessful. 
 Faults he had in plenty, but his latter years were 
 saintly. His constant prayer was: "I give 
 Thee, O my God, my most humble thanks, for 
 that it hath pleased Thee to take from me my 
 three kingdoms. Thou hast hereby roused me 
 from the lethargy of sin, and brought me out of 
 a miserable estate, in which. Lord, had I con- 
 tinued, I should have been forever undone. I 
 also thank Thee, O my God, for that it hath 
 pleased Thee, out of Thine infinite goodness, to 
 banish me into a strange land, where I have 
 learnt the duties of Christianity and done my 
 utmost to perform them." 
 
 In his instructions to his son, drawn up by him 
 while in Ireland in 1690, he wrote: " Serve God 
 as a perfect Christian and be a worthy son of the 
 Roman Church. Let no human consideration, 
 of what nature soever, be capable to draw you 
 from it. . . . Do your endeavour to estab- 
 lish by a law, the liberty of conscience ; and what- 
 ever may be represented to you about it, never 
 leave that design until you have compassed it. 
 
KING JAMES 11 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 111 
 
 It is a grace, and a particular favour, that God 
 does them whom He enhghtens with his know- 
 ledge, in calling them to the true religion ; and it 
 is by mildness, instructions, and a good example, 
 that they are won much more than by fear or 
 violence. . . . Apply yourself principally 
 to know the Constitution of the English Gov- 
 ernment, that you may keep you and your par- 
 liament each in due bounds, that become the one 
 and the other. Further be instructed concerning 
 the trade of the nation — make it flourish by all 
 lawful means. It is that which enriches the 
 Kingdom, and which wall make you considerable 
 abroad. But above all endeavour to be and to re- 
 main superior at sea; without which England 
 cannot be secure." 
 
 History will some day vindicate the memory 
 of King James II and elevate him to the place 
 to which his abilities entitle him. 
 
114 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 and at many a supper table. A young man who 
 had been in England insisted that Nicholson was 
 a " Papist! " Had he not seen him with his own 
 eyes, kneeling at mass in the King's tent on 
 Hounslow Heath? Had not every shipmaster 
 who had arrived lately from London brought 
 news of the King's appointment of " Papists " 
 to office, in violation of law, and of his efforts 
 to give freedom of w^orship to " Papists? " 
 Why, this was all part of a " Popish " conspiracy 
 to crush out the Protestant religion! The ex- 
 citement grew and the story grew with it and 
 was carried about the town until it reached the 
 ears of a considerable merchant of the city, in 
 his fine brick house on or near the southwest 
 corner of the present Whitehall and Pearl 
 Streets. When this merchant, Jacob Leisler by 
 name, heard it his brows contracted in a por- 
 tentous frown because on the subject of the 
 Pope and the Catholic faith he was a mono- 
 maniac. As Jacob Leisler will enact a leading 
 part in the history of New York, what is known 
 of his earlier career may as well be told here. 
 The authorities say that he was born in Frank- 
 fort, Germanj^, but there are traditions that he 
 was born in Switzerland and had a brother, a 
 colonel in the Swiss service. It is also asserted 
 that France M^as his native land. He sailed from 
 Amsterdam for New York in the ship " Otter," 
 April 27th, 1660, a soldier in the service of the 
 Dutch West India Company. He joined the 
 Dutch Church in 1661, and April 11th, 1663, 
 married Elsje Tymense, the widow of the 
 wealthy Pieter Cornelissen Vanderveen. He 
 assumed charge of Vanderveen's business, it 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 115 
 
 prospered under his management, and he was 
 soon regarded as one of the principal merchants 
 of the city. By this marriage he became con- 
 nected with many of the aristocratic famihes of 
 New York. Balthasar Bayard was his brother- 
 in-law and his wife was the aunt of Van Cort- 
 landt and Phillipse. Mrs. Leisler's brother, 
 Jacob Loockermans, in 1679, conveyed to Leisler 
 all his right to the estates, in New York, of his 
 wealthy father Govert Loockermans and a 
 relative, Dirck Cornellisen. 
 
 In 1672, Leisler subscribed fifty guilders in 
 goods toward the repairs of the fort, and in 1674 
 the Dutch Governor Colve appointed him a 
 conmiissioner of a forced loan. Leisler's fa- 
 naticism brought him in conflict with the author- 
 ities in 1676. The Reverend Nicholas Van 
 Rensselaer, who had come out with Governor 
 Andros in the " Diamond " and had been ap- 
 pointed colleague of the pastor of the Albany 
 church, was charged by Leisler with " false 
 preaching " and of uttering " dubious words." 
 Van Rensselaer was arrested, tried and acquitted, 
 and Leisler and JNIilborne were ordered to pay 
 all costs. 
 
 While voyaging to Europe in 1678, Leisler 
 was caj)tured by Turkish corsairs, to whom he 
 paid 2,050 pieces of eight, for ransom. His 
 aversion to Catholics did not deter him in 1683 
 from accepting an appointment as one of the 
 Commissioners of a Court of Admiralty and a 
 commission as captain of militia in 1684 from a 
 Catholic Proprietor's Catholic Governor. In 
 person Leisler was of medium height, robust 
 frame inclined to stoutness, of austere visage 
 
114 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 and at many a supper table. A young man who 
 had been in England insisted that Nicholson was 
 a " Papist! " Had he not seen him with his own 
 eyes, kneeling at mass in the King's tent on 
 Hounslow Heath? Had not every shi^^master 
 who had arrived lately from London brought 
 news of the King's appointment of " Papists " 
 to office, in violation of law, and of his efforts 
 to give freedom of worship to "Papists?" 
 Why, this was all part of a " Popish " conspiracy 
 to crush out the Protestant religion! The ex- 
 citement grew and the story grew with it and 
 was carried about the town until it reached the 
 ears of a considerable merchant of the city, in 
 his fine brick house on or near the southwest 
 corner of the present Whitehall and Pearl 
 Streets. When this merchant, Jacob Leisler by 
 name, heard it his brows contracted in a por- 
 tentous frown because on the subject of the 
 Pope and the Catholic faith he was a mono- 
 maniac. As Jacob Leisler will enact a leading 
 part in the history of New York, what is known 
 of his earlier career may as well be told here. 
 The authorities say that he was born in Frank- 
 fort, Germany, but there are traditions that he 
 was born in Switzerland and had a brother, a 
 colonel in the Swiss service. It is also asserted 
 that France was his native land. He sailed from 
 Amsterdam for New York in the ship " Otter," 
 April 27th, 1G60, a soldier in the service of the 
 Dutch West India Company. He joined the 
 Dutch Church in 1661, and April 11th, 1663, 
 married Elsje Tymense, the widow of the 
 wealthy Pieter Cornelissen Vanderveen. He 
 assumed charge of Vanderveen's business, it 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 115 
 
 prospered under his management, and he was 
 soon regarded as one of the principal merchants 
 of the city. By this marriage he became con- 
 nected with many of the aristocratic famiHes of 
 New York. Balthasar Bayard was his brother- 
 in-law and his wife was the aunt of Van Cort- 
 landt and Phillipse. Mrs. Leisler's brother, 
 Jacob Loockermans, in 1679, conveyed to Leisler 
 all his right to the estates, in New York, of his 
 wealthy father Govert Loockermans and a 
 relative, Dirck Cornellisen. 
 
 In 1672, Leisler subscribed fifty guilders in 
 goods toward the repairs of the fort, and in 1674 
 the Dutch Governor Colve appointed him a 
 conmiissioner of a forced loan. Leisler's fa- 
 naticism brought him in conflict with the author- 
 ities in 1676. The Reverend Nicholas Van 
 Rensselaer, who had come out with Governor 
 Andros in the " Diamond " and had been ap- 
 pointed colleague of the pastor of the Albany 
 church, was charged by Leisler with " false 
 preaching " and of uttering " dubious words." 
 Van Rensselaer was arrested, tried and acquitted, 
 and Leisler and Milborne were ordered to pay 
 all costs. 
 
 While voyaging to Europe in 1678, Leisler 
 was captured by Turkish corsairs, to whom he 
 paid 2,050 pieces of eight, for ransom. His 
 aversion to Catholics did not deter him in 1683 
 from accepting an appointment as one of the 
 Commissioners of a Court of Admiralty and a 
 commission as captain of militia in 1684 from a 
 Catholic Proprietor's Catholic Governor. In 
 person Leisler was of medium height, robust 
 frame inclined to stoutness, of austere visage 
 
116 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 and addicted to long prayers. Historians, ac- 
 cording to their prejudices, have given him all 
 sorts of character ranging from saint to devil. 
 The man was unquestionably honest in his deal- 
 ings and in his purposes, his mind was vigorous, 
 his temper ungovernable and vindictive, his 
 vanity inordinate, and his whole nature and 
 character were poisoned by his fanaticism. 
 
 Andries Greveraet's sloop, from Virginia, 
 dropped anchor off the fort February 5th, 1689, 
 and the skipper, in accordance with custom, went 
 to the fort to pay his respects to the commander. 
 He was ushered into the presence of Nicholson, 
 who asked him: 
 
 " What news is in Virginia? " 
 
 " Possibly your Honor may have the same 
 here," replied Greveraet. 
 
 " We have heard that King James has un- 
 doubted news of an invasion by Holland, nothing 
 else." 
 
 " The news in Virginia is that the Prince of 
 Orange has landed with an army at Torbay, in 
 England." 
 
 "D — n you! What do you say?" shouted 
 Nicholson in an outburst of passion. " Where 
 is the King? " 
 
 " I heard he was at Salisbury Plain," answered 
 Greveraet. 
 
 " There's burying place enough there for 
 Orange and his people with him. Hath he not 
 had an example of JMonmouth? " 
 
 " I cannot believe it. If it is so the very 
 prentice boys of London will drive him out 
 again. Don't dare to divulge this news to any 
 one." 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 117 
 
 A week later the rumor of the Prince of 
 Orange's invasion reached the ears of Jacob 
 Leisler, whether through Greveraet or from the 
 notorious, unfrocked Anglican minister and 
 rabid anti-Cathohc, John Coode of Maryland, is 
 not known, but Leisler's knowledge of it doubt- 
 less lighted the flame of the hatred that burned in 
 New York for generations. It is even said that 
 Leisler while on a trip to Maryland, about this 
 time, heard the startling news from England. 
 The early days of March brought a delegation 
 and a letter from Governor John Blackwell, of 
 Pennsylvania, confirming the tidings. In it he 
 told Nicholson that he had examined, under oath, 
 Zachariah Whitepaine, a sailor, who had left 
 London in December, and who declared that the 
 Prince of Orange had invaded England. At 
 this time seventeen other letters addressed to 
 people in the city were brought by the same 
 messenger from Philadelphia. Nicholson, after 
 consulting with his council, determined to open 
 and read them, " for the prevention of tumult 
 and the divulging of such strange news." Two 
 of these letters confirmed Governor Blackwell's 
 letter and were retained, the others were sent to 
 the posthouse for distribution. 
 
 That night a fast sloop sailed eastward up the 
 East River and a swift horse galloped along the 
 Boston Road, each bearing a messenger from 
 Nicholson to Governor Anclros, who, with Major 
 Anthony Brockholls, was with the troops in 
 Pemaquid defending the scattered settlements 
 from Indian de2:)redations. 
 
 Nicholson knew the intolerent bigotry of the 
 people with whom he had to deal and realized 
 
118 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 the outburst that would follow the news that a 
 Dutch Protestant Prince had invaded England. 
 Matthew Plowman, the English Catholic, who 
 had come to the province as the King's Collector 
 of revenues during Dongan's administration, still 
 held that office. Nicholson and the council sent 
 for Plowman and instructed him, because of the 
 troubles they foresaw, to bring the public money 
 to the fort for safe keeping. It was stowed in a 
 strong chest and securely locked and sealed by 
 the Collector pending instructions from London 
 as to its disposition. There is a story extant that 
 about this time a number of the true and tried 
 supporters of the Stuart dynasty assembled in 
 the cabin of the ship " Beaver," lying in the bay, 
 and that the Jesuit, Father Harvey, solemnly 
 administered to them the oath of allegiance to 
 King James. 
 
 The city was quiet until April 26th. On that 
 day Ensign Vesey of Braintree, Massachusetts, 
 arrived from the east with the astonishing news 
 that a revolution had broken out in Boston and 
 that Governor Andros, who had hurried thither 
 from Pemaquid on receipt of Nicholson's mes- 
 sage, had been taken into custody and im- 
 prisoned. Nicholson immediately asked Mayor 
 Stephen Van Cortlandt to call the Board of 
 Aldermen and Common Council to meet in 
 session with the Royal Councilors then in New 
 York. The afternoon of the 27th, the chief 
 officers of the militia were summoned. The 
 session was characterized by perfect harmony. 
 There was a rumor afloat that war was imminent 
 between France and England, and thoughts of 
 the dilapidated and antiquated fort that must be 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 119 
 
 depended on to defend the city caused well- 
 grounded uneasiness. Defenses was the first 
 subject considered, and a strong committee, on 
 which Jacob Leisler was named, was appointed 
 to survey and determine on the vulnerable 
 points to be fortified. As a result of the con- 
 vention's action a company of the militia with 
 colors flying and drums beating, marched • 
 through the sally-port of the fort on the night 
 of the 28th, and succeeding nights, to assist the 
 garrison in keeping guard. That no hostile 
 ships should slip unobserved through the Nar- 
 rows a sentry paced the sands of Coney Island. 
 To furnish funds for restoring the fortifications, 
 the provincial, city and military authorities, in 
 joint session, agreed that all revenues collected 
 after May 1st should be expended for that 
 purpose. 
 
 One day a ship of Jacob Leisler's, laden witH 
 a cargo of wine, was moored at the great dock. 
 Leisler entered the manifest at the Custom 
 House and the duty being computed footed up 
 about £100. He positively refused to pay any 
 duty on the ground that as Matthew Plowman, t 
 the Collector, was a Catholic he, under the new 
 order of things, could not hold the office or re- 
 ceive revenues. During the wrangle that fol- 
 lowed this stand of Leisler's the wine was 
 removed from the ship and stored in various 
 cellars throughout the city. Others following 
 Leisler's example, or instigation, took the same 
 position, and revenue collection was at a stand- 
 still. The town was by this time full of all kinds 
 of rumors and secret conspirators were at work 
 fostering the spirit of unrest. 
 
120 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 The convention's committee on fortifications 
 reported, JNIay 3rd, that seventeen guns, without 
 carriages, were scattered around the city and 
 recommended that four of them should be placed 
 near the widow Richardson's; three on the plat- 
 form outside of the battery at the water gate 
 of the fort ; three or four at the wharf at White- 
 hall, Governor Dongan's house, built by Peter 
 Stuyvesant; two on the wharf in front of the 
 State House or City Hall. A messenger, 
 covered with the dust of Long Island roads and 
 weary with the fatigue of a long horseback 
 journey, appeared before the council in the City 
 Hall with the news of an uprising in Suffolk 
 County. A meeting of the militia had been held 
 in Southampton, May 3rd, at which a declaration 
 signed by Captains Howell of Southampton, 
 Wheeler of Easthampton, and Piatt of Hun- 
 tington, had been adopted calling on the militia 
 to proceed to New York city to secure the fort, 
 " redeem " public funds and thus save them 
 from " Popery and Slavery." The militia, 
 eighty strong, marched all the wslj to Jamaica. 
 The true reason for the ardent desire of these 
 Suffolk County warriors to " redeem " the public 
 funds from " Popery and Slavery " was that 
 most of them had served in Dongan's expedition 
 for the defense of Albany, and the impoverished 
 condition of the provincial treasury had pre- 
 vented their being paid. They evidently thought 
 the time propitious for a " demonstration in 
 force " to urge payment. When the Suffolk 
 County messenger's story had been heard letters 
 were sent to Colonel Young, of Suffolk County, 
 and Major Howell to use every effort to pacify 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 121 
 
 the people, all of whom were restless because of 
 the story of revolution that had reached them 
 from New England. 
 
 A rumor, started on the 6th, that a thousand 
 French and a great horde of Indians had in- 
 vaded the province from Canada caused a 
 tumult and uproar in the city that not even an 
 official denial could allay. On the same day a 
 formal order passed the board ratifying a 
 previous agreement that the revenues be em- 
 ployed for fortifying the city. It is significant, 
 in the light of subsequent events, that Jacob 
 Leisler and several of his friends cast a negative 
 vote on the proposition. Copies of the order 
 were at once posted on the State House and 
 bridge to assist in calming public apprehension. 
 
 The Suffolk County contingent of unpaid 
 veterans, all armed, was still at Jamaica demand- 
 ing arrears of pay. The convention raised the 
 money, paid them, and they departed for their 
 homes rejoicing, but unfortunately for the 
 officials there were many unpaid discharged 
 soldiers in the city, and these, hearing of the suc- 
 cessful demonstration of their Suffolk County 
 comrades, organized a little demonstration of 
 their own, and on the 10th poured in a body into 
 the State House yard, or court, with angry 
 shouts and cries demanding their pay. The 
 provincial and city officers were in session at the 
 time, and they were evidently alarmed by the 
 tumult because they at once resolved " consider- 
 ing the dangerous times " to grant pay orders 
 to private soldiers and " each trouper 6lb." This 
 was satisfactory and the veterans withdrew. 
 Realizing that these popular demonstrations 
 
122 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 were not conducive to good order the convention 
 adopted an ordinance to suppress all mutinous 
 persons. 
 
 A delegation of militia officers from Long 
 Island appeared before the council next day, 
 and informed it of discontent, suspicion, and 
 jealousy, on Long Island. Letters were sent 
 to Kings, Queens, and Suffolk Counties in- 
 viting them to send one or two representatives 
 to the convention, but no attention was paid to 
 the invitation. 
 
 Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson and the coun- 
 cil addressed a letter on the 15th to the Principal 
 Secretary of State in London giving a detailed 
 account of the condition of affairs in New York 
 and New England, and on the 18th John Riggs, 
 bearing the letters, sailed for London on the ship 
 " Beaver." On the same day George Wedder- 
 borne arrived in the city from Boston with 
 verbal instructions from Governor Andros to 
 Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson, of the follow- 
 ing tenor : 
 
 That the news of the imprisonment of Gov- 
 ernor Andros and the other gentlemen be com- 
 municated to the members of the council. 
 
 That Colonels Andrew Hamilton and William 
 Smith be sent to Boston to demand the release 
 of the imprisoned officials. 
 
 That care be used to keep Albany quiet and 
 conceal the imprisonment of Andros from the 
 Indians. 
 
 That a well-armed sloop, with provisions, be 
 sent to Major Anthony Brockholls at Pemaquid 
 with instructions to take back the soldiers from 
 posts in that frontier section if required. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 123 
 
 Colonels Hamilton and Smith were summoned 
 before the council and the Governor's instruc- 
 tions were communicated to them, but both de- 
 clined to undertake the embassy to Boston, the 
 former on the ground that he, as a Judge of the 
 Court of Common Pleas, must hold court in East 
 Jersey and his absence would disturb the people ; 
 the latter alleged that the people at his home in 
 Setauket, Long Island, were restless and sus- 
 pected him of being a " Papist," and if he left 
 the place the mob might plunder his home and 
 destroy his property. Fear of protracted in- 
 carceration in the castle by the Boston authori- 
 ties may have had some influence on the decision 
 of the colonels. After deliberation it was 
 decided not to send the King's bark with pro- 
 vision for BrockhoUs at Pemaquid because the 
 people w^ere in a rage. The instigators to re- 
 bellion had not been idle. The town buzzed 
 and raged over the skillfully circulated stories 
 that Staten Island was crowded with " Papists," 
 who threatened to burn the city and massacre 
 the inhabitants; that Irish Catholic soldiers were 
 on the march from Boston to garrison Fort 
 James; that Colonel Dongan had an armed 
 brigantine lying in the bay ready for some war- 
 like purpose. There were few Catholics in the 
 city and fewer on Staten Island, and when the 
 Iristi Catholic army arrived from Boston it con- 
 sisted of seven of Andros' discharged regulars, 
 which brought up the strength of the fort's 
 garrison to twenty-two, some of whom were de- 
 scribed as " old cripples." 
 
 To prepare for emergencies the council sent 
 letters to the justices of the peace and military 
 
124 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 officers of Fairfield, New Haven and Hartford 
 Counties, Connecticut, advising them of rumors 
 of war with France (which really had been de- 
 clared the day before), and asking the assistance 
 of their militia in the event of an attack on New 
 York. At the general meeting or convention 
 held in the City Hall on the 22nd, an ill-penned 
 and unsigned petition was presented by Colonel 
 Nicholas Baj^ard, commanding the city's militia, 
 who had received it from a deputation of 
 militiamen the night before. It contained "sev- 
 eral jealousies and demonstrations of their 
 disturbed minds," among them demands that all 
 Catholics should be disarmed, and concerning 
 Colonel Dongan, " who they desired might come 
 and live in Towne as formerly and not depart 
 this Government." The delegation that handed 
 the petition to Colonel Bayard was sent for, but 
 its members refused to appear and demanded a 
 written answer or the return of the petition. 
 Mayor Stephen Van Cortlandt was instructed 
 to see the petitioners and request them to sign 
 their petition, or send a representative to dis- 
 course on it. The mayor yielded to them on all 
 points except that relating to their eagerness for 
 the society of Colonel Dongan, but they were 
 not satisfied and reiterated their demand for a 
 reply in writing or the return of the petition. 
 The convention sent out Captains Leisler and 
 Lodwick to harangue the petitioners, and they 
 promised that two or three messengers would 
 be sent down to Captain Bowne's house at 
 Monmouth, where Dongan was staying, to urge 
 him to return to New York " to remove all 
 jealousies of his departure provided they doe 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 125 
 
 promise vpon Oath to their respective Captaines 
 that they will doe no harme to his person." The 
 incident is puzzling. Dongan was the ablest 
 military commander in the province. Whether 
 they judged it well to have him in custody be- 
 fore springing their revolutionary plot or 
 whether they desired to have him nearby to 
 command them in the event of a French attack, 
 is a matter of conjecture. 
 
 Major Jervis Baxter arrived from Albany on 
 the 27th, and asked the Lieutenant-Governor's 
 permission to withdraw from the province on 
 account of the people's enmity to him because he 
 was a Catholic. Permission was granted and he 
 left the city to join Colonel Dongan at Captain 
 Bowne's. 
 
 The long threatening storm burst on the 
 night of the 30th. It was the turn of Captain 
 Abraham Depeyster's company to mount guard 
 in the fort. In posting his sentries Lieutenant 
 Henry Cuyler ordered one of his men to stand 
 guard at the fort's sally-port. The sergeant in 
 command of the regulars objected that the Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor had given no such orders. 
 Nicholson, who was in the city at the time, re- 
 turned about eleven o'clock, and the sergeant 
 reported to him that a city militia officer had 
 attempted to place a sentry at the sally-port but 
 that he w^ould not suffer it without the Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor's order. Hurrying to his room, 
 in a rage, Nicholson sent for Cuyler, who, being 
 rather deficient in English, took Corporal Henry 
 Jacobsen to Nicholson's room to act as in- 
 terpreter. They found the Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor preparing for bed. He ordered all from 
 the room exce]3t Cuyler. 
 
126 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 "Who is commander in this fort, you or I? 
 Why do you place a sentry without my leave? " 
 demanded Nicholson. 
 
 " It's my captain's orders," replied Cuyler. 
 
 " I would rather see the town on fire or sunk 
 than be commanded by you," shouted the Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor, in a rage. 
 
 Cuyler stejjped to the door to summon his 
 interpreter, he said, but it may have been to seek 
 assistance, for Nicholson was an ugly customer 
 to face when in one of his rages. The corporal, 
 a big burly fellow, entered, his sword over his 
 left arm. Nicholson, seated on the side of his 
 bed, was bent over unlacing his stockings. 
 Hearing the step, he looked up and beheld the 
 stalwart militiaman standing immediately in 
 front of him. 
 
 "Who called you here?" he cried. "Be- 
 gone! " 
 
 The corporal fell back a half dozen paces, 
 halted, and stared at the Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 " Go out of my room or I'll pistol you," 
 shouted Nicholson. 
 
 Striding to the rack on the wall he seized a 
 pistol, cocked it and, aiming it at the corporal, 
 forced him from the room and down the stairs. 
 Cujder followed. The hour was late, but the 
 town was soon ringing with Cuyler's version 
 of the incident. " The Lieutenant-Governor 
 threatened to pistol Cuyler and his corporal and 
 burn the town," was the story that spread before 
 dawn from Fort James to Stuyvesant's bowery 
 and beyond. 
 
 Before noon the face of every burgher and 
 his huys vrow blanched with fear on hearing the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 127 
 
 awful rumor that Nicholson had threatened to 
 massacre all who attended the Dutch Church on 
 the following Sunday, and then burn the town. 
 
 " Why, this Governor and his council are 
 nothing but rank Papists," passed from mouth 
 to mouth ; " something must be done to defend 
 ourselves, our families and our city." 
 
 The trouble breeders had done their work 
 well, so well that it is impossible not to suspect 
 that it was done systematically, deliberately, and 
 with the sole purpose of overthrowing the 
 government. 
 
 The crises came on the 31st. The General 
 Committee or Convention met early in the after- 
 noon. The Lieutenant-Governor spoke, de- 
 ploring the factious and rebellious attitude of 
 the inhabitants, and said that he was credibly 
 informed that some of the militia officers were 
 the instigators of the discontent. Speeches 
 denouncing the malcontents met with general 
 approval, and all present pledged themselves to 
 uphold the government and the crown of Eng- 
 land. It is significant that the last recorded 
 attendance of Jacob Leisler at these meetings 
 was on May 11th. During the afternoon the 
 excitement in the city increased, and it was plain 
 to all that an outbreak was imminent. The 
 Lieutenant-Governor having been informed 
 that most of the city militia was in a state of 
 mutiny, and refused to obey the commands of 
 the loyal officers, asked the Mayor to reconvene 
 the General Committee. As soon as the Mayor 
 had called the assembly to order the trouble be- 
 gan. Lieutenant Henry Cuyler entered and, 
 securing the floor, gave his version of his short 
 
128 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 and violent interview with the Lieutenant- 
 Governor in the fort the niglit before, charging 
 the Lieutenant-Governor with threatening to 
 pistol him and his corporal and burn the town. 
 Nicholson emphatically denied Cuyler's version 
 of the trouble. A heated argument ensued, 
 which was terminated by the Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor saying to Cuyler: 
 
 " Go fetch your commission. I discharge you 
 from being lieutenant any more." 
 
 In anger Cuyler, his captain, Abraham De 
 Peyster, and the ensign, left the room. Every- 
 one in the council chamber was seized with con- 
 sternation because all foresaw the evil conse- 
 quences that would follow this rupture. The 
 friends of De Peyster crowded around him and 
 urged him to return with his subordinates, 
 pointing out the dire consequences that would 
 result from this breach. They were obdurate 
 and, as they stepped through the doorway, a roar 
 arose from the crowd and shouts of " Treason! 
 Treason !" were raised. The drums of the militia 
 added to the din and, as if by preconcerted plan, 
 the crowd of militia and rabble poured from 
 the yard and turned down Pearl Street in the 
 direction of the fort. Constantly growing as it 
 progressed, it swirled around the corner into 
 Whitehall Street and stayed its progress in front 
 of the Leisler house. JNIayor Van Cortlandt and 
 Councilor Frederick Phillipse had left the coun- 
 cil chamber and hurried after the mob. Mount- 
 ing the stoop of the house near Leisler's, they at- 
 tempted to address the crowd and allay the 
 tumult and excitement, but their voices were 
 drowned by shouts of: " Leisler! Leisler! We 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 129 
 
 are sold! We are betrayed! We will be mur- 
 dered! It is time for us to look for ourselves! " 
 Leisler refused to appear, the militia and mob 
 swept forward toward the sally-port of the fort, 
 Lieutenant Cuyler admitting them within the 
 walls. The JNIayor and Mr. Phillipse, discour- 
 aged and dismayed, returned to the City Hall and 
 related to their colleagues the scene at Leisler's 
 house and the fort. When he heard the story 
 Nicholson must have repented his error in not 
 following the advice of Matthew Plowman and 
 other loyalists to bring down the garrison of Al- 
 bany, and, with other friends of law and order, 
 take possession of the fort, and by training its 
 guns upon the city overawe the lawless. 
 
 The magistrates adjourned to William Mer- 
 ritt's house and, while they were in consultation 
 in an upper room, twenty armed men headed by 
 William Churcher and followed by a rabble 
 crowded into the apartment. 
 
 " Give us the keys of the fort," demanded 
 Churcher, " we shall and will have them, by force 
 if necessary." Nicholson consulted with his 
 colleagues and replied : 
 
 " Let the officer in charge come. I'll deliver 
 them to him." 
 
 Satisfied with this reply, the crowd withdrew 
 and the magistrates returned to the City Hall. 
 Presentl}^ came to them Churcher and his men, 
 and with them Captain Charles Lodwick. The 
 bullying demand for the keys was coupled with 
 the assurance that if they were not produced 
 forthwith, " They would know what they would 
 do." The magistrates, realizing the futility of 
 further resistance, counseled Nicholson to sur- 
 
130 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 render the keys and he handed to Lodwick the 
 key of the receptacle in which the various keys 
 of the fort were kept. The chest in which 
 Collector Plowman had deposited about <£773 
 customs duty and tax money was in the fort. 
 Nicholson's council ordered its removal to Fred- 
 erick Phillipse's house, but those in control of the 
 fort refused to surrender it. 
 
 Next day there was a reaction. Colonel Bay- 
 ard, the commander of the militia, was asked to 
 take sole command. To offset this, fresh rumors 
 were circulated around the town, verbally and 
 by written pamphlets, that Nicholson and his 
 counsellors were " Papists," rogues and traitors. 
 That night Leisler entered the fort, and assumed 
 command the following day, Sunday, as it was 
 the turn of his company to mount guard in the 
 fort. He announced that the Protestant re- 
 ligion and government were in immediate danger 
 and that the inhabitants must meet " to sign 
 and prevent the same." The militia companies 
 were warned to come to the fort next morning at 
 a certain signal and not to obey their officers 
 if they attempted to stop them. Early on the 
 morning of the 3rd, Captain Lodwick sent a 
 message to Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson, who 
 had found shelter in Frederick Phillipse's house, 
 that an express had arrived from Long Island 
 with the startling report that a squadron of four 
 or five strange vessels, probably French war- 
 ships, was inside Sandy Hook. The Lieutenant- 
 Governor hastily summoned Mayor Van Cort- 
 landt and Colonel Bayard. After a consultation 
 the Mayor departed to canvass the city and find 
 the messenger who brought the report, but could 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 131 
 
 find no one who had seen him. It was suspected 
 that the tale about the strange squadron in the 
 bay was manufactured for the purpose of creat- 
 ing alarm and covering the designs of the 
 usurpers. Before the INIayor had completed his 
 search the boom of the fort's guns and the roll of 
 the drums brought the militiamen and the rabble 
 on a run to the plain or parade. Colonel Bayard 
 and his loyal officers endeavored to calm the fears 
 and tumult but were met with abuse, taunts and 
 threats because the rumors about the approach- 
 ing squadron had been industriously circulated, 
 and the panic-stricken crowd fully expected to 
 see a French fleet round Nutten Island and 
 bombard the fort and city. Colonel Bayard at 
 length succeeded in bringing the militiamen to 
 a military formation and, after keeping the 
 formation for some time and no enemy's ships 
 appearing, he ordered to work the half company 
 whose turn it was to labor on the fortification 
 and dismissed the others. He inquired why the 
 men of Captain Minvielle's company, whose 
 turn it was for duty, had mustered in full 
 strength instead of half the company and, 
 Bartholomew Le Roux, stepj^ing from the ranks, 
 replied that it was related in the city that " Pa- 
 pists " on Staten Island threatened to cut the in- 
 habitants' throats, that the people had fled to the 
 woods or had taken their families on boats, and 
 that the " Papists " had threatened to burn New 
 York, that Mr. De la Prearie had arms for fifty 
 men in his house. Le Roux further asserted that 
 he had positive information that eighty to one 
 hundred men were coming from Boston and 
 other places, " hunted away, no doubt, for their 
 
132 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 goodness." Several of them were Irish " Pa- 
 pists," and the Governor designed to take them 
 into the fort, which would not be permitted. 
 
 " A good part of the soldiers now in the fort," 
 continued the spokesman of the malcontents, 
 " are Papists, and we think it not secure to be so 
 guarded, and if half a company of the ten or 
 twelve of our men should be permitted to guard, 
 it would not be safe with the fort so weak. This 
 very day there was a complaint that Colonel 
 Dongan's brigantine, fitted out with a consider- 
 able quantity of guns and ammunition, water 
 and provisions, her whole loading no other than 
 if she was designed for some warlike purpose, 
 was suffered to depart the port without inter- 
 ruption, and these reasons oblige us to come 
 with the whole company to secure ourselves as 
 best we can against the fears that are put upon 
 us." 
 
 Colonel Bayard, addressing the company, re- 
 plied : 
 
 "As to the matter of Staten Island it is false, 
 for I have spoken with a boatman who came 
 from Staten Island, and he informed me that 
 all was peace and quiet on the island. As for 
 Monsieur La Prearie, if you find more than two 
 guns in his house I will give you £20, and if you 
 are afraid you shall go to-night and see, if you 
 will, and I'll lend you my boat. As for Colonel 
 Dongan's barkentine, I've been aboard her my- 
 self and saw she was loaded with pipe staves and 
 flour and designed for the INIadeiras. As for the 
 guns on the vessel, the captain told me they were 
 for security against the Turks, and that if I 
 would give security to redeem him and his crew 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 133 
 
 from captivity, if they were taken, he would 
 leave the guns behind. Such security might cost 
 me £3,000 to £4,000 if such a thing should fall 
 out, and I would not venture it. The guns are 
 his own, and I would take no man's goods by 
 force; besides, the captain swears that if any 
 board him he will cut them over the pate or knock 
 their brains out. As for the other reasons, the 
 Governor is an honest man, the Papists are few 
 and insignificant, and you are unwise to fear 
 them." 
 
 The colonel's words were without avail and, 
 instigated by Lieutenants Stoll and Churcher, 
 the militiamen surged through the sally-port of 
 the fort, most of their officers reluctantly follow- 
 ing them. Captain Gabriel Minvielle was so 
 disgusted with the proceedings that he resigned 
 his commission. Within the fort the mutinous 
 soldiery disarmed the few Catholics in the 
 garrison and drew up an address to William and 
 Mary, setting forth that the fort was held for 
 their Dutch Majesties pending the arrival of a 
 ship bearing instructions for the government of 
 the province. " Our late Governor, Sir Ed- 
 mund Andros," recited the address, " executing 
 a most arbitrary commission procured from the 
 late King, most in command over us being bit- 
 ter Papists; our Lieutenant-Governor, Captain 
 Nicholson, although a pretended Protestant, yet 
 contrary both to his promises and pretences, 
 countenancing the popish party, denying to ex- 
 clude both officers in the custom house and soul- 
 diers in the fort, being most Papists, contrary to 
 the known laws of England. . . ." 
 
 A sloop from Barbadoes for New York was 
 
134 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 hailed from a wherry off Coney Island, June 3d, 
 and six men armed with muskets, forming the 
 crew of the wherry, boarded the sloop and took 
 the vessel up to the water gate of the fort. 
 Lieutenant William Churcher and a file of 
 militiamen took John Dishington, master of the 
 sloop, into custody and conducted him into the 
 presence of Jacob Leisler. Dishington handed 
 to Leisler several papers and copies of the 
 London Gazette, containing the Prince of 
 Orange's proclamation, which were intended for 
 Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson. That night 
 Captain Charles Lodwick entertained a circle of 
 cronies in the tap-room of Ned Buckmaster's 
 tavern, reading to them the contents of 
 Nicholson's newspapers. The same day Nicholas 
 Gerry and Nicholas Delaplaine were conducted 
 to the presence of Leisler for examination. 
 
 Two days later Philip French, a well-to-do 
 merchant, who had just returned from England 
 by way of Boston, was approaching the city on 
 horseback. About a mile beyond the wall he was 
 halted by a sergeant and musketeer. 
 
 " Whence come you? " demanded the sergeant. 
 
 " From Boston," answered French. 
 
 " Then stand! " ordered the sergeant. 
 
 "Why must I stand?" 
 
 " You must stand because it is our order," 
 commanded the sergeant, raising his halberd. 
 " D — n you, do not speak one word more or I'll 
 kill you!" 
 
 " Why do you take me," asked French. 
 
 " We heard that you were coming and were 
 ordered to take you to the fort." 
 
 In custody of the two soldiers French pro- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 135 
 
 ceeded towards the city and stopped at Merritt's 
 house to change horses and refresh himself. 
 After warning him to hold no conversation with 
 the inmates of the house, the soldiers waited for 
 him without. 
 
 "What if I had come another way into 
 town? " inquired French of his captors when 
 the journey cityward had been resumed. 
 
 " You couldn't have come into town any other 
 way without being taken, because there are sen- 
 tries out all over." 
 
 There was a crowd in front of the fort and 
 musket and halberd were brought into play to 
 secure an entrance. Leisler and Lodwick ap- 
 peared and subjected Mr. French to a searching 
 examination concerning the state of affairs in 
 England. 
 
 " Give me the key of your portmanteau," de- 
 manded Lodwick. 
 
 French produced the key and opened his port- 
 manteau. Its contents were dragged forth and 
 two letters, one addressed to Abraham De 
 Peyster, the other to Major Anthony BrocklioUs, 
 were found. 
 
 " Swear him whether he hath not left any 
 letters behind," suggested some of the people. 
 
 " Who is here dare tender me an oath? " de- 
 manded French. He was shortly afterward 
 liberated. 
 
 Nicholson's efforts to pacify the people failed, 
 and, despairing of regaining control of the gov- 
 ernment, he decided to sail for England in 
 company with the Reverend Alexander Innes, 
 late Anglican chaplain in the fort, who had been 
 denounced as a " Papist," to report the condition 
 
136 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 of affairs to the home government. On apply- 
 ing to the various ship captains in port, they 
 learned that feeling was so bitter against them 
 that the captains refused to accept them as 
 passengers. Nicholson appointed Royal Coun- 
 cilors Phillipse, Van Cortlandt and Bayard to 
 represent him and preserve the peace. On June 
 10th, Nicholson instructed Collector Plowman 
 to observe his commission and instructions con- 
 cerning the collection of revenue, and asked 
 Mayor Van Cortlandt to assist him. He caused 
 careful statements to be made of all recent 
 happenings within the province, and shortly 
 afterward went down to Captain Bowne's house 
 at Monmouth. He arrived there just as Don- 
 gan's brigantine dropped anchor. Dongan had 
 sailed for England, but a violent attack of sea- 
 sickness had decided him to return and remain 
 in America for a time. Nicholson purchased a 
 third interest in the vessel, unloaded the cargo, 
 put in twenty-five tons of logwood, and sailed 
 for England June 24th. 
 
 The denunciations of Mayor Van Cortlandt 
 and Colonel Bayard as " Papists " became so 
 general that the Reverend Henricus Selyns and 
 the elders of the Dutch Reformed Church issued 
 a certificate vouching for their staunch Prot- 
 estantism. In compliance with Nicholson's in- 
 structions to Collector Plowman, the customs 
 officers M^ere preparing to board a vessel just 
 arrived from the Barbadoes, June 12th, where- 
 upon a file of soldiers from the fort appeared on 
 the scene and threatened to fire on them if they 
 did not desist. The violence inseparable from 
 such uprisings manifested itself on the same day. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 137 
 
 INIilitiamen, who from lack of sympathy for the 
 overthrow of the government, failed to report 
 for duty, were fined and distrained. Liquor was 
 taken from Tudor Kinsland's warehouse, the 
 house of John Crooke and Ned Buckmaster's 
 tavern. Richard Jones' hovise was robbed by 
 Leislerites, who came to distrain. Major Nathan 
 Gold, with whom Leisler had been in corre- 
 spondence, and Captain James Fitch, sent by 
 Connecticut to advise the New Yorkers, arrived 
 in the province on the 13th, and Van Cortlandt 
 and Bayard, having been advised of their coming, 
 hurried out to Colonel Morris's house on the 
 Boston Road to meet them, but the visitors went 
 direct to the fort. They handed to Leisler a 
 letter from John Allyn, Secretary of Con- 
 necticut, from which the following is an extract: 
 
 " Gent"' considering what you have don, we 
 doe aduise that you Keep the forte tenable and 
 well manned for the defence of the Protestant 
 religion . . . and that you suffer no Ro- 
 man Catholicke to enter the same, armed or with- 
 out amies, and that no Romish Catholick be suf- 
 fered to Keep armes w^^in that government or 
 Citty " 
 
 Major Anthony Brockholls and Ensign Brad- 
 ford arrived by sloop from Boston on the 14th, 
 and were taken into custody and escorted to the 
 fort. Lieutenant William Churcher warning 
 them not to speak to anyone. On the 21st they 
 were liberated and sailed for Monmouth to con- 
 fer with Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson. The 
 next day the house of Anthony Farmer was 
 surrounded by a mob of soldiers with drawn 
 swords who shouted, "Popish dog and traitor! 
 
138 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 You are one of Bayard's crew, that Popish dog 
 and traitor. Come out, we'll open your heart." 
 
 Leisler had obtained from Gold and Fitch a 
 copy of a newspaper containing a proclamation 
 of the accession of William and Mary as King 
 and Queen of England. On the 22nd, at noon, 
 William and Mary were proclaimed at the fort 
 to the roll of drums. Mayor Van Cortlandt and 
 the royal councilors called on the Connecticut 
 delegates and asked them for a copy of the 
 proclamation, that it might be proclaimed at the 
 City Hall, but they were told that Gold and 
 Fitch had come " to the persons who had the fort 
 in custody." An appointment was made between 
 the parties for a conference at the mayor's 
 house in the afternoon, and at the hour named 
 Leisler, his captains and the Connecticut men, 
 with an escort of halberdiers, marched to Van 
 Cortlandt's home in Brouwer Street. 
 
 " Will you proclaim the King and Queen? " 
 demanded Leisler. 
 
 " It's done already," replied the Mayor. 
 
 " If you won't do it I will, at the Town Hall," 
 said Leisler. 
 
 " You can do what you please," retorted Van 
 Cortlandt. 
 
 There was an uproar on the instant. 
 
 "He's a traitor! He's a Papist! He's Po- 
 pishly affected!" were some of the epithets 
 hurled at the city's chief magistrate. Gold and 
 Fitch interfered and sought to calm the tumult. 
 They asked the Mayor to accompany them to the 
 City Hall, where they would proclaim their 
 majesties. The Mayor asked for time to con- 
 sult the aldermen. One hour was granted him. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 139 
 
 The aldermen consented to attend tlie function, 
 and the officers of the corporation were at the 
 City Hall at the hour appointed. Leisler had 
 marched into the yard at the head of De Bruyn's, 
 Lodwick's and De Peyster's companies of 
 militia. He demanded that the INIayor read the 
 proclamation. 
 
 " He that read it before the fort can read it 
 here; I have no clerk," said Van Cortlandt. 
 
 In a rage Leisler turned to the crowd that 
 filled the ojien space in front of the building and 
 shouted : 
 
 "If it was to set up a tyrannical King or a 
 Prince of Wales he would do it. You're a trai- 
 tor! A Papist! " he roared, facing the Mayor. 
 
 A babel of hoots, groans and insults arose from 
 the crowd. 
 
 "Take hold of the rogue! Papist! Traitor!" 
 shouted the multitude. 
 
 " He tells a false untruth," cried Van Cort- 
 landt. " I do not hinder the reading or pro- 
 claiming of their INIajesties." Leisler's scheme 
 of putting the JVIayor in a false position had 
 succeeded, and satisfied with his work he read 
 the proclamation. When the usual ruffle of the 
 drums and cheers of the crowd had ceased. Gold 
 and Fitch, in an evident attempt to bring about 
 a better state of feeling, linked arms with the 
 Mayor and, despite his protests, insisted that he 
 accompany the party to the fort to toast their 
 Majesties. He allowed himself, unwillingly, 
 to be persuaded. The sheriff and a little group 
 of his friends accompanied him. After the 
 King's health had been drunk a hot quarrel 
 broke out, in which the sheriff was disarmed and 
 
140 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 roughly handled and the party, including the 
 JNIayor, was hustled from the fort. Outside, the 
 inevitable crowd of loungers hooted and jeered 
 them. Late that afternoon a slight fire was dis- 
 covered in the turret of the church in the fort, 
 under which the powder was stored. It was 
 quickly extinguished, but afforded Leisler an 
 opportunity to proclaim it a " Papistical design," 
 thus adding fuel to the bigoted frenzy. His 
 recognition by the Connecticut government, and 
 success in proclaiming William and Mary, had 
 inspired Leisler with courage and strengthened 
 him in his position, facts that are evidenced by 
 his constantly increasing assurance and aggres- 
 siveness. The day following the publication of 
 the proclamation Philip French and a party of 
 merchants were discussing public affairs on the 
 bridge. Leisler and his cronies came up to them 
 and Leisler threatened to cane French. 
 
 " You're a Popish dog and devil," he said to 
 French. " You and forty Popish more caballed 
 j^esterday at Bayard's house. Before the week's 
 end I'll secure you all." JNIayor Van Cortlandt 
 obtained a copy of the King's proclamation of 
 February 14th, which contained a clause con- 
 tinuing " all Protestants in office," and unaware 
 that a proclamation had been issued five days 
 later confirming all persons in their offices in the 
 colony, the INIayor published the earlier procla- 
 mation at the City Hall on the 24th. This en- 
 raged Leisler, and he charged the royal council- 
 ors, good consistent officers or members of the 
 Dutch Reformed Church as they were, with be- 
 ingly " Popishly affected because they would not 
 recognize his authority." 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 141 
 
 At a meeting of the royal councilors, the 
 mayor, aldermen and conmion council, held on 
 the following day. Collector Matthew Plowman 
 was summoned and, being a Catholic, was dis- 
 missed from his office. A board of four — Paulus 
 Richards, John Haynes, Thomas Wenham and 
 Colonel Nicholas Bayard, was appointed to su- 
 pervise and collect the King's revenues. They 
 took the oath of allegiance and supremacy, as 
 prescribed, to William and Mary, and notice of 
 the appointments was affixed to the door of the 
 little Custom House on the Water Side. That 
 afternoon the commissioners met in the building 
 to decide on some plan for managing customs 
 affairs. They had been in session about half an 
 hour when Leisler strutted in, accompanied by 
 Ensign Joost Stoll and eighteen or twenty 
 armed men of Captain Brown's company. 
 
 " By what power or authority do you sit 
 here?" demanded Leisler. 
 
 "By the only authority their Majesties King 
 William and Queen Mary have in this govern- 
 ment, which you can see by the order fixed on 
 the door," was the reply. 
 
 Leisler went to the door, read the order and 
 said: 
 
 " The members of the council, mayor, alder- 
 men and common council have no power or au- 
 thority; they and you are all rogues, rascals 
 and devils; you've created yourselves and you, 
 Bayard, are Popishly affected, and you endeav- 
 ored not above eight days past with two hundred 
 men to retake the fort, and I challenge you to 
 do it yet. Have you taken the oaths to their 
 Majesties King William and Queen Mary? " 
 
142 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 " We know not of any authority you have," 
 retorted Colonel Bayard; "if you have any it 
 would be well to produce it, and though we are 
 not bound to give you any account, yet we'll tell 
 you that we have taken the oaths of allegiance 
 and supremacy to their Majesties King William 
 and Queen Mary, and you do very ill and are 
 likely to answer before his Majesty for disturb- 
 ing the peace of his Majesty's loyal subjects. 
 Item, for endeavoring to subject his Majesty's 
 government and for destroying the revenue by 
 law established; but, since we see the sword 
 rules, if you command us to depart the Custom 
 House we will submit and forbear acting 
 further." 
 
 " No," replied Leisler, " I'll take a copy of 
 that pamphlet on the door, consider on it and see 
 what I have to do with such rogues and rascals." 
 
 With that he and his bodyguard departed. 
 Bayard noticed that the King's arms displayed 
 on the building bore the letter "J," and work- 
 men were summoned at once and replaced it with 
 the initial of King William. No further busi- 
 ness was transacted pending Leisler's answer. 
 Two hours later he returned, in a rage, cursing 
 and swearing: 
 
 "You devils! You villains, you rogues!" 
 he shouted. " You sat down under the arms of 
 James, that Popish tyrant! I'm sorry I didn't 
 see it; if I had I'd have run you all through with 
 the halberd." 
 
 " We had but just come to the Custom House 
 before you entered," said Mr. Wenliam, civilly, 
 " and we have not yet acted, save to alter the 
 letter in the King's arms. It's very strange that 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 143 
 
 you are so forward to kill us for no fault, and 
 you and your people permit to fly from the 
 fort's flagstaff and march under the colors of 
 the late King James, whose figures are to be seen 
 to this very day in your colors. I desire that you 
 desist from railing and cursing and be pleased 
 to argue the matter moderately and civilly." 
 
 This calm talk seemed to add fuel to Leisler's 
 rage. Grasping his cane he threatened to strike 
 Mr. Wenham and his associates, and in every 
 action endeavored to incite his followers, some 
 of whom were intoxicated, to open violence. 
 
 " That thing on the door," he roared, " is a 
 pamphlet, and a scrawl, made in a meeting like a 
 Quaker's meeting in a chimney corner. You 
 assumed power to create yourselves, and you're 
 all villains and rogues without authority." 
 
 " By what authority do you come here to 
 question the commissioners?" demanded Mr. 
 Wenham. 
 
 "By the authority of the choice of the people 
 of my company," replied Leisler. 
 
 " Where the King and his power and law are 
 in force no such choice and authority of the 
 people is of any force or virtue," said Mr. Wen- 
 ham. " Yet, since you come with swords and 
 staves and deny any civil government of his 
 Majesty here, we are still readj^ to submit if you 
 command us to depart." 
 
 The calmness of the commissioners exasperated 
 the Leisler people beyond control. As Mr. 
 Wenham ceased speaking Ensign Joost Stoll 
 sprang at him, seized his neckcloth and dragged 
 him into the street. Outside he was set upon by 
 a howling mob that had gathered, and was beaten 
 
144 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 and bruised. Three or four bystanders who 
 voiced their disapprobation of the riotous pro- 
 ceedings were hkewise attacked and beaten. 
 iThe other commissioners, fearing for their Mves, 
 endeavored to escape. As Colonel Bayard came 
 from the building he was confronted by Leisler, 
 who shouted: 
 
 " I'll be the death of you! I'll run you 
 through! I'll cudgel you with my cane! " En- 
 sign Stoll, with a dagger, lunged several times 
 at Bayard and cut his hat brim in two places. 
 The crowd surged forward and, in the confusion, 
 Bayard took refuge in the house of Peter De la 
 Noy, next door to the Custom House. Catching 
 sight of him as the door was closed behind him 
 the rabble, shouting "Treason! Treason! The 
 rogue will kill Captain Leisler! " crowded around 
 De la Noy's house, battering the door with their 
 firearms and threatening to storm and wreck 
 the building. To add to the uproar and con- 
 fusion, some of the drummers of the train bands 
 beat the alarm, and from all directions the people 
 hurried until the street was filled with the mob. 
 Fearing the crowd would storm the house. Bay- 
 ard escaped through the rear and reached a 
 place of safety. The other commissioners es- 
 caped without further injury. A gun shot at 
 Colonel Bayard's slave while he was at work in 
 the Colonel's garden and the threats of Leisler 
 and his adherents to have Bayard dead or alive, 
 with warnings of an intention to plunder his 
 house, induced the Colonel to fly to Albany 
 June 28th. Leisler, having routed his foes from 
 the Custom House and thus gained control of 
 the collection of revenues, appointed Peter De 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 145 
 
 la Noy and George Brewster his commissioners. 
 
 Conscious of the necessity for some semblance 
 of authority for his usurpation, Leisler issued a 
 call to the counties and towns of the province to 
 send two delegates to a convention to be held in 
 New York city June 26th. Suffolk, Albany 
 and Ulster counties ignored the summons. Suf- 
 folk County petitioned Connecticut to take the 
 county under her jurisdiction because the people 
 "distrusted the purity of his (Leisler's) mo- 
 tives." Not a third of the inhabitants of the 
 province voted. There were twelve delegates 
 present at the opening of the convention, two of 
 them withdrawing on learning that the main 
 purpose of the meeting was to set up Leisler as 
 Commander-in-Chief. The remainder organized 
 themselves into a " Committee of Safety," and 
 signed a commission appointing Leisler: " Cap- 
 tain of the fort at New York." Leisler's 
 enemies asserted that this document was signed 
 under duress of a threat from Leisler that if it 
 was not signed " he would depart the place in 
 one of his vessels and turned privateering." 
 
 By authority of this commission he seized the 
 public funds, cleared vessels and organized, 
 later, a company of soldiers, to which Connecticut 
 contributed ten men and two cannon. All 
 Catholics were disarmed, and everyone who re- 
 fused to recognize Leisler's authority was 
 denounced as a " Papist." The fort's name was 
 changed from James to AVilliam. Before de- 
 parting for home the Connecticut delegates 
 gave out the following advice: " That no papist 
 be suffered to come into ye fort; let not ye warn- 
 ing given that day ye Ma*^*^* was proclaimed, be 
 
146 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 soon forgotten by you, wherein ye terretts in 
 ye fort was fyred in three places, under which 
 roufe lay yor ammunition, soe hellishly wicked 
 and cruell a papisticall design to have destroyed 
 you & us and ye fort & towne it made our flesh 
 to tremble. High praise unto Almighty God 
 that you & we, fort & city, were preserved." A 
 detail of eighteen men sent by night to subjugate 
 " Papist " infested Staten Island and seize all 
 arms found therein, returned with four guns, 
 unearthed in a millhouse on Colonel Dongan's 
 Castleton estate. Leisler set to work with vigor 
 repairing the fort, enlisting even the children by 
 engaging them to gather stones for use in the 
 works. To procure stones for the fortifications, 
 Leisler's soldiers, with colors flying and drums 
 beating, marched up Broadway with the intention 
 of pulling down a stone pigeon house in Colonel 
 Dongan's garden, but were prevailed upon to 
 desist by an ofl'er of fifty cartloads of stone. 
 They also proposed pulling down the wall and 
 stairs of James Graham's house, but were bought 
 off with thirtj^-six cartloads more. 
 
 The Mayor's Court was to convene July 2nd, 
 but Leisler sent word to Paulus Richards that 
 if the court sat the people would haul the magis- 
 trates by the legs from the City Hall. The city 
 fathers deemed it advisable to adjourn for a 
 month. On July 10th, Leisler wrote to William 
 Jones, of New Haven: "I hope before two 
 days to one end to have some papists disarmed 
 & also those Idolls destroyed which we heare are 
 dailly still worshipped." 
 
 Of the Jesuits who came to New York during 
 Governor Dongan's administration, Father 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 147 
 
 Henry Harrison seems to have been in the prov- 
 ince during 1685; Father Charles Gage during 
 1686-7; while Father Harvey, "John Smith," 
 who, it will be recalled, came to New York with 
 Dongan, was at his post of duty when the gov- 
 ernment was overthrown. The allusion in 
 Leisler's letter would indicate that Father Har- 
 vey had saved the sacred vessels of the altar, and 
 it is known that he found an asylum and hiding 
 place for some time in the house of William Pin- 
 horne on Broadway. For this act of charitable 
 hospitality Judge Pinhorne, who occupied many 
 important offices during his career both in New 
 York and East Jersey, was taunted in after years. 
 Word reached Leisler August 2nd that Sir 
 Edmund Andros had escaped from his Boston 
 prison and that Dongan, who was in New 
 London, had gone to meet him. Leisler feared 
 a " bad design " and Major Patrick Mac Greg- 
 orie, a Scotchman, who had been loaded with 
 favors by Dongan, offered his services to Leisler 
 to go with a guard and bring his late patron a 
 prisoner to New York. Andros was recaptured 
 and imprisoned in Boston. Ensign George 
 Russell and James Larkin, the latter of whom 
 had been in charge of the Custom House and 
 granary under Governor Dongan, both Catho- 
 lics, met in New York and drank the health of 
 King James, Larkin asserting that King James 
 was in Ireland and that Protestant, Scotch and 
 Irish, had joined his army. They were seen and 
 overheard. Russell escaped, but Larkin was 
 arrested and arranged before Leisler's Council 
 of War. He was paroled on his pledge of good 
 behavior. 
 
148 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Captain George McKenzie, one of the pro- 
 prietors of East Jersey, bearing letters from 
 Albany to Nicholson's friends in New York, and 
 aware of the overthrow of the government, 
 landed from a sloop at night near the water 
 mills, west of the fort. He succeeded thereby 
 in saving his letters, but was arrested two days 
 later and subjected to an examination by Leisler 
 and two of his counselors in the fort. Leisler 
 handed him a letter and asked if it was his hand- 
 writing. McKenzie admitted that it was. The 
 letter was from McKenzie in reply to one from 
 Colonel Andrew Hamilton, Deputy Governor of 
 Pennsylvania, in which Hamilton, whose wife 
 was ill, asked if it would be safe to take her to 
 New York for medical treatment. In his reply 
 McKenzie wrote that Leisler had threatened to 
 send a company of militia to take Hamilton a 
 prisoner to New York in retaliation for Ham- 
 ilton's having arrested and examined a detach- 
 ment sent by Leisler to Jersey. McKenzie 
 wrote : " I would not advise you to come up 
 nor do I think it convenient to ask Mr. Leisler's 
 leave, for by that means you will seem to confess 
 yourself in fault, and if he should grant leave I 
 would not advise you to take his word, for I 
 should not take it in a thing of less moment. . . ." 
 After reading it Leisler said to McKenzie: 
 
 " I wonder what wrong I have done you that 
 you should wTite so of me to wrong my credit. 
 If I knew I had done you any wrong I would 
 ask pardon for it on my knees." 
 
 " If I did you any wrong," replied McKenzie, 
 " I would beg yours. I was provoked first by 
 you calling me a Papist, for so I was told." 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 149 
 
 " That's a very great lie," responded Leisler. 
 After a pause he continued, frowning darkly, 
 " I know you are Popishly affected." 
 
 " That's not true," retorted McKenzie. " I 
 am as much a Protestant as you or any man in 
 the country." 
 
 " Why," said Leisler, " didn't I hear you call 
 Father Smith [Reverend Thomas Harvey, S. J.] 
 a very good man? " 
 
 " Yes," answered JNIcKenzie, " and so I do 
 still. He is a very good-humored man, but I 
 never called him so because he was a Papist, and 
 I was so far from having any friendship for his 
 principles that in all the six years I have known 
 New York I never, so much as out of curiosity, 
 looked into their chapel." 
 
 " You kept with Doctor Innes [the Church 
 of England chaplain in the fort]. "You went 
 to hear him and prayed with him ; he is a Papist," 
 said Leisler. 
 
 " That's not true," retorted McKenzie. 
 
 " I have one who swears it." 
 
 " I will not believe it if ten of them swear it." 
 There were many more questions and answers, 
 assertions by Leisler, contradictions and denials 
 by JNIcKenzie. At length Leisler said ; 
 
 " You may call me what you please. I will 
 pray God to bless you." 
 
 " I will pray God to bless you," responded 
 JNIcKenzie, who quaintly adds : " In which holy 
 sort of compliment we continued a pretty while 
 until I was civilly dismissed." 
 
 Concerning the condition of affairs in New 
 York at this time, JNIatthew Plowman wrote Lord 
 Halifax : " Ye Siville powar thay doe what tay 
 
150 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 please with & foe for his Ma*^^^ revenues in 
 Generall absolutely deny pay* and noe remedy 
 but worse and worse." 
 
 The fort's dungeons were filling up. On the 
 14th, Thomas Clark, a merchant, was taken from 
 a bed of sickness by an armed posse, without a 
 warrant, charged by Leisler with saying: " The 
 next time the drums beat an alarm he could raise 
 four hundred men." Two days later William 
 Merritt, Jacob De Key, Brandt Schuyler, Philip 
 French, Robert Allison, William Merritt, Ed- 
 ward Buckmaster, and Derick Vanderburgh, 
 most of them persons prominent in the com- 
 munity, were violently taken to the fort and 
 committed to the dungeons. The following day 
 John Tuder, who had a quarrel with Lieutenant 
 Henry Cuyler on the streets, joined the others 
 in the fort's dungeons. 
 
 Perry, the postman, accompanied by three 
 students and two attendants from the school at 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, crossed the river on 
 the Brooklyn ferryboat on August 16th. When 
 the boat touched the New York shore a detach- 
 ment of Leislerites promptly arrested the New 
 Englanders and denounced them as " Papists." 
 Their letters were seized and read. The fort's 
 drummer sounded the alarm and more than five 
 hundred of Leisler's army assembled: " courage- 
 ously in arms." The students, having given a 
 satisfactory account of themselves, were released. 
 This dire danger to the " Protestant cause " was 
 seized upon as a pretext by the " Committee of 
 Safety " to make Leisler Commander-in-Chief. 
 Ensign Joost Stoll and ]\Iatthew Clarkson sailed 
 for London on the " Bordeaux " packet the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 151 
 
 20th, bearing letters from Leisler to William 
 and JNIary, notifying them that Leisler had been 
 chosen captain of the fort, but concealing his 
 having been commissioned " Commander-in- 
 Chief of the Province." 
 
 Jacob JNIilborne, a former resident of New 
 York, brother of a prominent Anabaptist min- 
 ister of Boston, a quarrelsome, litigious person, 
 formerly a business partner of Anthony Brock- 
 hoUs, arrived from Europe on the 25th, and at 
 once espoused the cause of his old friend Leisler. 
 
 " In the middle of INIay last," said Milborne, 
 " I was in England, where all things were settled 
 by the common voice of the people in peace, 
 under King William, who was an elective King 
 and had submitted his regal power wholly to the 
 people, so that it was now become a maxim ' vOiV 
 popiili, est vox dei, and the King was only a 
 servant of his people." On hearing this the 
 Leislerians were greatly heartened and argued 
 that they had as much warrant for what they had 
 done in New York as had the Prince of Orange 
 for his acts in England. 
 
 There were warlike demonstrations among the 
 Indians on the Northern borders, and, Sep- 
 tember 4th, an express from Albany arrived at 
 the fort asking for men, money and ammunition. 
 The Albanians, having refused to recognize 
 Leisler's authority, he declined to aid them and 
 requested the messenger to notify them to send 
 two delegates to his " Committee of Safety." On 
 the 20th, the Albanians not having responded to 
 his request, he sent three sloops full of armed 
 men, under command of Jacob Milborne, to re- 
 duce the city. The attempt failed. 
 
152 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Leisler, on the 28th, wrote to the Maryland 
 Assembly that some Maryland " Papist gran- 
 dees " were supposed to be in the vicinity of New 
 York seeking an interview with Colonel Dongan, 
 who had been in Rhode Island, but " is now in 
 these parts again, he hes ranged all the country & 
 is mett daily by severall where it ma}^ be also they 
 may come, I shall omit nothing if I heare of them 
 to secure them. . . ." Despite the procla- 
 mation of William continuing all colonial officials 
 in their places, Leisler ordered the counties to 
 elect civil and military officers. Most of the 
 counties ignored the order; in others, few but 
 Leislerians voted. In Leisler's home ward con- 
 siderable disorder prevailed. Leisler's son-in-law, 
 Robert Walters, was a candidate for alderman. 
 Leisler entered the polling place and challenged 
 Major Anthony Brockholls's vote, although he 
 was a considerable freeholder in the ward, on the 
 ground of his being a " Papist." 
 
 When Leisler voted he said : 
 
 " I vote for my son-in-law Walters, my son 
 Jacob votes for his brother-in-law Walters, and 
 my son Walters votes for himself. That's 
 three, put them down." 
 
 Walters was declared elected. 
 
 Early in October Leisler ordered a municipal 
 election for Mayor and Sheriff in violation of 
 the charter, which provided for the appointment 
 of these officials by the Governor and council. 
 Protestant freeholders only were permitted to 
 vote, and not more than eighty availed themselves 
 of the privilege. Peter De la Noy was declared 
 elected Mayor and Johannes Johnson Sheriff. 
 Leisler's persecution of Mayor Van Cortlandt 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 153 
 
 became so unendurable that, fearing for his life, 
 he left the city. A detail of soldiers went to his 
 house on Brouwer Straat, demanded the muni- 
 cipal records and seal and insulted Mrs. Van 
 Cortlandt. 
 
 The Connecticut authorities had evidently con- 
 cluded that ]Mr. Leisler was not a desirable ally, 
 because, October 10th, Secretary Allyn wrote, 
 calling home the Connecticut soldiers loaned for 
 the defense of Fort William. 
 
 One of the many informers with which the 
 city was infested, whispered to Leisler that there 
 were many people entering and leaving the house 
 of a certain Catholic. Leisler, sure that he had 
 run to earth " the Papist grandees " from Mary- 
 land, sent a company of soldiers, who broke into 
 the house at night, but found no one except the 
 householder and his family. He was disarmed, 
 arrested, dragged to the fort and subjected to 
 one of the cross examinations of which the 
 Captain was so fond. Tidings had reached Bay- 
 ard in his retirement that his son was very ill in 
 New York. His paternal feelings prompted 
 him to return home, and he wrote to the justices 
 of the peace volunteering to answer any charge 
 that might be brought against him. The 
 magistrates replied: " The sword now rules in 
 the city," and they were powerless to protect him 
 against Leisler. He wrote to his former regi- 
 mental officers protesting against Leisler. The 
 letter was handed to Leisler, and to neutralize its 
 effect he gathered his adherents from the city. 
 Kings and Bergen (N. J.) counties in the fort 
 and assured them that Lieutenant-Governor 
 Nicholson was a "Popish dog," that he had be- 
 
154 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 come a privateer, and would never show his face 
 in London again. He further assured them that 
 he had discovered a plot concocted by Bayard 
 to take the fort with three hundred men. Fol- 
 lowing these revelations the assemblage renewed 
 their fealty to the " Committee of Safety " and 
 the " Commander-in-Chief." 
 
 At this time Colonel Dongan, who was living 
 quietly on his farm in Hempstead, was charged 
 with " holding cabals at his house and other 
 places adjacent, to make an attempt on the fort." 
 Subservient tools of Leisler's were put in the 
 places of officials opposed to him. Domiciliary 
 visits were made everywhere in the hope of 
 capturing Bayard and Van Cortlandt, not even 
 Dominie Selyn's parsonage being exempted. 
 
 November 4th and 5th were gala days. On 
 the 4th, the anniversary of King William's land- 
 ing at Torbay, the sky was crimson with huge 
 bonfires, and a great barbecue was held on the 
 parade. The following day was Guy Fawkes' 
 day, and again the bonfires lighted up the city, 
 while the mob dragged through the streets an 
 effigy of the Pope. Leisler's ambassadors to 
 Whitehall, Ensign Joost Stoll and Matthew 
 Clarkson, were not well received at court, owing 
 to the presence of Lieutenant-Governor Nichol- 
 son, and the Reverend Alexander Innes, al- 
 though Clarkson was appointed Secretary of 
 New York. 
 
 November 9th, John Riggs, a messenger from 
 England, arrived in New York. He was met by 
 a squad of soldiers and hurried to the fort. The 
 Royal Councilors Phillipse and Van Cortlandt, 
 surmising that Riggs bore instructions from 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 155 
 
 London, presented themselves at the fort. Riggs 
 had a packet addressed to Lieutenant-Governor 
 Nicholson or in his absence " to such as for ye 
 time being take care for ye preservation of the 
 peace, etc." The court and Nicholson expected 
 that the packet would be delivered to the royal 
 councilors, to whom the latter had confided the 
 government. Leisler peremptorily demanded 
 the packet, Phillipse and Van Cortlandt also de- 
 manding it. Leisler became possessed of it and 
 drove the royal councilors from the fort, de- 
 nouncing them as " Popishly affected dogs and 
 rogues." The King's letter was shown only to 
 Leister's adherents. On the following day he 
 assumed the title of Lieutenant-Governor of 
 New York and caused William and Mary to be 
 proclaimed anew. His possession of the King's 
 letter emboldened Leisler, and thenceforth he 
 became more despotic and overbearing. He sent 
 a detail of seven soldiers to Elizabethport, which 
 seized fifty barrels of beef and pork belonging to 
 JMatthew Plowman on the pretext that Plowman 
 was indebted to the government and was an ab- 
 sconder. Plowman, in defending his property, 
 assaulted a justice of the peace, and for this 
 " rioutous " conduct and " other scurillous and 
 contemptous expressions against the King's 
 magistrates " a warrant was issued for his arrest. 
 His beef and pork were shipped to Albany to 
 feed the men of Leisler's expedition. Plowman 
 secured the names of the foragers and in quieter 
 times sued them individually in the Richmond 
 County Court of Sessions for the value of his 
 merchandise. 
 
 Leisler had frequently denounced the act of 
 
156 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 the assembly fixing the customs and excise 
 duties, passed in 1683, as null and void, notwith- 
 standing which he, on December 16th, ordered 
 that they remain in force and that the duties be 
 collected, and he caused a copy of his procla- 
 mation to that effect to be affixed to the door of 
 the custom house. The people protested ve- 
 hemently against this edict, and during the night 
 it was torn down and a paper left in its place, de- 
 nouncing the proposed collection of duties as 
 illegal. Leisler thereupon posted another procla- 
 mation forbidding any one to deface or disturb 
 the pronunciamentos " affixed by authority." 
 Two boys, Jacob DeKey and Cornelius Depuy- 
 ster, and a slave of Philip French's were arrested, 
 charged wdth tearing down the orders, and were 
 confineid in the fort. Philip French publicly 
 protested against the arrest of his slave, and a 
 sergeant and detail of six musketeers seized him 
 by the arms and legs and carried him to the fort. 
 He retained two eminent attorneys, John Tuder, 
 and James Emmott, but a writ of habeas corpus 
 obtained by them was ignored by Leisler, and 
 French obtained his liberty on January 12th by 
 petitioning Leisler as " Lieutenant-Governor " 
 to liberate him, in addition to giving a bond of 
 £500 for future good behavior. Leisler ap- 
 pointed Jacob Milborne, secretary of the province 
 and clerk of a council consisting of eight of his 
 chief adherents. On Sundays he occupied the 
 Governor's pew in the old Dutch Church " with 
 a large carpet before him," and his councilors 
 sat in the council's pew. He caused the proprie- 
 tory seal of the Duke of York to be remodeled 
 and adopted it, thus usurping a royal prerog- 
 ative. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 157 
 
 January, 1690, found him firmly intrenched in 
 power. He commissioned courts of Oyer and 
 Terminer and a Court of Exchequer to try those 
 charged with infractions of his customs and ex- 
 cise orders. Tidings reached the city from 
 Boston early in the month that King William 
 had ordered those in command in Massachusetts 
 to send Sir Edmund Andros, Secretary Ran- 
 dolph, and their associates in custody, to London. 
 Bayard, Van Cortlandt, Nicolls and others wrote 
 detailed accounts of the condition of affairs in 
 New York and sent them to Colonel Lewis 
 Morris to give to John Perry, the Boston post 
 rider. Fearing the effect of any revelations of 
 the condition of New York affairs in England, 
 Leisler announced that he had discovered a 
 "hellish conspiracy against the king's govern- 
 ment in New York," and sent Daniel Ternure 
 and a squad of men to arrest Perry; he was 
 taken into custody on the Boston Road shortly 
 after leaving the Morris house. He was hurried 
 to the fort, his mail pouch rifled, the letters read, 
 and he was locked in a cell. Because of the facts 
 set forth in the letters, warrants were at once 
 issued for Nicholas Bayard, Stephen Van 
 Cortlandt, Anthony Brockholls, Peter Morris, 
 William Nicolls and Robert Reed for " writing 
 execrable lies and i^ernicious falsehoods." " I 
 am invested with such power," boasted Leisler, 
 " that in a little time I can command the head 
 of any man in the province, and it will be forth- 
 with brought." In the afternoon of January 
 21st, Lieutenant William Churcher, a squad of 
 militiamen and a part}'^ of civilians, proceeded 
 from the fort to Bayard's house on High Street. 
 
158 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 The front door of the house was smashed in 
 with musket butts and the house was searched, 
 but Bayard had escaped to the house of Rich- 
 ard Elliott, a cooper, in the rear. Elliott's 
 house was forcibly entered. Bayard was seized 
 and dragged to the fort. Mayor Van Cortlandt's 
 house was broken into, but Van Cortlandt had 
 fled. That evening William Nicholls was ar- 
 rested at the Brooklyn ferry and taken to the 
 fort in company with the ferryman's wife who, 
 no doubt, had attempted to prevent his capture. 
 The distinguished prisoners were thrown into the 
 most noisome dungeons in the fort and Bayard, 
 loaded with chains, was seated in a chair and car- 
 ried around the ramparts, an object of derision 
 for the mob. Ill and dejected he begged Leisler 
 for freedom petitioning him as " Lieutenant- 
 Governor," but without result. Bail in any sum 
 was offered and refused and for thirteen months 
 Bayard and Nicholls remained in the fort's 
 dungeons. One of the crimes with which Bay- 
 ard was charged was his written allegation that 
 Leisler had offered one Matthias, a servant of 
 Sir Edmund Andros, four crowns and support 
 during his lifetime if he would swear that Sir 
 Edmund was a " Papist." 
 
 The city was amazed and horrified on February 
 15th on receipt of the news that a French war 
 party from Canada had surj^rised the village of 
 Schenectady, massacred most of the inhabitants 
 and destroyed the settlement. Leisler instantly 
 " made an alarm," charging Bayard and his 
 party with being the cause of the massacre. He 
 disarmed and imprisoned about forty officers who 
 held commissions from Andros and seized one 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 159 
 
 hundred and fifty commissions. Warrants were 
 issued for Dongan, Brockholls, Plowman, Colo- 
 nel Thomas Willett, Captain Thomas Hicks and 
 Van Cortlandt. The same day a general warrant 
 was issued : " Fearing too great a Correspond- 
 ency hath bean maintained between ye fFrensch & 
 disaffected P'sons amongst us," for all " reputed 
 Papists," those who despised or reflected against 
 " Lieutenant-Governor " Leisler, or who had 
 held commissions from Colonel Dongan or Sir 
 Edmund Andros. The warrant for Colonel 
 Dongan read: "These are in his Majesties 
 Name to will and require you to Secure ye Body 
 of Colonell Thomas Dogan w*^ a Safeguard 
 w*Mn his owne howse." Willett, Hicks, White- 
 head and Antill were to be taken to the fort. On 
 the twenty-first other warrants went out from 
 the fort for Dongan, Van Cortlandt, Brock- 
 holls and Plowman. Word of the issuance of 
 these warrants had reached Dongan at Hemp- 
 stead, and when the Leislerites reached the house 
 on the shore of Lake Success it was empty. 
 Dongan had passed over to New Jersey and 
 sailed thence for Boston " to be quiet." 
 
 The great man in the fort had not lost sight 
 of little matters at home while these great affairs 
 of state were in hand. Alderman Kip had been 
 imprisoned " for going in the church to old Mr. 
 Beekman to receive the Alms before he went to 
 young Henry the baker," one of Leisler's coun- 
 cil. The Albanians were still holding out against 
 the Leislerites, and John Allyn, Secretary of 
 Connecticut, wrote Leisler urging the use of 
 peaceable measures in dealing with the situation 
 in Albany. The " Governor and Council " of 
 
160 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 New York, in reply, wrote the Governor and 
 council of Connecticut, charging their ardent 
 anti-" Papist " friends of earlier days, Secretary 
 Allyn, the Governor and council of Connecticut, 
 with being " encouragers, abettors, aiders and 
 upholders " of the Albany rebellion and demand- 
 ing that Allyn should be secured for his " traitor- 
 ous offence " in having levied sums of money for 
 war purposes with Sir Edmund Andros in 1688. 
 
 Leisler wrote the unfrocked INIaryland min- 
 ister John Coode asking the assistance of Mary- 
 land and Virginia in an attack on Canada. An 
 expedition of one hundred and sixty men under 
 Milborne arrived at Albany, INIarch 20th, and 
 under pressure of necessity the city surrendered 
 to him. In March the Netherlands' West India 
 Company's ship " Prophet Elias," bound for 
 Holland from Cura9ao, put into New York for 
 repairs and provisions. Leisler took from her, 
 " on the King's account," five 12-pounder and 
 three 6-pounder guns. He wrote to one of his 
 friends, Bishop Burnet, of Salisbury, asking him 
 to arrange for payment. The post from Mary- 
 land, April 4th, brought a letter from John 
 Coode that contained news that confounded and 
 amazed Leisler. In it he was told that Nichol- 
 son, whom he had denounced but a short time 
 before as a " Papist " and pirate who would 
 never dare show his face in London again, had 
 been appointed by King William, Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Virginia. 
 
 An assembly, to which several of the counties 
 refused to send delegates, was convened in the 
 house of Leisler's son-in-law, Robert Walters, 
 April 24th. An act was passed providing for 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK IGl 
 
 raising three pence in every pound, real and per- 
 sonal, payable June 1st. It was further decreed, 
 as a sop to the Albanians, that all places in the 
 province should have the right to bolt, bake and 
 transport flour where they pleased, a monopoly 
 previously enjoyed, it will be recalled, by New 
 York city. Petitions for the release of the 
 twenty-two prisoners, crowded into the fort's 
 dungeons and for the relief of the people's griev- 
 ances poured in on the assembly and caused Leis- 
 ler to prorogue that body. 
 
 The first American Congress, made up of 
 delegates from the English Colonies, called to- 
 gether by Leisler, met in New York, May 1st, to 
 devise ways and means to make war on New 
 France. As a result of this meeting, Leisler 
 agreed with the other delegates to attack the 
 French possessions by land and sea. Commis- 
 sions w^ere issued to the captains of the ship 
 " Blessed William," brigantine " John and Cath- 
 erine," sloop " Resolution " and sloop " Royal 
 Albany," to proceed to join the fleet that was to 
 attack Quebec, and to take prizes, and to the 
 sloop " Edward " to cruise about Block Island 
 and the Sound. The imposition of the war tax 
 and Leisler's arbitrary government w^ere arous- 
 ing a spirit of opposition, and although the 
 drummers accompanied the recruiting officers 
 throughout the city, the efl'orts to find crews for 
 the little squadron met wdth slight success. Even 
 the promise of prize money failed to awaken in- 
 terest. It is said that Leisler's council consid- 
 ered a project to man the vessels by impressing 
 the principal anti-Leisler inhabitants, but the 
 scheme was abandoned. The crews were finally 
 
162 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 shipped, and May 26th the New York squadron 
 sailed to join the fleet. Ugly rumors reached the 
 city on May 19th, from the military contingent 
 in Albany. It was said that the New York sol- 
 diers did nothing but drink and that " the widow 
 Schuyler had beaten Jacob Milborne and that 
 Leisler's agents were forced to fly to Esopus." 
 
 Leisler quickly learned the truth of the old 
 adage that " troubles never come singly." There 
 was an important document drawn and signed 
 by some of the principal inhabitants, including 
 Dominie Varick, Pastor Peirret, five officers of 
 the Dutch Church, and three of the French 
 Church, appealing to William and Mary to 
 deliver the province from Leisler's rule. " To our 
 Great Greife," it read, " we find ourselves sorely 
 oppressed, having groaned neare twelve months 
 under the burthen of Slavery and arbitrary 
 Power executed over us by the inraged fury of 
 some ill men among us who have assumed your 
 Ma*y^ Authority over us, overturned all civill 
 power (notwithstanding your Ma*>'^ Proclama- 
 con for continuing all justices of the Peace &c) 
 ruling us by the sword at the sole Will of an 
 Insolent Alien (he being none of your Ma^J"^ 
 natural borne subject) assisted by some few 
 whom he can give no better name than a Rable, 
 those who formerly were scarce thought fit to 
 bear the meanest offices among us, Severall of 
 whom can also be proved guilty of enormous 
 crimes, by these your Ma^J'^ poor distressed and 
 almost ruined subjects are dayly opprest, being 
 dragged into Prison into your Ma*y^ Guarrison 
 here by Armed Soldiers and Irons put on us, 
 without any Warrant or Mittimus, and not only 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 163 
 
 bare imprisonment but shut up in dark noisome 
 Holes, denyed the accesse of our Friends or any 
 Rehef by the law seizing our estates without any 
 Tryall or Conviction plundering our Houses by 
 armed Soldiers pretending it is for your Ma*'^^ 
 Service Stopping all Processe by Law Seizing 
 and opening all our Letters which we either re- 
 ceave from or send to any Parts fearing least we 
 might make our case Knowne to j^our sacred 
 ]^/[g^ties -|-Q j-i^Q manifest ruin of our Trade Scandal- 
 lizing and abusing our Ministers and Rulers of 
 the Reformed Churches here seizing y^ Revenues 
 thereof so that our liberties are taken away our 
 Religion in great Danger our Estates ruined 
 sev^^ of the best and most considerable Inhab- 
 itants are forced to retire from their habitations 
 to avoid their fury to the utter ruin of their 
 Families." 
 
 Leisler had purchased, in 1689, for the Hugue- 
 nots, a tract of land in Westchester County now 
 known as New Rochelle. Notwithstanding the 
 friendly relations that had existed between Leis- 
 ler and the people of New Rochelle, no section of 
 the province more bitterly denounced the im- 
 position of the war tax. A delegation from New 
 Rochelle, headed by Captain Cottomaer of the 
 New Rochelle militia company, journeyed down 
 to the fort and had a heated interview with Leis- 
 ler. 
 
 " Orders have come to our town," said Cotto- 
 maer to Leisler, " to choose Collectors and Asses- 
 sors to levy a certain tax. We won't pay the tax. 
 It's arbitrary." 
 
 "The tax is made by order of the General 
 Assembly," replied Leisler, " and therefore not 
 
164 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 arbitrary and it is levied to carry on the war 
 against the French." 
 
 " It's an unnecessary war against the French," 
 responded Cottomaer, " if the French have made 
 some small outrage or skirmish above Albany it's 
 not worth while to make war therefor, at least it 
 doesn't concern our place." 
 
 It does concern the whole province and the tax 
 will be levied," said Leisler. 
 
 " We'll pay none," asserted Cottomaer, " the 
 King of England invited the French Protestants 
 to his Kingdom, promising them that their lives 
 would be sweet to them. The King promised in 
 a Declaration to maintain us if we should want, 
 and by the King's authority we demand assist- 
 ance because we are in want of it now." 
 
 "I have the executive power," announced Leis- 
 ler, " and I'll find a way to collect the tax." 
 
 " We'll oppose and resist its collection," re- 
 torted Cottomaer, " and those who come to 
 fetch it will find it bad enough." All of which 
 tends to indicate the spirit of revolt rife against 
 Leisler's authority. 
 
 Ensign Joost Stoll, Leisler's ambassador to 
 Whitehall, landed in the city INIay 20th. His 
 embassy had been a dismal failure and he had 
 been ignored at Court. The crowning blow was 
 his announcement that Colonel Henry Sloughter 
 had been appointed Governor of New York. 
 
 A sailor from England brought the tidings 
 that in Plymouth he had been told, by some skip- 
 pers and prisoners from France, that eight 
 stout French men-of-war were fitting out to take 
 New York and fortify it. Secretary Allyn 
 wrote, May 28th, to Leisler that half the troops 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 165 
 
 in Albany, destined for the invasion of Canada, 
 were sick with dysentery and fever. 
 
 The commissioned officers from the fort went 
 to the City Hall, June 6th, to proclaim from the 
 steps the orders of Leisler's council of war, held 
 the day before, ordering the people " to keep 
 strict watch and proceed with the fortification of 
 the city." A crowd of about fifty anti-Leisler- 
 ites assembled. Some of the people concluded 
 that the object of the reading was to announce 
 stringent measures to collect the war tax. They 
 shouted denunciations of the measure, swore they 
 would pay no tax, and demanded that the read- 
 ing cease until the prisoners had been released 
 from the fort's dungeons. One of the officers, 
 amid jeers, laughter, and general uproar, directed 
 the Clerk to proceed with his reading. 
 
 The High Constable commanded the Petty 
 Constable, Edward Buckmaster, to see that the 
 peace was preserved, but, instead of drawing 
 forth his official truncheon, " mine host " Buck- 
 master produced a club and lined up with the 
 malcontents. 
 
 "Read on!" commanded Sheriff Johannes 
 Johnson, whereupon Jeremy Tuthill seized En- 
 sign Abraham Brasher and attempted to pull him 
 off the steps. Brasher resisted and a scuffle en- 
 sued, in which Robert Allison and his cane played 
 a part. Others became involved, and the melee 
 was fast developing into a riot. John Smith 
 created a diversion by calling on the crowd to go 
 to the fort and demand the release of the prison- 
 ers. With three hearty cheers the mob moved 
 along Pearl Street, streamed across the bridge 
 and, turning into Whitehall Street, came face to 
 
166 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 face with — Mr. Jacob Leisler. A spokesman of 
 the crowd was about stating the object of their 
 coming, to demand the release of the prisoners, 
 when the conference was rudely interrupted by 
 the hurried approach of Leisler's son Jacob and 
 a party of his friends, all with swords drawn. 
 This was the signal for another outbreak. Leis- 
 ler was set upon and roughly handled. John 
 Crook, a cooper, lunged at him with an adze, but, 
 whirling his cane about him, Leisler struck in the 
 mouth two of his assailants who sought to pre- 
 vent him from drawing his sword. He succeeded 
 in clearing a space around him, drew his weapon, 
 and fell back in the direction of the rescue party. 
 Others, in the fort, attracted by the commotion, 
 hurried to the scene, and after a short struggle 
 carried twenty of the crowd into the fort to join 
 the prisoners already there. 
 
 The following day Leisler issued a proclama- 
 tion that all who would not sign a declaration of 
 fidelity to him as representative of King William 
 would be deemed enemies of his Majesty and the 
 country and treated accordingly. Dispatches 
 were sent to King William and Lord Shrews- 
 bury that the expeditioin for the conquest of 
 Canada was about to begin operations. Leisler 
 commissioned his crony, Jacob Milborne, Com- 
 mander-in-Chief. Connecticut and Massachu- 
 setts entered a vehement protest against the 
 appointment, and Fitz-John Winthrop was sub- 
 stituted. The expedition was mismanaged from 
 the start, owing largely to the incompetency and 
 jealousy of Leisler and his agents, and Winthrop 
 was imprisoned by Leisler, whereupon the Con- 
 necticut troops and their Indian allies became so 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 167 
 
 threatening that Leisler was forced to liberate 
 Winthrop. The Connecticut government was 
 furious over the indignity to the Commander-in- 
 Chief, sternly rebuked Leisler, and told their one 
 time anti-" Papist " ally that " a prison was not a 
 catholicon for all State maladies, though so much 
 used by you." The bringing of some French 
 prizes into New York was about the sole result of 
 the naval expedition. 
 
 The news of the breach between Leisler and 
 the Connecticut authorities traveled to New 
 York, and one morning in June, during some 
 military exercises in the fort in New York, five 
 Connecticut soldiers, in the presence of their com- 
 pany, stepped from the ranks and threatened to 
 lay down their arms and desert if they were not 
 permitted to return home. About the same time 
 eight civil prisoners, after taking the oath of al- 
 legiance to Leisler, were liberated. Naturally 
 aggrieved over their imprisonment, they de- 
 manded an interview with Leisler, and Captain 
 Tuder was admitted to an audience as their 
 spokesman ; but Leisler did all the talking, in the 
 following strain : 
 
 " By the proclamation you were hectored out 
 of the late King James but you remain still af- 
 fected to the Papists and you have said you loved 
 them as well as Protestants and that we were all 
 rebels. You laughed and railed at the militia and 
 gave ill language to your Captain. You failed 
 to appear in arms when the alarm was sounded 
 and you were distrained for neglecting to work 
 on the fortifications, discouraging the people 
 thereby. And if all that wasn't enough, you did 
 not contribute silver, gold or precious stones to 
 
168 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 erect a Jesuit college in this city, but you, with 
 Judge Palmer and Graham, offered your sons to 
 it and they went twice daily to be instructed by 
 that hellish brood of Jesuits without being able to 
 draw one sole child more. We have less cause to 
 trust you in these times of war when we find on 
 one occasion you did not spare your own son." 
 
 Tuder signed the petition and was liberated. 
 From this time until his downfall, Leisler's big- 
 otry, together with his anxieties and difficulties, 
 seem to have culminated in a sort of mania. He 
 was absent in Albany, September 1st, the day 
 set for the opening session of his assembly, 
 which did not, in consequence, convene until his 
 return on the 18th. Some of the laws passed 
 were as follows: All persons who had left the 
 province were commanded to return within three 
 weeks after the law's publication or be " deemed 
 and esteemed as persons disobedient to the gov- 
 ernment." A new tax-levy was authorized for 
 the support of the fort's garrison. A fine of 
 £75 was imposed on any one who refused to ac- 
 cept a civil or military appointment fix)m Leis- 
 ler. Any one leaving Albany or Ulster counties 
 without his permission would incur a fine of 
 £100. Merchandise brought down the Hudson 
 from Albany or Ulster without Leisler's license 
 would be confiscated. Refugees from Albany 
 and Ulster were commanded, " at their utmost 
 peril " in the event of disobedience, to return 
 within two weeks of the law's publication. " In 
 the annals of popular legislation," says Brod- 
 head, " it would be difficult to find more despotic 
 laws than these." 
 
 Having disposed of all the " Papists," Leisler 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 169 
 
 had begun the persecution of the ministers of 
 the various Protestant churches who opposed his 
 despotic rule. In a letter to the Classis of Am- 
 sterdam, September 14th, Dominie Henricus 
 Selyns wrote concerning conditions at that day 
 in New York: "Dominie Varick and myself 
 have suffered more than can be believed and are 
 forced to cultivate j)atience. IMay the Lord in 
 his Providence incline the hearts of their JNIajes- 
 ties to send over some one to take charge of this 
 government who can heal the rupture, remove the 
 cause of dissension and tranquilize the govern- 
 ment. Otherwise we have resolved to relinquish 
 everything and return to Holland; or like Elias 
 hide ourselves in the wilderness and administer 
 the service of Christ ultra Garamantos et In- 
 dos." 
 
 Dominie Godfrey Dellius, a friend of the 
 Jesuit Father Lamberville and a missionary 
 worker among the Indians, opposed Leisler, who 
 sought to imprison him in Fort William, but he 
 fled to Boston. Dominie Rudolphus Varick, of 
 Flatbush, Long Island, one of the signers of the 
 protest against Leisler in JNIay, was obliged to 
 flee to Newcastle, Delaware, for uttering his sen- 
 timents too freely. He returned to New York, 
 was arrested and imprisoned in the fort " for 
 speaking treasonable words against Caj^tain 
 Leisler and the fort." A special commission ap- 
 pointed to try him sentenced him to be " deprived 
 of his ministerial functions, amerced in a fine of 
 £80, and to remain in close prison until that fine 
 should be paid." Dominie Selyns, Leisler's pas- 
 tor, off*ered bail for Dominie Varick, which was 
 refused, and Selyns was " grossly abused by 
 
170 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Leisler himself in the church at the time of 
 divine service and threatened to be silenced." 
 Varick afterwards made his submission to Leis- 
 ler and was released. The two French Huguenot 
 ministers, Antoine Peirret and Pierre Daille, 
 were frequently abused and threatened by Leis- 
 ler, " because they would not approve of his 
 power and disorderly proceedings." 
 
 Towards the end of October there was an out- 
 break against Leislerism in Queens County " in 
 a riotous and rebellious manner, and Milborne 
 and two others were commissioned to subdue all " 
 that are refractory to the established govern- 
 ment, " with all violence and hostility on Long 
 Island." The commissioners and their followers 
 carried out their instructions to the letter, to the 
 great loss and distress of the inhabitants. The 
 people of Hempstead, Jamaica, Flushing and 
 Newtown formally protested against Leisler's 
 violence, in which document Jacob JNIilborne was 
 thus arraigned: " The former [Jacob Milborne] 
 famous for nothing but Infamy, whom I doubt 
 not but long ere this time your Lord? has re- 
 ceived the true caracter of by better hands, but 
 one thing I cannot omit letting your Lord? 
 Know, that this very Jacob Milborne which now 
 does so Tyrannize over there Maj^'^^ loyall sub- 
 jects, was once convicted of a crime which de- 
 served death, had not great clemency bin shewn 
 him by those whom chiefly now hee persicutes, 
 which was for clipping and defacing the King's 
 coine " 
 
 In December, a Boston friend of Leisler's 
 wrote him that Sloughter's arrival might be ex- 
 pected any day, and advised him that it would be 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 171 
 
 well to temper justice with moderation and 
 mercy. 
 
 The year 1691 opened ominously for Leisler. 
 In the early days of January revolt against Leis- 
 ler's rule and disorder spread, involving even 
 the city's militia. On January 29th, the ship 
 " Beaver " and the storeship " John and James " 
 dropped anchor in the lower bay. Boatmen ar- 
 riving in the city reported that the " Beaver's " 
 deck was crowded with red-coated soldiery. 
 Stephen Van Cortlandt and a large delegation 
 of anti-Leislerites hurried down to the ships and 
 found Major Richard Ingoldsby, who had 
 served in Holland and with William in Ireland, 
 in command. On board was a company of regu- 
 lar infantry. As passengers on the " John and 
 James " were Councilor Chidly Brooke, Col- 
 lector and Receiver of New York, and Secretary 
 Clarkson. The visitors learned that the " Arch- 
 angel," frigate. Captain Jasper Hicks, having 
 as a passenger the Governor, Colonel Henry 
 Sloughter, the " Beaver," the " Canterbury " 
 and the storeship " John and James," had sailed 
 from the Isle of Wight and had separated at sea. 
 The three ships, having no sailing directions, 
 steered for New York, expecting to find the 
 " Archangel " in port. Ingoldsby was informed 
 of the condition of affairs in the province and 
 urged to land his regulars and take possession of 
 the fort. He sent Collector Brooke, Lieutenant 
 Shanks and Ensign Simmes, Ingoldsby's broth- 
 er-in-law, to Leisler to demand possession of the 
 fort for the King's forces and stores. Leisler 
 was angered at the demand — was wilhng to re- 
 ceive the stores, but not the troops* 
 
172 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 " Who has been appointed to the Provincial 
 Council? " he asked Brooke. 
 
 " Phillipse, Van Cortlandt, Nicolls and Bay- 
 ard," answered Brooke, mentioning the Council- 
 ors' names. 
 
 "What! those popish dogs, rogues," he 
 shouted in a violent rage ; "Sacrament! If the 
 King should send three thousand such I would 
 cut them all off! " He refused positively to sur- 
 render the fort until Ingoldsby produced definite 
 orders to that effect from William or Sloughter. 
 He sent De la Noy and Milborne on board the 
 " Beaver " to inspect Ingoldsby's orders and of- 
 fer him all sorts of accommodations. Ingoldsby 
 replied : 
 
 " I have seen the copy of his Majesty's letter 
 directed to Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson but 
 cannot find how you may derive any author- 
 ity to yourself from thence. I want not the ac- 
 commodations you speciously offer to his Majes- 
 ty's soldiers under my command. Possession of 
 his Majesty's fort is what I demand from you; 
 and if you refuse that, I must esteem you no 
 friend to their Majesties King William and 
 Queen Mary." 
 
 Ingoldsby's knowledge that his company of 
 regulars was vastly outnumbered by the Leisler- 
 ites induced him to issue a command on the 30th 
 to Captain Samuel Moore to furnish him the aid 
 of the Long Island militia against the rebels who 
 opposed his Majesty. Leisler protested against 
 this order and called on the neighboring militia 
 to obey him. The last night of January, as a 
 squad of soldiers was boarding the " Beaver " 
 from a small boat, there was a spurt of fire and 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 173 
 
 the crack of a musket from the fort. Ingoldsby 
 protested against tliis outrage, and Leisler re- 
 phed disavowing responsibiHty for the act. The 
 ship " Canterbury," with another company of 
 regular infantry, arrived February 2nd, and 
 Leisler ordered ^lajor Beekman to entertain the 
 soldiers should they land on Long Island, pro- 
 vided " they were not hostile and committed no 
 unlawful acts." 
 
 The battle of proclamations waxed hot. In- 
 goldsby issued one February 2nd, to allay 
 malicious rumors industriously circulated by the 
 Leislerites, that he had come to protect and not 
 to disturb the people. Leisler followed with one 
 the following day, announcing Sloughter's ap- 
 pointment as Governor and that the fort would 
 be surrendered to him. He directed that In- 
 goldsby and his soldiers should be entertained in 
 the city, offering his houses for their accommo- 
 dation. Another proclamation was issued from 
 the fort on the 5th, against certain persons on 
 Long Island, for arresting Leislerites and seiz- 
 ing Leisler's orders. 
 
 On the 6th, boatloads of red-coated regulars 
 pulled away from the " Beaver " and " Canter- 
 bury," and with all the precautions usual when 
 landing in an enemy's country, disembarked in 
 the city. The troops were quartered in the City 
 Hall and an adjoining building. Ingoldsby, on 
 the 14th, demanded the release from imprison- 
 ment of Bayard and Nicolls, appointed Royal 
 Councilors. Leisler replied that they must re- 
 main in confinement until his INIajesty's further 
 orders. Affairs were quiet for a time, awaiting 
 Sloughter's arrival. The Leislerites circulated 
 
174 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 reports that Ingoldsby and his men were " Pa- 
 pists and disaffected persons fled from England, 
 that their commissions were forged, and they 
 were enemies of King WiUiam and Queen 
 Mar}^" The Councilors, reinforced by the ar- 
 rival of another of their number, Joseph Dudley, 
 from Boston, met and endeavored to pacify the 
 people, but notwithstanding their efforts the city 
 was rapidly assuming a warlike aspect. Armed 
 detachments from all parts of the province came 
 to swell the fort's garrison. Boatloads of stores 
 were taken into the fort. There was great activ- 
 ity within its walls, and one by one the guns were 
 removed from the river side and their frowning 
 muzzles trained on the city. The regulars in the 
 City Hall observed the usual militarj^ routine. 
 The Leislerites objected strenuously to their go- 
 ing the rounds and threatened destruction if it 
 did not cease. One night, as a squad of regulars, 
 under command of a sergeant, was passing the 
 fort, the Leisler garrison sallied forth and seized 
 the soldiers. They were liberated after a night's 
 imj)risonment, a messenger and drummer from 
 Ingoldsby demanding their release. This month 
 Jacob Milborne and JNIary, the daughter of 
 Jacob Leisler, were married. It is doubtful if a 
 sadder wedding ever took place in the city. 
 
 The council, March 4th, issued a call to 
 the militia of the near-by counties for aid, and 
 JNIajor Ingoldsby was directed to take proper 
 steps for the protection of his Majesty's sub- 
 jects and property. Leisler followed with a 
 proclamation, next day, declaring that he was 
 constrained to take up arms in defense of their 
 Majesties' supremacy and denouncing " the il- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 175 
 
 legal, unwarrantable and undue practices " of 
 the Royal Councilors and Ingoldsby. These 
 proclamations were, in effect, declarations of 
 war. The people of Kings and Queens counties 
 met at the ferry and adopted a peace address. 
 Gerardus Beekman, a one time prominent Leis- 
 lerite, carried the address to Leisler, but it made 
 no impression on him. His garrison of three hun- 
 dred men was increased by levies from the near- 
 by settlements to five hundred. Leisler and his 
 Council denounced Ingoldsby because " the said 
 JNIajor did Excite induce encourage & head 
 great numbers of Papists and french . . . with 
 force of arms to show themselves in a Rouatous 
 hostile manner putting the rest of the good in- 
 habitants of the city in fear of their lives and 
 2:)ossessions." There was an uprising on the 8th, 
 in Westchester County, in Leisler's favor, but it 
 did not assume alarming proportions. 
 
 The blockhouse at Smit's Vly was occupied by 
 the Leislerites under command of Captain Ger- 
 ret Duyckinck and Ensigns Brasher and De 
 Milt, on the 13th. The next day Secretary 
 Clarkson issued a call to the military authorities 
 of Kings, Queens and Suffolk counties, and 
 'New Jersey, to hurry their militia levies to New 
 York. Connecticut was asked to send three or 
 four hundred men. In these preparations valu- 
 able service was rendered Ingoldsby by Captain 
 William Kidd, afterwards of piratical fame. In 
 a proclamation dated the 16th, Leisler wrote: 
 " That the said Major Ingoldsby hath upheld 
 and protected armed Papists who put the good 
 people in fear of their lives by holding loaded 
 muskets to their bodies. That he employs and 
 
176 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 entertains Frenchmen suspected Papists, to spy 
 and endeavor to betray the fort by night, and 
 who were captured in the act Extraordinarily 
 armed." He called on Ingoldsby and the coun- 
 cil to disband their forces, or he would destroy 
 them as " impious and unreasonable men." An 
 answer to this demand was required within two 
 hours. 
 
 Ingoldsby and his advisers realized that this 
 threat meant war, and active preparations w^re 
 begun to meet it. Men were hurried to the ends 
 of the streets leading to the fort and blockhouse, 
 and with all speed brawny arms, under the direc- 
 tion of the officers of the regulars, threw up 
 earthworks, mounted cannon and erected barri- 
 cades across the thoroughfares. The day after 
 the receipt of Leister's last fulmination the 
 Councilors sent him a reply that they and the 
 forces held King William's commissions and 
 wished to preserve the peace, and that any one 
 who attacked them would be public enemies to 
 the crown of England. A quarter of an hour 
 after this message had been received at the fort, 
 and while Ingoldsby's regulars were on parade 
 in the yard of the City Hall, there was a burst 
 of smoke from one of the fort's great guns, a 
 flash and roar, and a ball struck the wall of a 
 building near the City Hall. Leisler, it is said, 
 fired this gun with his own hand. This was fol- 
 lowed by other shots from the fort and by volleys 
 of musketry, until the lower part of the city was 
 dense with powder smoke. The fort's guns were 
 answered from the earthworks, and by the burst- 
 ing of a defective cannon six of Ingoldsby's par- 
 tisans, among them Major Patrick ^lacGreg- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 177 
 
 orie, who had again changed his colors, were 
 killed. In order that Ingoldsby's forces might 
 be caught between two fires, Leisler had ordered 
 Ensign Brasher, who was in command of the 
 Smit's Vly blockhouse, to support the fort's fire, 
 but Brasher, unwilling or afraid to oppose the 
 King's troops and the three guns mounted 
 against the blockhouse, went to the fort for fur- 
 ther instructions. He was promptly locked in a 
 cell for disobedience of orders. The garrison of 
 the blockhouse, deserted by their commander, 
 fled and the King's troops took possession. 
 
 At nightfall the fort's fire ceased. The day's 
 casualties, apart from those killed by the burst- 
 ing gun, numbered two killed and seventeen 
 wounded. About a thousand shots were fired 
 from the fort, and it is said that cannon balls 
 were heated red-hot to fire the town; but evi- 
 dently wiser counsel discouraged their use. Next 
 morning the firing from the fort was renewed 
 for a time, but although Ingoldsby held every 
 man of his forces under arms, fearing a sally 
 from the fort or a bombardment of the city, he 
 did not return Leisler's fire. To distinguish his 
 men from the Leislerites, he ordered them to 
 wear white bands on their left arms. 
 
 The long-looked- for frigate " Archangel " 
 sailed into the bay on the 18th and dropped an- 
 chor below the Narrows, four months out from 
 the Isle of Wight. Next day Joseph Dudley and 
 the other members of the council sailed down the 
 bay in a brigantine and, boarding the " Arch- 
 angel," gave Governor Sloughter an account of 
 the critical condition of affairs in the city and 
 urged him to hurry to the scene. They learned 
 
178 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 that the " Archangel " on parting from the 
 squadron had steered for Bermuda. A severe 
 storm had nearly wrecked the ship on the rocks 
 at Bermuda. The damages to the vessel, includ- 
 ing the loss of fifty feet of her keel, required 
 three weeks to repair, and six weeks had been 
 consumed in the voyage from the island to New 
 York. The Governor hastened to New York in 
 the frigate's pinnace, and as the little craft shot 
 into sight of the city, after passing Nutten 
 Island, volleys of cheers and other manifesta- 
 tions of the people's joy struck terror into the 
 hearts of the occupants of Fort William. Soon 
 the loud clangor of the bell on the City Hall at- 
 tracted a great crowd. The Governor and Coun- 
 cilors appeared on the steps. His commission 
 was read, and he took the oath of office, adminis- 
 tering it in turn to his council. This oath was 
 the following infamous test oath, administered 
 officially for the first time in New York : 
 
 " I, Henry Sloughter, do solemnly and sin- 
 cerely in the presence of God, profess, testifie 
 and declare, that I do believe that in the Sacra- 
 ment of the Lord's Supper there is not any tran- 
 substantiation of the elements of bread and wine 
 into the body and blood of Christ, at or after the 
 consecration thereof by any person whatsoever; 
 and that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin 
 Mary or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the 
 Mass, as they are now used in the Church of 
 Rome, are suj^erstitiovis and idolatrous. And I do 
 solemnly in the presence of God, profess, testify 
 and declare that I do make this declaration and 
 every part thereof in the plain and ordinary sense 
 of the words read unto me, as they are conmionly 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 179 
 
 understood by English Protestants, without any 
 evasion or mental reservation whatsoever, and 
 without any dispensation already granted me for 
 this purpose by the Pope or any person whatso- 
 ever, or without any hope of such dispensation 
 from any person or authority whatsoever, or 
 without thinking I am or can be acquitted before 
 God or man, or absolved of this declaration, or 
 any part thereof, although the Pope or any other 
 person or persons or power whatsoever should 
 dispense with or annul the same, or declare that it 
 was null and void from the beginning." 
 
 These preliminaries finished, the Governor 
 directed Ingoldsby and his company to march to 
 the fort and demand entrance. Leisler refused 
 to admit them and sent Stoll to Sloughter to 
 identify him and demand " orders under the 
 King's own hand directed to him." Ingoldsby 
 was ordered back to the fort to demand posses- 
 sion and the release of Councilors Bayard and 
 Nicolls, to attend his Majesty's service, and the 
 presence at the City Hall of Leisler, JMilborne 
 and " such as are called his Council." Leisler re- 
 plied to the demand " that the fort was not to be 
 given up on such easy terms." JMilborne and De 
 la Noy were sent with Ingoldsby to the Governor 
 " to capitulate," Leisler refusing to go person- 
 ally or to liberate Bayard and Nicolls. On ar- 
 rival at the City Hall, INIilborne and De la Noy 
 were at once arrested and turned over to the 
 guard. 
 
 About midnight Ingoldsby again presented 
 himself before the fort and repeated his former 
 demand, which was peremptorily refused. Early 
 next morning, Friday 20th, the " Ai'changel," 
 
180 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 frigate, rounded Nutten Island, and taking a 
 position in the channel off the fort, cleared decks 
 for action. The Governor and council met in 
 the City Hall, and had not been long in session 
 when a letter was received from Leisler, in which 
 he said: " I see very well the stroke of my ene- 
 mies, who are wishing to cause me some mistakes 
 at the end of the loyalty I owe my gracious King 
 and Queen." He begged the Governor to re- 
 ceive the fort. His letter was unnoticed. Short- 
 ly afterwards the King's troops, under command 
 of Ingoldsb}^ marched from the City Hall to 
 the plain or parade, and Ingoldsby, advancing to 
 the fort, made a peremptory demand for its sur- 
 render, threatening in the event of a refusal to 
 carry it by assault. After a pause he was in- 
 formed that he might enter alone. He found 
 the fort crowded with Leister's adherents. He 
 addressed them, calling on them by the Gov- 
 ernor's orders to ground their arms and march 
 out, promising full pardon to all except Leisler 
 and his so-called council. The fort's garrison, 
 eager for peace on such favorable terms, threw 
 down their arms and poured out through the 
 sally port. There was an immense crowd of 
 spectators and a storm of derisive cries, hoots 
 and groans greeted the appearance of the Leis- 
 lerites. As soon as the vanquished had passed 
 beyond the lines of the King's troops, many of 
 them were seized and roughly handled by the 
 people. At the word of command the soldiers 
 marched into the fort and the reign of Leisler 
 was at an end. Bayard and Nicolls, showing 
 pitiably the effects of their ill-treatment, were re- 
 leased from their underground dungeons, and it 
 
7A' OLD NEW YORK 181 
 
 is significant of the sufferings they endured that 
 the Leislerites afterwards confined in the same 
 dungeons petitioned for release from them on 
 the plea that they would " not admit of common 
 conveniency for life & nature." Strongly 
 guarded, and looking downcast and fearful, 
 Leisler and his advisers were marched through 
 jeering crowds to the City Hall. The chain from 
 Bayard's leg was put on Leisler's, and he and 
 his councilors were committed to the custody of 
 the guards. That day Sloughter entered the fort 
 and renamed it " William Henry." 
 
 Dominie Selyns preached before the Governor 
 on Sunday the 22nd, taking his text appropri- 
 ately from the XXVII Psalm: " I had fainted, 
 unless I had believed to see the goodness of the 
 Lord in the land of the living." The Governor, 
 on JNIonday, appointed Councilors Dudley, Van 
 Cortlandt and Brooke to examine the prisoners. 
 They asked Sloughter for a personal hearing, 
 but he decided they should be heard before a 
 court, and accordingly a special coimnission of 
 Oyer and Terminer was ordered. The court con- 
 sisted of Joseph Dudley and Thomas Johnson, 
 appointed Judges in Admiralty, with Sir Robert 
 Robinson, former Governor of Bermuda, Colo- 
 nel William Smith, Recorder Pinhorne, and 
 John Lawrence of the council; Captain Jasper 
 Hicks of the " Archangel," Major Ingoldsby, 
 Colonel John Young and Captain Isaac Arnold 
 of Long Island, or any six of them, " one of the 
 Judges always being one." The prisoners were 
 committed to the custody of Sheriff Lyndall for 
 trial on charges of traitorously levying war 
 against the King and Queen, counterfeiting 
 
182 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 their Majesty's great seal, murdering Josiah 
 Browne (killed by a shot from the fort), " for 
 holding by force the King's fort against the 
 King's Governor after the publication of his 
 commission, and he had thereby become Chief 
 Magistrate and after a demand had been made 
 in the King's Name, and in the reducing of 
 which lives had been lost." 
 
 The grand jury found an indictment charging 
 the prisoners with treason and murder. On be- 
 ing arraigned, eight of the prisoners pleaded not 
 guilty. Leisler and his son-in-law Milborne re- 
 fused to plead and were tried as mutes. Early 
 in April the Provincial Assembly unanimously 
 resolved that Leisler's act had been " tumultu- 
 ous, illegal, arbitrary, destructive and rebellious; 
 and that the massacre at Schenectady could only 
 be attributed to the disorders and disturbance of 
 those who had usurped a power contrary to their 
 Majesty's authority and the right of Govern- 
 ment over this province." The Governor and 
 council agreed to this resolution and ordered its 
 publication. Another act of this assembly al- 
 lowed to Dominie Dellius, in consideration of his 
 services among the Mohawks, sixty pounds, 
 " formerly paid yearly to two Romish Priests 
 that attended on Governor Dongan." 
 
 After a trial of eight days, concluded April 
 20th, the court found guilty, Leisler, JNIilborne, 
 Abraham Gouveneur, Gerardus Beekman, Jo- 
 hannes Vermilye, Thomas Williams, Myndert 
 Coerten and Abraham Brasher; not guilty, De 
 la Noy and Edsall. Presiding Judge Joseph 
 Dudley pronounced sentence of death. On the 
 advice of the judges the Governor reprieved the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 183 
 
 prisoners, on their petition, until the King's 
 pleasure should be known, " unless any insur- 
 rection of the people necessitate their execu- 
 tion." The assembly. May 13th, passed an act 
 declaratory of the rights and privileges of their 
 Majesty's subjects, with a proviso that it was 
 not " to give liberty for any person of the Rom- 
 ish religion to exercise their manner of worship 
 contrary to the laws and statutes of their Majes- 
 ty's kingdom of England." 
 
 The excitement caused by the conviction and 
 sentence of Leisler and his adherents had been 
 constantly increasing. Sloughter wrote to the 
 home government. May 27th, " If his Majesty 
 shall please to grant his pardon for all except 
 Jacob Leisler and Jacob Milborne it will be a 
 favor." A petition for the pardon of the con- 
 demned was circulated and extensively signed in 
 Staten Island and Westchester County. Pastor 
 Daille was cited before the council, and others 
 were imprisoned for circulating these petitions, 
 as promoters of riots and disturbance. Dominies 
 Selyns, Varick and Dellius preached and talked 
 of Leisler's tyrrany, and many of the women of 
 the city demanded his execution. The Mohawks, 
 disturbed by Leisler's misgovernment, were said 
 to be negotiating a treaty with the French. 
 Sloughter, perplexed by the condition of affairs, 
 asked the advice of his council, and it was 
 unanimous: " That as well for the satisfac- 
 tion of the Indians, as the asserting of the 
 Government and authority residing in his Excel- 
 lency, and preventing insurrections and dis- 
 orders for the future, it is absolutely necessary 
 that the sentence pronounced against the prin- 
 
184 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 cipal offenders be forthwith put in execution.'* 
 Sloughter signed the death warrants of Leisler 
 and Milborne on the 14th, leaving the other 
 prisoners under reprieve. Dominie Selyns an- 
 nounced to the condemned their fate that even- 
 ing and exhorted them to prepare for death. 
 
 From leaden skies a drenching rain poured 
 down on the great crowd assembled on the 
 Common the morning of May 16th. Near the 
 present site of " The Sun " newspaper building, 
 a gallows had been erected. Leisler and Mil- 
 borne, with Dominie Selyns in attendance, 
 mounted the scaffold. Leisler's dying speech 
 was manly and Christian. He acknowledged 
 several enormities committed against his will and 
 prayed for forgiveness and pardon. Milborne 
 recognized an enemy in the crowd and impeached 
 him " before God's tribunal." When the bodies 
 were cut down they were beheaded and buried at 
 the foot of the gallows. After the execution 
 Sloughter wrote to the home government: " By 
 the advice of the Judges I was inclined to re- 
 prieve them until his Majesty's pleasure should 
 be known, but the people were so much disturbed 
 thereat and the Council and Assembly did repre- 
 sent to me the great damage it would be to the 
 King's Service and discouragement to future 
 loyalty if the law was not executed upon the 
 principal actors, which I was constrained to do, 
 and on 17th May, Leisler and Milborne were ac- 
 cordingly executed." 
 
 The reversal of attainder against Leisler and 
 Milborne was passed March 11th, 1692, and an 
 order of council granted the return of their 
 estates to their families. The Leislerites con- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 185 
 
 demned to death with their principals were par- 
 doned, but several generations had passed away 
 before the hatred and enmities engendered by 
 Leisler's acts ceased to distract New York. 
 
 Governor Fletcher, who succeeded to the chief 
 magistracy of the province on Sloughter's death, 
 wrote September 10th, 1692, concerning condi- 
 tions in New York: " A divided contentious im- 
 poverished people I find them, my Endeavours 
 are not wanting to compose, but find neither 
 Party will be satisfied with less than the necks of 
 their Adversaries, I do not despair of bringing 
 them to a better understanding, it must be the 
 work of some time." 
 
 " During all this time," wrote Dominies Sel- 
 yns, Dellius and Varick to the Classis of 
 Amsterdam, in 1692, concerning the Leisler 
 troubles, " everything has been done under pre- 
 text of pleasing King William, and as if for the 
 sake of religion ; but in fact everything done was 
 contrary to law, to King William, and to the 
 Protestant faith." 
 
186 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IN WHICH THE PRESENCE IN THE CITY OF " PAP- 
 ISTS," FRENCH PRISONERS AND JESUITS MAKES 
 THE NEW YORKERS NERVOUS 
 
 " I AM convinced that the French and Eng- 
 Hsh are of the same opinion, Monsieur, on one 
 point, which is that the whole of this land must 
 belong either to the English or French. My 
 people at Quebec expect ten or twelve men-of- 
 war which may have arrived ere this. I am cer- 
 tain that as soon as they arrive our Army will 
 come by land and our fleet by sea to your City 
 of New York and then there will be a brave 
 show. We will bombard your City and we will 
 give you much work. They will be here before 
 August." 
 
 The speaker was the Chevalier Pierre D'Aux, 
 Sieur de Jolliet, named by the Indians Dion- 
 akaronde. His listener, Jacob Leisler, in the 
 fort at New York. Before explaining the cir- 
 cumstances that brought this gallant young 
 Frenchman a prisoner to the fort in New York, 
 it would be well to learn the grounds on which 
 he based his prediction of the coming of a French 
 fleet. When France and England were at peace 
 many French officers had visited the Northern 
 seaboard settlements of the English colonies, and 
 had, with sharp, experienced eyes, noted well the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK • 187 
 
 coast, had estimated the strength of the forts, 
 regular troops and miUtia, and the number of 
 fighting men among the inhabitants. De la 
 Mothe Cadillac, Villebon, Pere, and others, had 
 come by way of the Hudson and Long Island 
 Sound to New York and had charted its waters, 
 counted the guns in the fort, and studied its 
 inhabitants. Disgusted with the failure of 
 his governors to capably handle the situa- 
 tion, Louis XIV had again turned to his 
 former governor Count Frontenac. In the sum- 
 mer of 1689, Louvois, the minister, called Fron- 
 tenac and Cadillac into consultation, and be- 
 tween them the plan of a campaign for the 
 conquest of New York was adopted. Ro- 
 chelle, France, was to be the starting-point for 
 the expedition. Frontenac was to organize his 
 forces as soon as he arrived at Quebec and push 
 southward to New York city. Admiral Caf- 
 finiere, with the frigates " Embuscade," " Four- 
 gon," and " Saint Fran9ois Xavier," was to 
 cruise southward to Sandy Hook and await the 
 coming of the land forces. Callieres was to re- 
 main in New York as its Governor. Catholics 
 found in the city were to be left in their habita- 
 tions on taking the oath of allegiance to King 
 Louis, provided their fidelity could be relied on 
 and there were not too many of them. English 
 officers and the chief inhabitants were to be held 
 for ransom, and all others were to be sent to New 
 England and Pennsylvania. 
 
 Frontenac reached Canada too late. A serious 
 outbreak of the Iroquois made so much trouble 
 for him within his own borders that foreign con- 
 quest was out of the question. Another expedi- 
 
188 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 tion the following' year resulted in the massacre 
 at, and burning- of, Schenectady, and the destruc- 
 tion of Salmon Falls and Casco Bay (Portland). 
 The chief cause of complaint of the Iroquois 
 against the French, it will be recalled, was the 
 treacherous capture in 1687 of fifty Iroquois, 
 including a number of chiefs, who had been sum- 
 moned by Denonville to attend a conference at 
 Cataracouy. These Indians had been sent to the 
 galleys in France and had been returned to Can- 
 ada in compliance wath Governor Dongan's de- 
 mand. To placate the Indians Frontenac de- 
 cided to restore several of the returned prisoners, 
 and as a mark of confidence and friendship 
 selected the Chevalier Pierre D'Aux as his am- 
 bassador to Onondaga. D'Aux, a young cap- 
 tain of a company detached from the Marine, 
 was accompanied by Colin, an interpreter, Bou- 
 viat, two other Frenchmen, and four of the re- 
 turned Indians. 
 
 The English agent at Onondaga learned 
 from the chiefs that an embassy from Quebec 
 was expected, and he induced the Indians to 
 seize the Frenchmen. When D'Aux and his 
 party arrived at Onondaga (near the present 
 city of Sja-acuse) the Indians fell upon them, 
 divested them of their money, presents and docu- 
 ments, and tied them to stakes. D'Aux was 
 turned over to the English at Albany, and of the 
 fate of the others the accounts differ. The most 
 reliable authorities say that one w^as burned at 
 the stake at Seneca, another at Onondaga, and a 
 third died of sickness at INIohawk. D'Aux was 
 sent a prisoner to Leisler in the fort at New 
 York. His papers, recovered from the Indians, 
 
72V OLB NEW YORK 189 
 
 were sent with him, but notwithstanding the sud- 
 den treacherous attack of the savages, he had 
 succeeded in destroying the most important of 
 his instructions. Leisler seems to have been un- 
 usually friendly to his gallant young prisoner, 
 " Papist " and Frenchman as he was. He oc- 
 casionally summoned him from his confinement 
 for a chat, a liberal allowance was made for his 
 maintenance, and the quarters assigned him were 
 vastly superior to the dungeons in which Bayard 
 and others were confined. To while away the 
 tedious hours of confinement, D'Aux taught 
 French to his cell mate. Dominie Rudolphus 
 Varick, of Flatbush. At the time preparations 
 to invade Canada were in progress, he made a 
 touching appeal to Leisler to protect the French 
 women and children from the Indians. During 
 Governor Sloughter's administration D'Aux 
 was freed from confinement and allowed liberty 
 within bounds. While Ingoldsby was acting- 
 governor he escaped from New York. A hue 
 and cry was raised and officers of the law were 
 sent after him. He was probably accompanied 
 by other French prisoners, and had reached New 
 London before he was retaken. His captors car- 
 ried him to Boston, and a demand was made on 
 the Boston authorities for his return, and re- 
 fused; a long and angry correspondence on 
 the matter followed between the magnates in 
 Boston and New York. He managed to escape 
 again in August, 1692, and made the long jour- 
 ney through the northern wilderness to Canada, 
 but the hardships of the journey, Indian cap- 
 tivity and imprisonment had undermined his 
 strength, and April 10th, 1694, he was laid at 
 
190 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 rest in the Recollects Church in Montreal, in his 
 thirty-fourth year. During his captivity in New 
 York D'Aux had not heen deprived entirely of 
 the sight of a friendly face and the sound of a 
 friendly tongue, as Leisler's cruisers had brought 
 to port as prizes the French vessels " La Prin- 
 cesse," " St. Pierre," " St. Jean," " Union " and 
 " L'Esperance," with their crews. 
 
 South of the St. Lawrence River the Jesuits 
 were regarded primarily as agents of the French 
 government, both before this period and for 
 many years after, and an extract from a letter of 
 Father Lamberville to his co-laborer among the 
 savages. Father Milet, written in 1690, setting 
 forth the animating cause of their labors, will 
 not be amiss: " You are aware, and God is our 
 witness, that as long as we have intercourse with 
 the Indians, we had no other intentions than the 
 salvation of souls, and the existence of peace 
 as well with the English as between the French 
 and Indians; but it has happened, that they 
 are turned by the artifice of the Devil and by 
 envy to the destruction of those souls which 
 Christ has redeemed with His own blood. We 
 pray that He may quickly conciliate the Eng- 
 lish and French, and free them from the wicked- 
 ness of wars." 
 
 In April, 1691, the first assembly after the 
 Leisler revolution was convened. In May it 
 passed an act entitled, " An act declaring what 
 are the rights and privileges of their Majesty's 
 subjects within the province of New York." 
 Another act was likewise passed, that " no per- 
 son professing faith in God by Jesus Christ, shall 
 be disturbed or questioned for different opinion 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 191 
 
 in religion, if he do not disturb the piibhc peace, 
 provided always that nothing herein mentioned 
 or contained shall extend to give liberty for any 
 person of the Romish religion to exercise their 
 manner of worship contrary to the laws and 
 statutes of their Majesty's Kingdom of Eng- 
 land." This was the first of a series of oppres- 
 sive legislative enactments against Catholics. 
 
 Father Thomas Harvey, S.J., who had been in 
 hiding in New York since the Leisler troubles, 
 succeeded in leaving the city this year to visit a 
 house of the order in Maryland. He crossed 
 New Jersey, and at Burlington stopped at the 
 home of John Tatham, a distinguished Catholic 
 citizen of that colony. In Philadelphia, Father 
 Harvey rested for awhile in the home of Peter 
 Debuc, and then continued his journey to Mary- 
 land. He returned later to New York. 
 
 Governor Sloughter, the first of a line of gov- 
 ernors, many of whom were dissolute, corrupt, 
 a reproach to the power appointing them and an 
 insult to the people over whom they were ap- 
 pointed, died in 1691, and the following year 
 Colonel Benjamin Fletcher, who had seen thirty 
 years of service in the British army, including the 
 wars in Ireland, arrived in New York as Gov- 
 ernor in August, 1692. At this time, and for 
 years afterwards, the city was divided into two 
 hostile camps — the Leislerite and anti-Leislerite 
 parties. Fletcher allied himself with the latter, 
 and interfered in the elections, bribing and in- 
 timidating voters in a manner that would sur- 
 prise even the corrupt politicians of the present 
 day. He was vain, headstrong and rapacious. 
 His grants of immense tracts of land to his 
 
192 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 favorites were afterwards annulled by the home 
 government, and he was said to have been finan- 
 cially interested in a number of the piratical ven- 
 tures that left the port under the commissions of 
 privateers. He had come to New York to amass 
 a fortune, and he was not at all particular about 
 the ways and means. 
 
 New York at this time, with its " Red Sea 
 traders " pouring into it the rich products of the 
 East, its privateers bringing in French prizes 
 with their cargoes, increased the riches of the 
 city, but made its moral tone more closely re- 
 semble a pirate's lair in the Tortugas than a 
 staid Anglo-Dutch town. 
 
 King James is roundly abused by some his- 
 torians for forbidding the setting up of a print- 
 ing-press in the province, when as a matter of 
 record he stipulated that no printing-press should 
 be permitted without his Governor's consent first 
 obtained. These instructions are exactly the 
 same as those given by King William to Gov- 
 ernor Fletcher. 
 
 The situation of affairs in the city at the close 
 of Sloughter's administration is graphically out- 
 lined in a letter of Dominie Varick's to the 
 Classis of Amsterdam, written in the spring of 
 1693 : " It was our misfortune that the first Gov- 
 ernor (Sloughter) lived only a few months. 
 Then the rabble picked up their ears again ; that 
 Governor had been a Popish runaway; and their 
 side was said to be approved at Court. The act- 
 ing ministers, etc., were to hang. We feared a 
 second revolt for almost a year. If it had oc- 
 curred it would have cost much blood." 
 
 The war between England and France had re- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 193 
 
 suited in the assembling in New York of a num- 
 ber of French and Canadian prisoners. In 
 June, 1693, exchanges Avere arranged, and Fran- 
 cis Ber, Mattys Fayette, and four others, left 
 the city for Canada, overjoyed at having re- 
 gained their freedom. 
 
 Governor Fletcher was very anxious to bring 
 an unwilling guest to the city in the person of 
 the Jesuit Father Peter ISIilet, who had been held 
 a captive by the Onondagas and had gained 
 great influence with the nation. At a conference 
 in Albany with the sachems of the Five Nations, 
 Fletcher offered them a pretty Indian boy and 
 a sum of money if they would hand Father Milet 
 over to him, but the Onondagas refused to ratify 
 the bargain. Derick Wessels and Robert Saun- 
 ders, as ambassadors of Fletcher's, journeyed to 
 the Onondagas' castle and used all their elo- 
 quence to induce Aquandoronde, the sachem, to 
 deliver the missionary and his papers to them, 
 but he refused. Fletcher, in a letter to the Com- 
 mittee on Trade concerning his efforts to secure 
 Father Milet, wrote that he " promised not to 
 hurt his Person that Jesuits turning doth much 
 harm to our Indians. I am resolved to remove 
 him if possible." 
 
 In July, a false report came up from Sandy 
 Hook that caused Governor Fletcher to think of 
 other things besides warring on Jesuit mission- 
 aries. It was reported that a fleet of French war- 
 ships had passed the Hook and cast anchor in the 
 lower bay. There was wild alarm in the city, and 
 the militia was called out and remained under 
 arms until the unfounded rumor was contra- 
 dicted. The false report, however, turned 
 
194 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Fletcher's attention to the matter of defense, 
 and a census of the available fighting men in 
 New York showed the total number to be three 
 thousand. Five years before Leisler had re- 
 ported twelve thousand available for military- 
 duty. New York's participation in the inglori- 
 ous revolution had driven thousands from the 
 city and province. A French name was sufficient 
 to awaken suspicion, and Anthony Lispenard, 
 Lafleur and other Frenchmen, were subjected to 
 official inquiries concerning their correspondence 
 with Canada. 
 
 Dominie Henricus Selyns, in a letter to the 
 Classis of Amsterdam, of date November 14th, 
 1694, gives a doleful picture of conditions in 
 New York. " Our city of New York," he wrote, 
 " with its suburbs, is constantly growing. But 
 this growth is chiefly in houses and people and 
 business, but not in piety and the conversion of 
 sinners. Such a condition promises no blessing 
 from heaven, but rather a fearful looking of 
 judgement. May God preserve us and avert the 
 sword of judgement from our land." 
 
 The Massachusetts authorities in 1695 trans- 
 mitted to Governor Fletcher information, con- 
 cerning the situation of afl'airs in New France, 
 that had been communicated to them by certain 
 French Protestant officers and soldiers in the 
 Quebec garrison. 
 
 A ship from London, in May, 1696, brought 
 the news of the discovery of the " assassina- 
 tion plot " against the life of King Will- 
 iam. It produced a furor in the city, and 
 the smoldering embers of anti-Catholic hatred 
 were fanned into a furious flame. The Gov- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 195 
 
 ernor wrote the Lords of Trade in a letter of 
 June 30th: " I do not know of ten papists in 
 the province." He ordered a celebration in com- 
 memoration of the discovery of the plot, which 
 took place JNIay 26th. The colonial council, 
 June 11th, issued an order to disarm and im- 
 prison every Roman Catholic in the city. Mayor 
 William M err it was called upon to transmit to 
 the council a list of all Roman Catholics in the 
 city, and his return contained the following 
 names: " JNIajor Anthony Brockholls, Mr. Will- 
 iam Douglass, INIr. John Cooley, M. Christiane 
 Lawrence, ]Mr. Thomas Howarding, Mr. John 
 Cavalier, Mr. John Patte, Mr. John Fenny and 
 Mr. Philip Cunningham." 
 
 Major Brocldiolls, after his release from ar- 
 rest by Leisler, had gone to Captain Bowne's at 
 Neversink. He returned to New York in 1689, 
 and at the municipal election that fall was not 
 permitted to vote, although a freeman, he " be- 
 ing a Papist." Dongan and Brockholls both had 
 a deal of trouble to induce the provincial fiscal 
 authorities to audit their accounts, and not until 
 August 8th, 1695, were Brockholls' accounts 
 audited. In November of that year, Brockholls 
 and Captain Arents Schuyler, in behalf of them- 
 selves and associates, Samuel Bayard, George 
 Ryerson, John JNIead, Samuel Berrie and David 
 and Hendrick Mandeville, obtained a patent, 
 after purchasing the title from the Indians, of 
 5,500 acres of land at Pacquanac, now Pompton 
 Plains, Morris County, New Jersey. Brockholls 
 and his fellow Catholics, if imprisoned at all, be- 
 cause of the council's order, were liberated 
 within a short time, on giving " bond, with surety 
 
196 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 of their good behavior," or in default " to be con- 
 fined in prison." Schuyler, in his " Colonial 
 New York," says: " Brockholls sought a refuge 
 in the wilds of New Jersey because New York 
 was made so uncomfortable to him on account of 
 his religion." He settled at Pompton in 1696 or 
 1697, and in his will, dated June 15th, 1710, he 
 writes himself a resident of Pompton. The date 
 of his death is unknown, but there is a letter ex- 
 tant of JNIichael Kearney's, written from Perth 
 Amboy, September 5th, 1723, to Isaac Bobin, 
 relative to the exemplification of Brockholls' 
 will. His children, several of whom married into 
 the most notable families of the province of New 
 York, were Susannah Jewette, Henry and JNIary 
 Brockholls, Judith Van Vechten, Susannah 
 French and Jenette Phillipse. 
 
 William Douglass had come to New York 
 city from New Jersey. He had been persecuted 
 for the Faith once before. In 1680 he was a 
 member of the New Jersey Assembly from Ber- 
 gen, and was expelled from that body " for be- 
 ing a Catholic." 
 
 John Cooley was emploj^ed as the blacksmith 
 in the fort in 1684, and continued to labor at the 
 forge there until 1700, despite the fact that he 
 was a " Popish malignant." 
 
 Thomas Howarding, or Hawarden, was a 
 ship-owner and an extensive patentee in Gov- 
 ernor Dongan's time. 
 
 John Cavalier voyaged from Virginia to Bos- 
 ton in 1675, and he seems to have come to New 
 York shortly after. He was a favorite of Gov- 
 ernor Dongan, who appointed him Marshal of 
 the Admiralty in May, 1684, Messenger of the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 197 
 
 Court of Chancery in December, 1685, and 
 Messenger of the Colonial Council in April, 
 1688. 
 
 John Fenny or Feeny was a tailor, and Lord 
 Bellomont, writing to the Board of Trade, said 
 of John Fenny, " a Popish tailor of this City and 
 a beggar," was on the bond of the pirate Captain 
 John Hoar, of the pirate ship " John and Re- 
 becca." 
 
 The Governor in June wrote to the Lords of 
 Trade: " I found in the two companies [of sol- 
 diers] that came last from England two French- 
 men, Charles Moriell and James Wood, Roman 
 Catholicks ; I could not trust them at Albany lest 
 they should correspond with their countrymen 
 of Canada. ... I now send them by the ship 
 ' Beaver ' that they may be exchanged or dis- 
 posed of as his Majesty may see fit." 
 
 While officialdom was sadly wrought up over 
 this handful of " Papists," it seems to have been 
 uneasy over the presence of a large number of 
 French prisoners of war, most of whom, it is safe 
 to assume, were Catholics, and to have met more 
 than half way any proposal to exchange or to pa- 
 role them to proceed to other points for exchange. 
 In July, Miguel d'Arismonde and two other 
 prisoners, brought into New York by the famous 
 Captain Kidd of the " Adventure " galley, were 
 permitted to go to Boston for exchange. On the 
 20th there was a further exchange, and August 
 1st Martin JNIischelas, boatswain of the French 
 bark " Sita Gratia," went to Boston for ex- 
 change, Rene Sunard, purser of a French man- 
 of-war, following him shortly afterwards. The 
 capture of a large French ship by H. M. Ship 
 
198 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 " Richmond," off Rockaway Beach, in Septem- 
 ber, added to the colony of prisoners and the 
 consequent uneasiness, and in October the colo- 
 nial council ordered a shipment of them to Eng- 
 land for exchange. 
 
 What would have been the horror of the vigi- 
 lant defenders of the Protestant religion had 
 they known that somewhere in the little city there 
 abode Governor Dongan's chaplain, the Jesuit 
 Father Thomas Harvey. Probably the knowl- 
 edge that the war had brought to New York 
 many Catholic prisoners had called him back 
 from Maryland to the post of duty — and dan- 
 ger. Notwithstanding the general hatred of the 
 " French Papists," the prisoners at this time 
 seem to have been treated humanely. The colo- 
 nial council paid Francis Leconte for providing 
 for the subsistence of two French women pris- 
 oners, and Giles Gaudineau for nursing invalids 
 among the Frenchmen. 
 
 In the autumn of 1697, the news of the peace 
 of Ryswick reached the city, to the great delight 
 of the prisoners, who had liberty to go whither 
 they pleased, provided they did not put the gov- 
 ernment to further charges. Later in the same 
 year, permission was given them to go to Esopus 
 or Canada, but they were no longer to be vic- 
 tualled by the government. 
 
 The guns of the fort consumed four barrels 
 of gunpowder April 13th, 1698, to welcome the 
 new Governor, Richard Coote, Earl of Bello- 
 mont and Baron Colooney. He was of 
 most unsavory ancestry. His grandfather. Sir 
 Charles Coote, in Wicklow, in 1641, massacred 
 the people without distinction of age or sex, and 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 199 
 
 *' committed," says Dr. Leland, tlie Protestant 
 historian, " such unprovoked, such ruthless and 
 indiscriminate carnage in the town of Wicklow, 
 as rivalled the utmost extravagancies of the 
 northerns." He is charged with having proposed 
 at the council board " a general massacre on all 
 the Catholics." Without warrant of law he exe- 
 cuted Father Higgins of Naas. " It is certainly 
 a miserable spectacle," wrote Lord Castlehaven, 
 " to see every day numbers of people executed 
 by martial law at the discretion or rather caprice 
 of Sir Charles Coote, an hotheaded and bloody 
 man, and as such accounted even by the English 
 and Protestants." Coote burned the village of 
 Clontarf and killed sixteen of its unresisting in- 
 habitants in December, 1641. In April of the 
 following year, he was killed by one of his own 
 troopers while pursuing the Irish at Trim. 
 
 Bellomont's uncle. Sir Charles Coote, junior, 
 while in command of the Parliamentary forces in 
 Connaught, daily committed hostilities against 
 the Catholic confederates, in violation of the ces- 
 sation agreed upon between the opposing forces 
 in September, 1643. He was at this time Lord 
 President of Connaught. He ignominiously put 
 to death Bishop Ever McMahon of Clogher, 
 who, sorely wounded, was taken prisoner at En- 
 niskillen, a deed of the blackest ingratitude, as 
 the Bishop had within a year relieved Coote when 
 in great extremity in Derry. Among the first to 
 open overtures with the King after the depo- 
 sition of Richard Cromwell, was Coote, who, 
 turning his coat, seized the Castle of Dublin. 
 For this the murderer and traitor was made Earl 
 of Montrath and a Lord Justice of Ireland. 
 
200 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Writing of him and Lord Broghill, Clarendon 
 said, " These two (new) earls had been eminently 
 against the king; but upon this turn, when ail 
 other powers were down, were eminently for 
 him." Such were the kin of the man in whose 
 honor New Yorkers burned four barrels of gun- 
 powder. He had no sooner taken the oath of 
 office than, with characteristic impetuousity, he 
 started in to reform everything, and, incidentally, 
 denounced nearly every prominent anti-Leisler- 
 ite in the city as dishonest or as having amassed 
 wealth through an alliance with pirates. 
 
 There were still a number of French prisoners 
 in the city awaiting exchange, and Bellomont 
 directed Dominie Dellius and Colonel Peter 
 Schuyler to proceed to Quebec with a coj^y of 
 the articles of peace between France and Eng- 
 land, and a band of twenty prisoners for ex- 
 change. The embassy was well received in Que- 
 bec, but, to the horror and amazement of the 
 Dominie and the Colonel, the English prisoners, 
 with two or three exceptions, refused positively 
 to be exchanged. They had voluntarily become 
 Catholics, were happy in Canada, and had no de- 
 sire to return to New York. The English 
 children refused to go with Bellomont's agents, 
 until a rule was adopted that all under fourteen 
 years of age would be compelled. Many of the 
 children defeated this ruling by hiding until the 
 commissioners from New York had departed. 
 
 Pastor Peirriet, of the French Church, had, in 
 1697, discovered that there were six among the 
 French prisoners of war who asserted that they 
 were good Protestants. On his petition letters 
 of denization were granted them. In the follow- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 201 
 
 ing year Bellomont made the startling discovery 
 that some of the alleged French Protestants were 
 really " Papists," and he suspected that their 
 business was " to give intelligence to Canada." 
 " Papists " were getting on the New Yorkers' 
 nerves. 
 
 Of this period Watson in his Annals wrote: 
 " So early as the year 1698, a period when more 
 than one influential English family of this prov- 
 ince was grievously suspected of popery and when 
 in the city of New York especially Jesuits were 
 supposed to be prowling around every corner." 
 
 Ten years had passed since Father Harvey's 
 Latin school had ceased to be, and yet the domin- 
 ies were still talking about that awful menace to 
 the Protestant religion, and this year relieved 
 their minds by writing as follows to the Classis 
 of Amsterdam: "The Jesuits had already [in 
 Dongan's time] built a school here under the 
 pretense to teach the youth the Latin Language, 
 to which some even of the most influential had 
 already sent their children: and our Church Bell 
 was tolled about eight o'clock in the morning 
 when the school began. Yes, some whom one 
 would not have suspected of it, had already slily 
 heard a low Mass although they afterwards said 
 it was only through curiosity." 
 
 Dekannisore, or Tegannisorens, as the French 
 called him, a famous Onondaga sachem, and 
 sometime the chief orator of the Five Nations, 
 was in New York to confer with the Governor 
 in 1698, and again in 1701. He was a consistent 
 advocate of peace between the whites and In- 
 dians and a diplomat of the first rank, a friend 
 when the occasion served of either French or 
 
202 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 English, but a friend always of his own people. 
 At a conference with Governor-General De 
 Vaudreuil at Montreal, in 1703, he said: "Eu- 
 ropeans have an ill-formed mind; they make 
 peace and then for a mere nothing seize the 
 hatchet again. We do not act so; we require 
 strong reasons to break a treaty that we have 
 signed." Count Frontenac was a great admirer 
 and firm friend of Dekannisore. This great 
 sachem married a Catholic squaw, who was killed 
 by a Mohawk in Albany. He was baptized by a 
 Jesuit, and died, subsequent to 1712, at Sault St. 
 Louis. 
 
 True to the traditions of his priest-hunting an- 
 cestors, Bellomont, in a letter to the Lords of 
 Trade, wrote, in February, 1699, that if he meets 
 the Mohawk or Onondaga sachems he will try a 
 " stratagem " by offering them money or ex- 
 traordinary presents to deliver up to him the 
 Jesuit missionaries among them. He intended 
 shipping them to England to be punished. If 
 his " stratagem " succeeded, he argued, the Jesu- 
 its would never trust themselves with the Indians 
 again, and thus " it would create an eternal im- 
 placable hatred between them." The following 
 year, at a private conference at Albany between 
 Bellomont and the principal sachems of the Five 
 Nations, the Governor proposed his " strata- 
 gem," as follows: "For every such Popish 
 priest and Jesuit which you shall bring to this 
 town and deliver up to the JNIagistrates, you shall 
 have one hundred pieces of Eight paid you down 
 in ready money as a reward." The eleven sach- 
 ems evidently saw through his lordship's " strata- 
 gem " and very cleverly evaded it. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 203 
 
 A striking characteristic of the colonial gov- 
 ernment of New York was the enmity existing 
 between the general assembly, the people and 
 the Royal governors. In May of this year there 
 was an example of this antagonism in a petition 
 to Bellomont that former Governor Fletcher's 
 coat of arms be pulled down from the King's 
 Chapel in the fort and from Trinity Church, 
 " since his birth was so mean and obscure that 
 he was not entitled to bear a coat of arms." 
 
 Bellomont's love for the people was evidenced 
 in a letter to the Board of Trade in May : " I 
 am sorry to say it," he wrote, " but 'tis an un- 
 doubted truth, the English here are so profligate 
 that I cannot find a man fit to be trusted that's 
 capable of business." On the 17th of that month 
 he departed from his government of New York 
 to seek more congenial Englishmen in his gov- 
 ernment of Massachusetts, leaving his relative 
 John Nanf an, Lieutenant-Governor, to rule dur- 
 ing his absence. 
 
 Some French agents from Canada arrived in 
 the city and were quartered in the house of Fran- 
 cois Puillin, where they consumed large quanti- 
 ties of his brandy and wine, and small quantities 
 of his " mouton." One morning the sentries at 
 the fort made the astonishing discovery that a 
 great ship of war was dropping its anchor at the 
 watering place ofl" Staten Island. She had come 
 up the bay undiscovered and unchallenged. From 
 her high poop floated the lily-spangled banner 
 of France. In due time one of her boats came 
 up to the fort, and an officer landed and in- 
 formed Lieutenant-Governor Nanfan that the 
 visiting vessel was His Most Christian JNIajesty's 
 
204 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 ship of the line " La Renomee," the Chevalier 
 Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur D'Iberville, command- 
 ing'. " La Renomee " was en route from the 
 French settlements at the mouth of the Missis- 
 sippi River to France, and had come into New 
 York to replenish the supply of wood and water 
 and to send dispatches by the French agents to 
 Quebec. In a short time the city buzzed with the 
 news. 
 
 D'Iberville! That name in the English colo- 
 nies in those days was nearly as great a bogie as 
 Bonaparte's in England at a later day. D'Iber- 
 ville? Why, he was one of the leaders in the 
 Schenectady massacre! "It was he drove the 
 English from Hudson's Bay." " Two years ago 
 he took Fort Pemaquid from us." " Yes, and re- 
 duced Newfoundland." And so in tavern and 
 on street corner the French man-of-war and its 
 commander were" discussed, and the crowd 
 poured to the water front to gaze at the warship 
 lying down the bay. There was a conference in 
 the fort between officers from the flagship and 
 the provincial officials, and following it a boat 
 came up the bay and from it stepped one in 
 clerical garb. A rumor ran through the crowd. 
 
 " What! Shades of the martyred Leisler and 
 all ye other hallowed ones who died for the Prot- 
 estant religion ! A Jesuit ? ^lust such a foul in- 
 sult as this be endured in our Protestant City of 
 New York? To the jail with him — " but there 
 within sight lay " La Renomee," her portholes 
 bristling with fifty guns, and here was an apol- 
 ogy for a fort, and — well, the crowd melted 
 away, shaking its several heads, and Lieutenant- 
 Governor John Nanf an acted as well as could be 
 
PIKRRE LE MOYNE SIEUR D^IBERVILLE 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 205 
 
 expected in the circumstances, and the unwel- 
 come visitor was made welcome, and he, with the 
 French agents, had their transportation to Rhode 
 Island arranged for by mine host Fran9ois Puil- 
 lin, and left on their eastward journey. In Oc- 
 tober, FitzJohn Winthrop wrote from Hart- 
 ford, Connecticut, to Lord Bellomont: " The 
 Superior of the Jesuits and ye French gentle- 
 men went from Mil ford the same day they ar- 
 rived there with all accommodation needful." 
 From which it is evident that D' Iberville was a 
 name to conjure with and " La Renomee's " 
 guns had a very long moral range. It is to be 
 regretted that there is no record of the name of 
 this Superior of the Jesuits or of the purpose of 
 his journey from Louisiana eastward by way of 
 Rhode Island. Bellomont was in Boston at this 
 time, and the Jesuit may have been the bearer of 
 a message from D' Iberville, or it may have been 
 that it was deemed safer for him to proceed to 
 Quebec by sea from some eastern port than by 
 way of Albany. D 'Iberville's ship having se- 
 cured its stores, and some other things it sought, 
 proceeded to France. 
 
206 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 IN WHICH, " LA RENOMEE " HAVING DEPARTED, 
 GOVERNOR BELLOMONT WAXES BOLD AGAINST 
 PRIESTS AND BECOMES SOLICITOUS FOR TH^ 
 SOULS OF THE INDIANS 
 
 There was a conference in Albany in June, 
 1700, between a delegation of Catholic Indians 
 from Caughnawaga and the Commissioners of 
 Indian affairs. The Commissioners represented 
 to the Indians that they had the same freedom 
 of trade as themselves, and that since the Indians 
 alleged that it was love for the Christian religion 
 that prompted them to leave New York and go 
 to Canada, the Commissioners hoped in a short 
 time to have Protestant ministers to instruct 
 them in the true Christian religion. Sagron- 
 wadie, the sachem of the praying Indians, re- 
 plied: " We are now come to trade and not to 
 speak of religion, only thus much I must say, all 
 the while I was here before I went to Canada 
 I never heard anything talked of religion or the 
 least mention made of converting us to the 
 Christian faith, and we shall be glad to hear if 
 at last you are so piously inclined to take some 
 pains to instruct your Indians in the Christian 
 religion. I will not say but it may induce some 
 to return to their native countrJ^ I wish it had 
 begun sooner that you had had ministers to in- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 207 
 
 struct your Indians in the Christian faith; I 
 doubt whether any of us ever had deserted our 
 native country ; but I must say I am beholden to 
 the French of Canada for the hght I have re- 
 ceived to know there was a Saviour born for 
 mankind, and now we can be taught God is every- 
 where, and we can be instructed at Canada, 
 Dowaganhae or the uttermost part of the earth 
 as well as here." The records are silent as to the 
 Commissioners' reply. 
 
 In June, New York city was again thrown 
 into a commotion by the unheralded reappear- 
 ance, at its former anchorage, of D 'Iberville's 
 ship " La Renomee." Nanfan wrote to Bello- 
 mont reporting the arrival of D' Iberville's ship 
 " on pretence to wood and water," but he believed 
 to examine the channel and harbor. He was not 
 aware that they made any move in that direction, 
 but purposed sending out the fort's barge every 
 night, and " if the French are discovered sound- 
 ing it will be forbidden." He further told Bello- 
 mont that he had heard King James had made 
 an absolute gift of the province to the French 
 King and believed that D' Iberville had orders to 
 touch in and examine the channel and harbor. 
 The day this letter was dispatched Bellomont 
 returned to New York, and August 9th, prob- 
 ably after D 'Iberville' s departure, forced the 
 following " Act Against Jesuits & Popish 
 Priests" on the statute books: 
 
 " Whereas divers Jesuits priests and popish 
 missionaries have of late come and for Some 
 time have had their residence in the remote parts 
 of this Province and other his ma'tys adjacent 
 Colonies, who by their wicked and Subtle Insinu- 
 
208 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 ations Industriously Labour to Debauch Seduce 
 and w'thdraw the Indians from their due obedi- 
 ence unto his most Sacred ma'ty and to Excite 
 and Stir them up to Sedition RebeUion and open 
 HostiHty against his ma'tys Goverm't for pre- 
 vention whereof Bee it Enacted by his Excel the 
 Gov'r Council and Representatives Convened in 
 Generall Assembly and it is hereby Enacted by 
 the Authority of the Same, That all and every 
 Jesuit and Seminary Priest missionary or other 
 Spirituall or Ecclesiasticall person made or or- 
 dained by any Authority power or Jurisdicon de- 
 rived Challenged or p'tented from the Pope or 
 See of Rome now resideing w'th in this province 
 or any part thereof shall depart from and out of 
 the Same at or before the first day of November 
 next in this present year Seaventeen hundred. 
 And be it further Enacted by the authority 
 aforesaid, That all and every Jesuit Seminary 
 Priest Missionary or other Spirituall or Ecclesi- 
 asticall person made or Ordained by any Author- 
 ity power or Jurisdiction derived Challenged or 
 p'tended from the pope or See of Rome or that 
 shall profess himself or otherwise appear to be 
 Such by preaching & teaching of others to Say 
 any popish prayers by Celebrating masses grant- 
 ing of absolution or using any other of the 
 Romish ceremonies & Rites of worship by what 
 name title or degree So ever such a person shall 
 be called or known who shall Continue abide re- 
 maine or come into this province or any part 
 thereof after ye first day of November aforesaid 
 shall be deemed and Accounted an incendiary 
 and disturber of the publick peace and Safety 
 and an Enemy to the true Christian Religion and 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 209 
 
 shal be adjudged to Suffer perpetuall Impris- 
 onm't and if any person being so Sentenced and 
 actually Imprisoned shall break prison and make 
 his Escape and be afterwards retaken he shall 
 Suffer such paines of Death penalties and for- 
 feitures as in Cases of ff elony. And it is further 
 Enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every 
 person that shall wittingly and willingly receive, 
 harbor Conceale aid Succour and relieve any 
 Jesuit preist missionary or other Ecclesiastical 
 person of the Romish Clergy knowing him to be 
 Such and be thereof lawfully Convicted before 
 any of his ma'tj^s Courts of Records w'thin this 
 Province w'ch Courts are hereby Impowered and 
 Authorized to hear try and Determine the Same 
 he shall forfeit the Sum of two hundred pounds 
 Currant mony of this Province one half to his 
 JNIa'ty for and towards the Support of the Gov- 
 ernm't and the other half to the Informer w^ho 
 shall sue for ye Same in any Court of Record 
 w'thin this province wherein no Essoyn protec- 
 tion or wager of Law shall be allowed and Such 
 person shall be further punished by being Set in 
 ye pillory on three Severall dayes and also be 
 bound to the good behavior at the discretion of 
 the Court. And be it further Enacted by the Au- 
 thority aforesaid That it shall and may be Law- 
 full to and for every Justice of the peace to cause 
 any person or persons Suspected of being a 
 Jesuit, Seminary Preist or of the Romish Clergy 
 to be apprehended & Convented before himself & 
 Some other of his JNIa'tys Justices and if Such 
 person do not give Sattisfactory acco't of him- 
 self he shall be Committed to prison in order to 
 a Tryall also it shall and may be Lawf ull to and 
 
210 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 for any person or persons to app'rehend w'thout 
 a warrant any Jesuit Seminary preist or other of 
 the Romish Clergy as aforesaid and to Convent 
 him before ye Gov'r or any two of the Council 
 to be Examined and Imprisoned in order to a 
 Tryall unless he give a Sattisfactory acco't of 
 himself and as it will be Esteemed and accepted 
 as a good Service don for ye King by the person 
 who shall Seiz & apprehend any Jesuit Preist 
 missionary or Romish Ecclesiactick as aforesaid 
 So the Gov'r of this province for ye time being 
 w'th ye advice & Consent of the Council may 
 Suitably reward him as they think fitt. Pro- 
 vided this act shall not Extend or be Construed 
 to Extend unto any of the Romish Clergy who 
 shall happen to be Shipwrackt, or thro' other ad- 
 versity shall be cast on shoure or driven into this 
 province, So as he Continue or abide no Longer 
 w'thin Same than untill he may have opportunity 
 of passage for his Departure. So also as Such 
 person Immediately upon his arrivall shall f orth- 
 w'th attend ye Gov'r if near to ye place of his 
 Residence, or otherwise on one or more of ye 
 Council or next Justices of the peace, & acquaint 
 y'm w'th his Circumstances & observe ye Direc- 
 cons w'ch they shall give him during his stay in 
 ye province." 
 
 This act is said to have been suggested and 
 drafted by Bellomont. In the council several 
 amendments were proposed bj'- Chief Justice 
 William Smith. In Bellomont's draft one third 
 of the fine imposed on harborers of priests went 
 to King William, one third to Bellomont and the 
 other third to the informer. As amended, one 
 half the fine went to the informer, the other to 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 211 
 
 the king for the support of the government. The 
 clause providing for the cases of priests forced 
 into the province through shipwreck or similar 
 cause was an amendment of Smith's, the original 
 draft containing no provision for such cases. 
 Much to Bellomont's chagrin, the vote on the 
 adoption of the act showed a plurality of one 
 vote against adoption. Bellomont, voting as a 
 member of the council, tied the vote; then voted 
 again as presiding officer and passed it, and, as 
 Governor, signed it. 
 
 A transport, loaded with red-coated soldiery, 
 sailed up the bay in October. The soldiers, a 
 body of recruits from Ireland, overflowing with 
 animal spirits and jubilant over their release 
 from the crowded quarters and strict discipline 
 of a troopship, were landed in the city Saturday 
 night. As soldiers will, they passed the night in 
 carousel and pandemonium reigned in the town. 
 " A parcel of the vilest fellows that ever wore 
 the King's livery, the very scum of the Army in 
 Ireland and several Irish papists among 'em," 
 said Bellomont. Later Lieutenant-Governor 
 Nanf an assembled them on the parade outside the 
 fort and read the act to punish mutineers and 
 deserters. He then made up a detachment to 
 proceed to Albany to reinforce the companies 
 stationed there. A spokesman stepped from 
 the ranks and told the Lieutenant-Governor 
 that the soldiers would not stir a foot until 
 they had received full sterling pay that was 
 due them and sea pay during the voyage. This 
 declaration was followed by a great tumult. 
 Bellomont, in the meantime, had admitted five 
 hundred civilians to the fort and had armed them. 
 
212 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Just as the recruits, led by Corporal Morris, had 
 started to enter the fort the gates were slammed 
 in their faces. The soldiers were caught un- 
 armed and were soon overawed by the strength 
 of the garrison. Three quarters of their number 
 were placed under arrest, and four of them con- 
 demned to be shot. Two, Richard Fleming and 
 Jonathan Wilford, were reprieved, and the other 
 two. Corporal Morris and Robert Cotteral, who 
 had been an Ensign in King James' Irish army, 
 fell before the guns of a firing party. 
 
 The Governor next directed his attention to 
 the spiritual welfare of the red men. In a letter 
 to the Lords of Trade he urged the sending over 
 of missionaries. He wrote: " They must be men 
 of sober and exemplary lives and good scholars, 
 or they will not be fit to instruct the Indians and 
 encounter the Jesuits in point of argument. I 
 should advise their being both settled at the in- 
 tended Fort: and for their encouragement they 
 ought to have one hundred and fifty pounds a 
 year salarie, apiece, Sterl. money. Without a 
 Fort 'tis next to impossible to prevail with the 
 / ministers to live among the Indians : they are so 
 nasty as never to wash their hands or the utensils 
 they dress their victuals with & their food is 
 (some of it) loathsome to the last degree; tho' 
 they eat great store of venison, pidgeons and 
 fish; yet bear's flesh is a great part of their diet; 
 and when they feast themselves and their friends 
 a dog is esteemed with them a princely dish." 
 
 The Canadian civil and religious authorities 
 were bitterly opposed to the coureurs de hois be- 
 cause of the loose lives they led in the wilderness, 
 and this may have prompted Jean de Noyon and 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 213 
 
 Louis Gosselin to journey down to New York 
 and assure the authorities that they represented 
 the French coureurs de hois, who, they asserted, 
 were dissatisfied with the condition of affairs in 
 New France and would bring their trade to Al- 
 bany. They further promised td lead to New 
 York ten or twelve Ottawa sachems, but there 
 is no evidence of any increased trade in Albany 
 about that time or of any big Ottawa delegation 
 visiting New York. 
 
 The Mayor and Aldermen petitioned the Gov- 
 ernor and council in December demanding the 
 release from slavery of a free-born Indian 
 woman of Caracas, held in bondage by Edward 
 Antill, a prominent and wealthy citizen. 
 
 When piracy flourished in New York, an ap- 
 peal was made to the home government to send a 
 warship to put down the nefarious traffic. Ow- 
 ing to a lack of ships and money, no government 
 vessel, it was announced, was available. Several 
 noblemen, among them the Earl of Bellomont, 
 formed a stock company for the suppression of 
 piracy. King William subscribed £3,000, but 
 forgot or neglected to pay in his subscription. 
 An armed vessel was fitted out and placed un- 
 der the command of Captain William Kidd of 
 New York. The aim and object of the corpora- 
 tion was unique. Pirate vessels w^ere to be cap- 
 tured and the value of their cargoes divided 
 among the stockholders. Kidd's vessel sailed 
 from Bristol for New York in 1696. He after- 
 wards proceeded to the East Indian and African 
 coasts. It is said that his crew compelled him to 
 abandon his instructions and enter on a career of 
 piracy. The assertion is also made that he but 
 
214 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 followed his secret instructions in entering on 
 this career. He returned to New York in 1698 
 with an immense booty. He proceeded openly to 
 Boston, was arrested by Bellomont's order on a 
 charge of piracy and murder, and sent to Eng- 
 land for trial. He was tried and executed in 
 1701. It required all the influence and power of 
 King William and his government to suppress a 
 parliamentary investigation of the affair that 
 would have shaken the throne. 
 
 Bellomont died in New York March 3rd, 1701, 
 and his body, buried in the chapel of the fort, 
 finally found a resting place in St. Paul's church- 
 yard. 
 
 Robert Livingston, in a letter to the Lords of 
 Trade, in May, 1701, wrote: " And there is good 
 reason to suspect that Monsr. de Iberville the last 
 summer came hither in his fourth rate man of 
 war from Misasipi of purpose to sound our chan- 
 nel, which his men in boats performed every day 
 near a month together without interruption." 
 Livingston's suspicions were w^ell founded. 
 D 'Iberville, in 1701, submitted to the French 
 government a memorial in which he outlined a 
 campaign for the conquest of Boston and its de- 
 pendencies. The document exhibits a remarkable 
 knowledge of the English possessions from Bos- 
 ton to Albany and its description of New York 
 city and its bay is interesting: " The entrance 
 into the river at New York is difficult for the 
 space of two leagues as far as Isle aucc Lapins 
 (Coney Island), where but sixteen or seventeen 
 feet of water are to be found, following the sin- 
 uosities of the channel and where tacking is im- 
 possible. It is four leagues from Isle aux 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 215 
 
 Lapins to New York, where there is plenty of 
 water. The passage hes between Long and 
 Staten Islands, which are half a league apart. 
 ... If operations are confined to bombarding 
 that town, which is very handsome, and contains 
 six hundred houses, all very neat brick buildings, 
 with two churches and one Jewish synagogue, 
 that project does not appear to me to be very 
 difficult; and a large force is not necessary to 
 destroy that town, which is very wealthy and 
 filled with merchandise, unless a small island 
 within a quarter of a league of the place [Gov- 
 ernor's Island] should have been fortified. This 
 would prevent the bombardment and protect the 
 city, unless a passage were effected beyond it at 
 the expense of a few cannon shot." 
 
 In this year, just eighteen years after a Cath- 
 olic governor, acting for a Catholic proprietor, 
 had proclaimed toleration towards all Christians 
 and called a popular assembly, the province 
 enacted a law by which " all Papists and Popish 
 recusants are prohibited from voting for mem- 
 bers of assembly or any office whatever from 
 thenceforth and forever." There was friction 
 between England and France at this time, and 
 suspicious strangers were closely watched. One 
 Ousterhouse, an outward-bound passenger in the 
 ship " Happy Peace," was, on order of the coun- 
 cil, searched on suspicion of being the bearer of 
 letters to the French minister, M. Ponchartrain. 
 
 England declared war, known as the War of 
 the Spanish Succession, against France and 
 Spain in 1702, and during the eleven years of 
 strife many French and Spanish prizes and pris- 
 oners were taken into New York. 
 
216 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Edward Hyde, Viscount Cornbury, assumed 
 the duties of Governor of New York and New 
 Jersey JNIay 3rd. His administration was chiefly 
 distinguished for its " intolerance, licentiousness, 
 dishonesty and misrule." Although a nephew 
 of King James' by marriage, he was one of the 
 first to desert him and join the Prince of Orange. 
 In 1708 he was removed from the office of gov- 
 ernor, in compliance with the protests of the 
 people, and was immediately thrown into prison 
 by his creditors. On the death of his father, the 
 Earl of Clarendon, he paid his debts and ex- 
 changed his prison cell for a seat in the House of 
 Lords. The Reverend Thoroughgood Moore, 
 sent out as an Indian missionary by the Society 
 for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
 Parts, while officiating in his ministerial capacity 
 at Burlington, N. J., " was so scandalized at the 
 indecent conduct of Lord Cornbury and his 
 Lieutenant-Governor [Ingoldsby] that he re- 
 fused to admit the latter to the Lord's supper and 
 was cast into jail in consequence. Moore, some 
 time afterwards, contemplating returning to 
 England, was warned of the danger of falling 
 into the hands of the French. He replied that he 
 would rather be taken prisoner to France than 
 into the fort in New York. 
 
 A big Spanish ship bound from Cadiz to 
 Havana was, while off the latter port, sighted 
 by three New York privateers, boarded and 
 captured by the men of Captain Clavear's ship. 
 She proved to have a rich cargo of wine, oil and 
 fruit, and carried sixty passengers, including 
 two " Fryers." On the arrival of the prize in 
 New York, twenty of the passengers landed and 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 217 
 
 were entertained by John Hutchins, at govern- 
 ment expense, but the ecclesiastics seem to have 
 been kept on shij)board until exchanged or other- 
 wise disposed of. 
 
 The news that the redoubtable D' Iberville had 
 taken the island of Nevis, coupled with a rumor 
 that he was about to transfer his operations to 
 the English colonies' seaports, particularly New 
 York, caused a panic in the city in 1706. The 
 " French scare " occupied public attention to the 
 exclusion of every other topic. The fort was 
 hastily patched up ; the Board of Admiralty en- 
 couraged privateering; a line of stockades was 
 erected across the island. Three batteries were 
 thrown up on the East River shore and three on 
 the North River. In compliance with a sugges- 
 tion of Cornbury's, the legislature voted an ap- 
 propriation of fifteen hundred pounds, nemine 
 contradicente, for fortifying the Narrows, with 
 which sum his lordship subsequently erected a 
 summer residence on Nutten Island. 
 
 A French privateer, the " Queen Ann," ap- 
 peared off Sandy Hook July 26th, and when the 
 citizens discovered that no move had been made 
 to erect the Narrows forts there was great anxi- 
 ety and indignation in the town. A dispatch 
 from the Governor of Maryland, that several 
 large French ships, having seven merchantmen 
 as prizes, were off the Virginia capes, bound 
 north, caused consternation. Since May, all the 
 able-bodied citizens had been working with pick 
 and shovel, throwing up fortifications. A cap- 
 tured French man-of-war, renamed " Triton's 
 Prize," was fitted out, and another ship, manned 
 by citizens, sailed outside the Hook, but when the 
 
218 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 citizen sailors caught sight of the French ship, 
 twenty miles outside, they promptly refused to 
 meet her and sailed for home. The " Triton's 
 Prize " engaged the " Queen Ann," and at the 
 close of an all-day fight the Frenchman withdrew. 
 
 Two days later a dispatch from Staten Island 
 announced that ten large French privateers had 
 anchored within Sandy Hook. The New York- 
 ers were panic-stricken. Every militia colonel 
 was ordered to march his command to the de- 
 fense of New York, and then it was discovered 
 that the ten large French privateers were prizes, 
 taken from the French and brought into port by 
 Captain Adrian Clavear. 
 
 Morris Newinhuysen, the mate of the sloop 
 " Constant Abigail," brought a story to the city 
 in 1707 that threw the French Protestants into a 
 great turmoil. The " Constant Abigail " was 
 taken by a French privateer, Nov. 6th, 1706, off 
 Scilly. According to Newinhuysen's story, the 
 boatswain of the sloop and a French privateers- 
 man, in overhauling the sloop's papers and mail- 
 pouch, found a letter directed to some one in 
 Rochelle, France. Newinhuysen charged that 
 this letter was written by Captain Benjamin 
 Fanueil, one of the pillars of the Huguenot 
 church in New York. In this epistle, asserted 
 Newinhuysen, Fanueil had told his French cor- 
 respondent that if the French squadron that took 
 Nevis had come to New York, it would have en- 
 countered less resistance. This looked like giv- 
 ing information to the enemy in time of war, an 
 imputation that these French residents could not 
 afford to permit to pass unchallenged. They ap- 
 j^ealed to Corbury for an investigation, and the 
 council declared the charges unfounded. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 219 
 
 A French flag of truce party from Canada, 
 consisting- of Herlel, Sieur de Chambty, Jean 
 Des Landes, Louis Soljett, Rene Coulon, Jean 
 Baptist INIorriseau, and Jean Baptist d'Hercourt, 
 came down to New York and lodged for a time 
 in Henry Swift's house. Having transacted 
 their business, the council issued a safe conduct 
 for their return to Canada. 
 
 The Rev. John Talbot wrote from New York 
 in 1708: " I saw Mr. Bradford (the printer) in 
 New York. He tells me that Mass is set up and 
 read publicly in Philadelphia, and several people 
 are turned to it, amongst which Lionell Brittin, 
 the churchwarden, is one and his son is another. 
 I thought that Popery would come in amongst 
 Friends, the Quakers, as soon as any way." 
 
 Among the many Spanish and French pris- 
 oners carried to New York during this war were 
 two Spanish priests, Padre Freay and Padre 
 Pascoal, who, with a companion or attendant, 
 Thomas Strada, were lodged by the authorities 
 in the house of Elizabeth Cole, the widow of a 
 former messenger of the council. As to whence 
 these priests came and how long their captivity 
 lasted the records are silent. 
 
 John, Lord Lovelace, the descendant of one of 
 Sir Francis Drake's companions in his maraud- 
 ing expeditions, and one of the first noblemen of 
 consequence to desert King James, arrived in 
 New York December 18th, 1708. His brief but 
 honorable career as governor was terminated by 
 his death in New York, May 6th, 1709. Among 
 the retinue of servants that came with him to 
 New York were two Palatines, the precursors 
 of a mighty army of Germans that followed in 
 succeeding years. 
 
220 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN WHICH MANY OF THE " POOR PERSECUTED 
 PROTEST ANS " FROM THE PALATINATE ARE 
 DISCOVERED TO BE " PAPISTS " 
 
 With the coming of the Palatines to New 
 York began on a large scale the loss to the Cath- 
 olic Church that has from that day to the present 
 assumed appalling proportions. There are two 
 Palatinates, the Upper, or Bavarian, and the 
 Lower, known as the Palatinate of the Rhine, or 
 Pfalz, The immigrants to New York came from 
 the latter, which contained less than thirty-five 
 hundred square miles. Its capital was Heidel- 
 berg, and the principal cities Mayence, Spires, 
 ]Mannheim and Worms. It was governed by the 
 Rudolphine line from 1294 to 1559, then passed 
 to the house of Zimmern, which, in turn, was suc- 
 ceeded by the house of Neuberg. Nearly every 
 succession to the throne meant a change in the 
 sect of the ruler, either Lutheran or Calvinist, 
 and those changes involved the petty persecution 
 of Protestant by Protestant. " Luther and Cal- 
 vin, Knox and Cranmer, and even the Puritans of 
 New England," says Cobb, in the " Story of the 
 Palantines," " acknowledged as vital the princi- 
 ple that the state could interfere in the religion 
 of the subject." John William, Duke of Neu- 
 berg, a Catholic, ascended the throne in 1690 and 
 ended the warring of the sects by issuing a decla- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 221 
 
 ration for liberty of conscience ; but greater wars 
 had waged for six years, and continued for twen- 
 ty-three years longer, with but four years in- 
 terval of peace, to impoverish his people and 
 destroy his possessions. During the wars of the 
 Grand Alliance and of the Spanish Succession, 
 the Palatinate was ravaged by French and Ger- 
 man armies. 
 
 Doubtless this was the principal cause that led 
 to the exodus ; in fact, the Protestant Consistory 
 of the Palatinate declared that the Palatines had 
 no other grievances to complain of " than what 
 is natural to the meaner sort of people of all 
 countries and nations, viz., those of poverty." 
 English attention was first called to the Palatines 
 by the publication, in London, in 1699, of a 
 pamphlet entitled, " A True Account of the Sad 
 Condition of the Protestants in the Palatinate. 
 In two letters by an English Gentleman." This 
 publication was a rabidly bigoted attack on the 
 Catholic ruler. Prior to 1708, the ravages of war 
 and the blighting of the grape-vines reduced the 
 Palatines to extremity. The Reverend Joshua 
 Kockerthal, a Protestant minister of the Palati- 
 nate, applied to JNIr. Davrelle, the British repre- 
 sentative at Frankfort, in February, 1708, for 
 passes to America and money for sixty-one per- 
 sons. JNIr. Davrelle refused to grant the request, 
 and for so doing was commended by Queen 
 Anne's government; " though the desire to have 
 those poor people to settle in the plantations is 
 very acceptable and would be for the public good, 
 yet she [Queen Anne] can by no means consent " 
 without the Elector Palatine's consent and ap- 
 proval. 
 
222 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Nevertheless the Reverend Joshua Kockerthal, 
 without obtaining anyone's pubhc consent, landed 
 with his party at Whitehall in the spring of 1708, 
 and their odd attire, shovel hats, quaint garments 
 and wooden shoes attracted considerable atten- 
 tion. An order in council, of May, permit- 
 ter ]Mr. Kockerthal and forty of his followers to 
 proceed to New York, to be settled somewhere 
 on the banks of the Hudson River, " where they 
 may be useful to this kingdom, particularly in 
 the production of naval stores and as a frontier 
 against the French and Indians." There is 
 frankness at least about this declaration of an 
 intention to make a " frontier " of these " poor 
 persecuted Palatines," but as an example of dis- 
 interested philanthropy it is not impressive. 
 
 In June, fourteen more were added to the 
 party, and in July Kockerthal applied to the 
 Queen for a salary and a bounty of <£20, usually 
 given to a missionary bound for foreign parts, 
 with which to buy a suitable outfit. The <£20 was 
 granted, the salary refused, but Lord Lovelace 
 was instructed to give Kockerthal a grant of 
 land. Kockerthal and his party reached New 
 York in December, and some months later were 
 settled on a grant of twenty-one hundred and 
 ninety acres on the west bank of the Hudson 
 River, at and adjacent to the site of the city 
 of Newburgh. The Queen's government had 
 granted this party free transportation to New 
 York, lands free of tax or quit-rent, seed, agri- 
 cultural tools and furniture, and had agreed to 
 subsist the settlers for one year, or until they had 
 gathered their first harvest. Nothing could have 
 been more generous than this treatment, and 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 223 
 
 Kockerthal, having settled his people in their 
 new homes, hurried back to the Palatinate to 
 gather another party. There were mysterious 
 influences at work in the Palatinate that in 
 their methods are strikingly similar to those 
 employed by the modern land-boomer and 
 suburban development enterprise. A pamphlet 
 was distributed widespread over the country 
 that was known to the Palatines as the " Golden 
 Book." It bore a portrait of Queen Anne 
 and its title-page was printed in letters of gold. 
 It invited and encouraged the Palatines to 
 come to England, to be shipped thence to the 
 Carolinas or other American colonies. A philan- 
 thropic unknown, accompanied by his servant, ap- 
 peared in Rotterdam among the refugees and 
 distributed, with the liberality of a canvasser for 
 some suburban-lot boom, free passes to Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The printing-press and orator all over Eng- 
 land had touched the hearts of the people with 
 the story of the wrongs of these " poor perse- 
 cuted Protestant Palatines." Parliament took 
 the matter in hand, and in March, 1709, passed 
 an act providing for the naturalization of for- 
 eign Protestants. With inconceivable rapidity 
 this news reached the Palatinate, and the people 
 began pouring in a stream from all parts of Ger- 
 many towards Rotterdam, supported on the way 
 by charity, seeking shipment to England. 
 
 Early in the spring a band of two hundred 
 and ten families and eighteen unmarried persons 
 crossed to England. Lord Sunderland wrote 
 the Board of Trade, at the Queen's request, ad- 
 vising that some method be found to enable the 
 
224 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Palatines to get a comfortable livelihood in Eng- 
 land instead of sending them to America. In 
 order to be in a position to handle the matter sys- 
 tematically and intelligently, a committee con- 
 sisting of two Lutheran ministers was appointed 
 in May to inquire into the condition, means of 
 livelihood and religion of the two hundred and 
 ten families and eighteen individuals. There was 
 embarrassment and dismay when the committee's 
 report was made public. Of this band of " poor 
 persecuted Protestant Palatines," whose ex- 
 penses to England had been paid to rescue them 
 from the cruelty of their Catholic ruler, thirty- 
 three of the families and three of the unmarried 
 persons declared they were Catholics. Dur- 
 ing May, ships from Rotterdam were landing 
 bands of Palatines in England, and barns, tents, 
 warehouses and all kinds of unoccupied struct- 
 ures were secured for their shelter by the gov- 
 ernment. A band of 1,193 of the refugees ar- 
 rived at Walworth, and, May 27th, a census 
 taken of their religious belief disclosed 154 of 
 the Reformed Church, 120 Lutherans, and 919 
 Catholics. By June, the total of the arrivals in 
 England was about 10,000, and this immense 
 public charge, together with the high jjercentage 
 of " Papists," alarmed the government and dis- 
 gusted the people. Orders were sent to Holland 
 to ship no more to England; but, notwithstand- 
 ing, three thousand came and still more followed. 
 The Elector Palatine was deeply offended by 
 this wholesale desertion, and the States- General 
 of the Netherlands instructed its minister in 
 Germany to stop the exodus. 
 A Parliamentary investigating committee was 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 225 
 
 appointed to discover who was encouraging the 
 emigration, but it failed to fix the blame, al- 
 though Henry Torne, a Quaker of Rotterdam, 
 who, strange to say, was a subordinate of Mr. 
 Davrelle's, the British agent, was suspected. It 
 was deemed advisable, in taking the census of the 
 arrivals, after the mortifying disclosure of May 
 27th, to drop the query as to religious affiliation. 
 Mr. Davrelle evidently had " his knuckles 
 rapped " for sending over " Papists." In a let- 
 ter of June 11th, to Mr. Secretary Boyle, he 
 acknowledged that there were a great many 
 " Papists " among the refugees in Holland, 
 whom, notwithstanding, he had sent to England. 
 There was but one thing to do to get rid of them. 
 The Catholics, or those among them who 
 acknowledged their faith, were shipped back to 
 Holland and received ten shillings each to assist 
 them on their return journey. Human nature is 
 weak, and very many of the Catholics, warned 
 by the fate of those who declared their faith, 
 denied it. The situation had afforded a fertile 
 field for the proselytizer, and he had been busy. 
 Catholicity was very decidedly under the ban in 
 England under " good Queen Anne," and priests 
 were few; but in this emergency there was one 
 unnamed hero, " the chaplain of one of the for- 
 eign ministers resident in London," who was so 
 truly an apostle to the Palatines as to merit the 
 condemnation of the bigoted pamphleteers of the 
 day. 
 
 It became apparent in July that something 
 must be done to raise funds for the maintenance 
 of the refugees, and the Queen appointed com- 
 missioners and trustees to solicit and disburse 
 
226 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 money contributed, to secure employment, and 
 settle them in homes. The amount raised by pop- 
 ular subscription was £300,000. The Lord Lieu- 
 tenant and Council of Ireland asked that the 
 Palatines be sent to them, and 3,800 were shipped 
 to that kingdom. For their support £24,000 was 
 appropriated from the Irish revenues, but 232 
 families returned to England because the com- 
 missary of the fund failed to pay them the al- 
 lowance for their subsistence. The Board of 
 Trade, in August, reported favorably on the 
 matter of settling more Palatines on waste land 
 on the banks of the Hudson River; they to be 
 supplied with implements of husbandry and 
 hardware for building timber houses, and to be 
 given, each, a grant of land under certain condi- 
 tions. The location of their settlement to be 
 chosen, " whereby they will be a good barrier be- 
 tween Her Majesty's subjects and the French & 
 their Indians in those parts, and in process of 
 time by intermarrying with the neighboring In- 
 dians (as the French do) they may be Capable 
 of rendring very great Service to Her INIajesty's 
 Subjects thei*e." It was further mentioned that 
 these " good barriers " would be useful in the fur 
 trade and production of naval stores. 
 
 Everything was not lovely, in the meantime, 
 on the banks of the Hudson. The Kockerthal 
 party, that had settled near the site of New- 
 burgh, petitioned the authorities, September 
 23rd, for the balance of their allowance of pro- 
 visions, amounting to nine pence per day, as they 
 were in " great want." Other Palatines who 
 might voyage to America were not to be granted 
 any such " gilt edged " terms as the Kockerthal 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 227 
 
 party. In December, the Attorney General pre- 
 pared for the body of emigrants then making 
 readj^ to sail in the spring for New York with 
 Governor Robert Hunter, who was to succeed 
 Lord Lovelace, a covenant in w hich the Palatines 
 agreed that, having been " subsisted, maintained 
 and supported ... by the great and christian 
 charity of her Majesty, the Queen and many of 
 her good subjects," and her Majesty having or- 
 dered the loan of a considerable sum of money 
 for transporting, maintaining and settling them 
 in the province of New York, thej^ would labor, 
 produce, and manufacture all manner of needful 
 stores, and were to receive, as soon as they had 
 repaid the government for its expenditures on 
 their behalf, a grant of forty acres of land free 
 from all taxes, quit-rents, " or other manner of 
 service for seven years from the date of such 
 grant." . . . They further agreed to settle with 
 their families in the places allotted to them, and 
 " not upon any account or manner of pretense 
 quit or desert without leave from ye govern- 
 ment," and not to engage in woolen manu- 
 facture. 
 
 John Frederic Haeger, a Palatine minister, 
 having been highly recommended to the Society 
 for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts as 
 a proper person to minister to the emigrants, 
 was " put into Holy Orders " by tlie Bishop of 
 London, given a salary of ,£50 per annum, the 
 usual £10 for outfit, and £5 for books. 
 
 In June, 1710, after a voyage of storm, 
 wretchedness and misery, the ten emigrant ships, 
 carrying about three thousand Palatines, that had 
 left England with Governor Hunter straggled 
 
228 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 into New York. No less than 470 of them had 
 found graves in the deep. There was no accom- 
 modation for such a number in the Httle city, 
 and its inhabitants feared the new-comers might 
 cause a " mahgnant distemper," so they were fer- 
 ried over to Nutten Island and housed in rude 
 huts the carpenters of the city had hastily erected. 
 A month later there was an order in council is- 
 sued that caused grief and anger. Sixty-eight 
 orphans and children whose parents were unable 
 to support them were taken from the island by 
 the provincial officials and apprenticed to fam- 
 ilies in the city and neighboring towns. Gov- 
 ernor Hunter journeyed up the Hudson to find 
 land in the northern part of the province suitable 
 for the settlement of his charges. Tracts in vari- 
 ous parts were offered him, but he fell into the 
 hands of land speculators, and Robert Liv- 
 ingston sold him a tract on the river about eight 
 miles below the present city of Hudson, and also 
 obtained from him a contract for victualling 
 the settlers. The land was rocky and barren, 
 unsuitable for the production of naval or any 
 kind of stores. In September, 2,275 of the un- 
 fortunate people journeyed up the river to their 
 new home, two hundred and fifty having died 
 since their arrival in New York. 
 
 The Reverend John Frederic Haeger, the spir- 
 itual shepherd of the immigrants, was not slow in 
 beginning his labors. He wrote to the Society 
 for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 
 October 28th, " I instructed fifty-two in the 
 fundamentals of our religion according to the 
 Church Catechism; among them were thirteen 
 Papists." In spite of the weeding-out process 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 229 
 
 that sent so manj^ Catholics back to Rotterdam, 
 here are thirteen out of fifty-two acknowledging 
 that they were " Papists." 
 
 Governor Hunter had expended a good part 
 of his private fortune in caring for the Palatines, 
 and had, trusting the government at home to en- 
 dorse his action, signed heavy contracts for their 
 subsistence. It was with dismay he learned, in 
 October, that there had been a change in the gov- 
 ernment and that the new ministry refused to 
 pay any of his bills. The change of ministry 
 produced many other changes in the fortunes of 
 the Palatines and of public feeling towards 
 them. A pamphlet was published in London, in 
 1711, with the title: "A View of the Queen's 
 and Kingdom's Enemies in the Case of the Poor 
 Palatines." It declared that 10,000 Palatines 
 had arrived in England between INIay 1st and 
 July 18th, 1709, and that the expense of their 
 maintenance had increased from £16 to £100 a 
 day. The Queen had issued letters patent to raise 
 charitable contributions " for those distressed 
 Protestants who were more than half of them 
 Papists." The £300,000 raised for them was an 
 incredible amount, it asserted, to be contributed 
 by people under a twenty years' war burden, 
 " for a parcel of vagabonds who might have lived 
 comfortably enough in their native country, had 
 not the laziness of their dispositions and the re- 
 port of our well-known generosity drawn them 
 out of it. . . . For as to their pretence to come 
 hither purely for the exercise of their religion, 
 there was nothing in it, though some were in- 
 duced to relieve them on account of their pre- 
 tended persecutions." 
 
230 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 A petition of ministers, churchwardens, and 
 inhabitants of St. Olave, Southwark, and ad- 
 jacent parishes in London was presented in the 
 House of Commons against the presence of the 
 Palatines in their parishes, on the ground that 
 there were dangerous disturbers amongst them 
 and that they feared the outbreak of a contagious 
 distemper. A committee of the House was ap- 
 pointed to inquire upon whose invitation the 
 Palatines came over; what moneys were ex- 
 pended in bringing them, and by whom paid, and 
 permission was given to bring in a bill to repeal 
 the act naturalizing foreign Protestants. The 
 parliamentary committee in due time reported to 
 the House that the whole charge occasioned by 
 the Palatines was £135,77 5. 1S.0V:>, and the 
 House " Resolved that the inviting over into this 
 Kingdom the poor Palatines of all religions at 
 the public expense, was an extravagant and mis- 
 erable charge to the Kingdom and a scandalous 
 misapplication of the public money, tending to 
 the increase and oppression of the poor of the 
 Kingdom and of dangerous consequences to 
 the constitution of church and state. Resolved 
 that whosoever advised the bringing over of the 
 poor Palatines into the Kingdom was an enemy to 
 the Queen and this Kingdom." 
 
 In the parliamentary inquiry the fact was 
 elicited that, notwithstanding the great sum of 
 money expended for them, the Palatines had " no 
 subsistence but what they got by their wives beg- 
 ging on the streets." Hard as was the lot of the 
 Palatines in Southwark, Black Heath and Cam- 
 berwell, it was an easy existence compared with 
 that of their brethren on the Livingston Manor 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 231 
 
 tract up the Hudson River. By the spring of 
 1711, they had discovered that they had virtually 
 been sold into slavery. If they had labored 
 day after day far beyond the natural term of 
 human life they could not possibly produce 
 sufficient naval stores to j)ay their debt to the 
 government and become owners of the prom- 
 ised forty acres of land, for the reason that naval 
 stores cannot profitably be produced from north- 
 ern pine. 
 
 The barren Livingston Manor tract was un- 
 suitable for raising crops or even grazing cattle. 
 Every promise made the unfortunates was 
 broken, and three hundred men, hurried for mili- 
 tary duty in the Canadian campaign and Albany 
 garrison, received no pay, and on their return 
 found their families starving. The settlers were 
 forced to pay the salaries of an army of over- 
 seers, commissaries and clerks, and were cheated 
 in the quality and quantity of their provisions. 
 To crown all, Governor Hunter notified them 
 that he could no longer subsist them and they 
 must shift for themselves. 
 
 The Reverend INIr. Haeger continued his mis- 
 sionary work despite his people's trials, and July 
 8th, 1713, wrote to the Societj^: " The number of 
 persons instructed in our Church Catechism and 
 true principles of Christianity and admitted to 
 the Lord's Supper (part whereof are come to 
 such competent age as is required and part are 
 such as left the errors of the Church of Rome) 
 are 113." The following year, in a report to the 
 Society, he wrote that his flock was scattered 
 along the Hudson, in settlements known as 
 Hunterstown, Queenstown, Annsburg, Hays- 
 
232 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 bury, Newtown, Georgetown, Elizabethtown and 
 at Schoharie ; that he had 380 communicants, and 
 " No. of Papist famihes — one." These Cathohc 
 immigrants, and a goodly number must have 
 landed in New York, deprived of a spiritual 
 guide and of the consolations of their religion, 
 affiliated with one or other of the sects or slept in 
 unconsecrated graves. The Palatines, driven to 
 desperation by their wrongs, cleft a way through 
 the wilderness to Schoharie, and were there per- 
 secuted by the Provincial officials and a band of 
 scheming Albany land-speculators; but, be- 
 friended by the heathen red men, they prospered. 
 Many of them found their way to that haven of 
 the oppressed, Pennsylvania, and as time passed 
 on were absorbed in the growing population. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 233 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 IN WHICH THE ENSLAVING OF SPANISH FREEMEN 
 LEADS TO A BLOODY RECKONING 
 
 The French prisoners of war, who had been 
 permitted a certain amount of hberty, within 
 bounds, in the city, were, in June, 1709, probably 
 because of some danger apprehended from their 
 ever-increasing numbers, ordered by the council 
 to be ferried across the river and marched to 
 Flatbush and Hempstead, for their, and the 
 city's, greater security. 
 
 An expedition against New France, by land 
 and sea, was planned, but failed. Four of the 
 five cantons of the Iroquois were induced to take 
 the war ^Dath against the French. Father Peter 
 de Mareuil, S.J., who had come from France to 
 the Canadian mission in 1706, went to Onondaga 
 to assist Father Lamberville in 1709. John 
 Schuyler, a brother of Peter Schuyler, visited 
 Father Lamberville and won his confidence. He 
 expressed sincere regret that the Five Nations 
 had dug up the war hatchet and advised the 
 Jesuit to hurry to Canada to confer over the 
 situation with Governor-General Vaudreuil. 
 Father Lamberville had no sooner left the castle 
 than Schuyler incited a band of drunken savages 
 to plunder the mission-house and chapel and to 
 burn them. With protestations of sympathy and 
 
234 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 friendship and expressions of fear for the safety 
 of his hfe, Schuyler persuaded Father de 
 JNIareuil to accompany him to Albany, but con- 
 cealed from him that on June 29th the provincial 
 authorities had issued an order for his arrest. 
 Bellomont's savage law against Jesuits was still 
 on the statute books, but, strange as it may seem, 
 Father de Mareuil was treated with kindness and 
 consideration in Albany, and June 23rd the 
 House of Assembly ordered " That the Com- 
 missioners for managing the Expedition to 
 Canada, &c., do take care a decent Provision be 
 made for the French Jesuit and a Servant that 
 surrendered themselves to this government from 
 the Indians, as the Governor and Council shall 
 direct." Father de Mareuil was later sent down 
 the river to New York city, and at every settle- 
 ment he noted the busy preparations for the ex- 
 pedition that Ingoldsby was to lead, made up of 
 New York and New Jersey levies, against 
 Vaudreuil at Chambly, but which never got fur- 
 ther north than Wood Creek. The council min- 
 utes, dated June 25th, 1709, contain the follow- 
 ing: " It is the opinion of this Board that Flatt 
 Bush on Long Island is a proper place to send 
 ye French Priest to and that his Man be sent 
 to Hamstead on the Sd. Island, that they be sev- 
 erally charged not to go above a mile from the 
 house they are respectively lodged in nor with- 
 out some one of the inhabitants of the Town 
 with them, and that they be not out of their lodg- 
 ings any evening after sunsett, and that they be 
 told they are at liberty to write to their friends, 
 sending their letters oppen to the Government 
 to be Perused and sent away, and that what let- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 235 
 
 ters are sent to them shall come safe to their 
 hands after they have been read by the Govern- 
 ment, that so long as they behave themselves well 
 they shall be civilly treated." 
 
 These regulations, adopted by a board having 
 charge of prisoners of war, w^ere, no doubt, for- 
 mulated for Father de Mareuil and his servant, 
 in expectation of their arrival from Albany. 
 Later Father de Mareuil was exchanged for 
 Lieutenant Barent Staats, a law relative of Peter 
 Schuyler, and he reached Montreal in April, 
 1711. 
 
 The number of Spanish prisoners was in- 
 creased in 1710 by the privateers " Samuel " and 
 " Kingston " bringing into port as a prize the 
 great Spanish ship " Sto Christo del Burgo," 
 laden with cocoa, and the number of French pris- 
 oners was reduced by the departure of a flag-of- 
 truce vessel for Port Royal. A slave market was 
 established at the foot of Wall Street in 1711, 
 and it was ordered " that slaves for hire stand in 
 rank in the market place foot of Wall Street." 
 Many an intelligent South and Central Amer- 
 ican Catholic Indian, kidnapped from his home 
 and unlawfully sold into slavery by unprin- 
 cipled New York privateersmen, has stood there 
 among the black heathen just arrived from the 
 African jungle. 
 
 Undiscouraged by Vetch's abortive expedition 
 against New France, the home and colonial gov- 
 ernments had been gathering soldiers, supplies, 
 munitions of war and provisions for a supreme 
 effort against the northern enemy. Nicholson 
 had come from England to lead the soldiery of 
 New York and its neighbors against Chambly, 
 
236 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 and Brigadier General John Hill, in command 
 of Seymour's, Kane's, Clayton's, Kirk's, Dis- 
 ney's, Windresse's and Redding's regiments, re- 
 inforced by levies from INIassachusetts, New 
 Hampshire, and Rhode Island, were to be car- 
 ried in a great fleet of transports, convoyed 
 by a squadron of warships under command of 
 Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker. The warships, 
 "Feversham," 36 guns, and "Lowestoft," 32 
 guns, with transports, were sent from New York 
 to the rendezvous at Nantucket. The great fleet 
 entered the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, 
 August 22nd, and ran into a dense fog bank. 
 Paradis, an experienced St. Lawi'ence River pilot 
 who had been taken by Walker from a prize, was 
 piloting the fleet, but Walker suspected him of 
 treachery and interfered with him. As a conse- 
 quence, eight of the transports and a provision 
 ship were driven on the north shore near the 
 Seven Islands at half past ten o'clock at night, 
 and about two thousand were drowned. Of the 
 soldiers, 884 were lost and 499 saved. Among 
 the lost were a number of Scotch families who 
 had purposed settling in Canada after the con- 
 quest. At a consultation held on the flagship 
 after the disaster, it was decided to abandon the 
 expedition, and a notification to that effect was 
 sent to Nicholson, who fell back from the north- 
 ern border. When news of the- shipwreck 
 reached Quebec, Governor Vaudreuil dispatched 
 several barques to the scene of the disaster. 
 These returned laden with spoils from the 
 wrecked ships and reported finding articles of 
 Catholic devotion in the wreckage. 
 
 Governor Hunter was confounded by this dis- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 237 
 
 aster, and he was further overwhelmed, later in 
 the year, by the tidings that the " Feversham " 
 and " Lowestoft," the two warshij)s that had 
 sailed from New York, had been wrecked Octo- 
 ber 7th, with the three transports, " Joseph," 
 " Mary " and " Neptune," on the coast of Cape 
 Breton. In November, the little fishing ketch 
 *' Le Talente " sailed up the harbor and landed in 
 New York city the lieutenant, master and forty- 
 eight of the crew of the wrecked vessels. All the 
 other officers and 102 of the crew were lost. The 
 master of the ketch, Denis Courten de St. Aig- 
 nan, had fallen in with the wrecked crews of the 
 " Feversham " and the transports off Cape Bre- 
 ton. He agreed, for the sum of ,£2,400, to jet- 
 tison his cargo of fish in order to make accom- 
 modations for the fifty men, and to carry them 
 to Boston. They compelled him to change his 
 course and take them to New York, where the 
 stipulated sum was paid. Four of the shipwrecked 
 crew had been left behind, having wandered from 
 the main body and been lost on Cape Breton. 
 De St. Aignan offered to return to the island 
 and search for the missing ones, and Governor 
 Hunter granted him a safe-conduct pass. He 
 sailed for his northern destination and fell in 
 with H.M.S. "Hector." Notwithstanding the 
 Governor's pass, the captain of the " Hector " 
 robbed St. Aignan of seventy pistoles in gold 
 and considerable provisions and carried " Le 
 Talente " into New York as his prize. There 
 seems to have been little to choose in the early 
 years of the eighteenth century between some 
 British naval commanders and buccaneers, in the 
 matter of honesty and fair dealing. De St. Aig- 
 
238 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 nan ultimately reached Cape Breton and re- 
 turned, as the records say that in 1713 he was 
 paid <£237 for rescuing the crew of the " Low- 
 estoft." 
 
 Two French officers, probably the Sieur Rene 
 Boucher de la Perriere and Lieutenant Dupuys, 
 came to New York, in 1711, under a flag of 
 truce, and Governor Hunter, suspecting them to 
 be spies, detained them for a time as prisoners 
 of war. 
 
 Lieutenant Francis Lebert and two compan- 
 ions came to Albany, in June, with a pass from 
 Governor Vaudreuil, conducting Johnson Har- 
 mon and Simon Barton to Boston and New 
 York. Still fearful of spies. Hunter had them 
 hurried to New York to keep them under observa- 
 tion. Evidently provisions were scarce in New 
 York, or the Assembly refused an appropriation, 
 because the masters of two sIoojds applied to the 
 council for permission to sail to Guadaloupe and 
 JNIartinique " to load with provisions for the 
 French ^^risoners." 
 
 The population of the city in 1712 was 4,848 
 whites and 970 blacks. The number of free 
 Spanish Catholic Indians held in slavery was 
 constantly increasing, despite the many laws 
 enacted to suppress the traffic. A petition for 
 their freedom was handed to Governor Hunter, 
 soon after his arrival, on behalf of a number of 
 freeborn Spaniards captured by privateers and 
 sold into slavery. Among the victims was 
 Stephen Domingo, a native of Carthagena, who 
 had been held as a slave for eight years. Hunter, 
 who was a high principled, just official, realized 
 the unspeakable injustice of holding freemen in 
 
 f i, 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 239 
 
 bondage, and wrote to the Board of Trade that 
 there were " Spaniards unjustly kept in slavery 
 here for many years." He discovered that one 
 Hosea, held as a slave by INIrs. Wenham, and one 
 John, held as a slave by INIr. Vantelburgh, were 
 brought to New York as prisoners of war taken 
 from a Spanish vessel by a privateer; that they 
 were Spanish American Indians and subjects of 
 the King of Spain, sold as slaves in New York 
 and held in bondage six or seven years, " by 
 reason of their colour which is swarthy." If 
 swarthiness was the sole reason for condemning 
 Spaniards to slavery", how many white men were 
 held in bondage? " I secretly pittyed their con- 
 dition," wrote the Governor, " but haveing no 
 othere evidence of w* they asserted than their 
 own words, I had it not in my power to releive 
 them." A bloody reckoning was in store for the 
 province because of this crime. 
 
 The city had been shocked, in January, 1708, 
 by the news from Newtown, Queens County, 
 that a well-to-do farmer, William Hallet, Jr., his 
 wife and five children, had been murdered in 
 their home by their slaves, an Indian man and a 
 negro woman. Investigation seemed to indicate 
 that the butchery was the result of a slave's con- 
 spiracy and that other families in the vicinity had 
 been marked for slaughter. So important was 
 the case of the slaves considered that the chief 
 justice of the province, associate justices and the 
 attorney general journeyed to Jamaica to try 
 the conspirators. A number of slaves were 
 jailed, and as a result of the trial the Indian 
 man and negro woman were, February 2nd, exe- 
 cuted at Jamaica and, according to the news- 
 
240 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 paper account of the day, " put to all the tor- 
 ment possible for a terror to others, of ever 
 attempting the like wickedness." Two other 
 slaves were executed as accessories. As a result 
 of this conspiracy the city was in terror of a slave 
 uprising. It was realized that the presence among 
 these ferocious Africans, many of them direct 
 from the jungle, of free Spanish American In- 
 dians, burning with a sense of the cruel wrong 
 done them in reducing them to slavery, with all 
 its attendant cruelties and hardships, hopeless of 
 redress and with intelligence sufficient to con- 
 spire and to lead the negroes against their op- 
 pressors, constituted a dreadful menace to the 
 community. The Governor, council and assem- 
 bly, in October, 1708, passed " An Act for Pre- 
 venting the Conspiracy of Slaves." It provided 
 that negro, Indian, " or othere slave or slaves " 
 that should kill their master or mistress, or any 
 other free person, should be tried by three or 
 more Justices of the Peace and on conviction 
 should " Suffer the pains of Death in such man- 
 ner and with such Circumstances as the aggreva- 
 tion and Enormity of their Crime in the Judge- 
 ment of the Justices aforesaid of those Courts 
 shall merit and require. ..." 
 
 About midnight, April 6th, 1712, twenty-three 
 dusky forms stole silently from all parts of the 
 sleeping city to Crooke's apple orchard, near 
 Maiden Lane. Under the shadow of the trees, 
 the conspirators, Indian and negro slaves, pro- 
 duced many varieties of weapons, a few guns and 
 swords, the others, hatchets and butcher's knives. 
 A short whispered conference, and Coffee, a 
 slave of ]Mr. Vantelburgh, the owner of John, 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 241 
 
 the free Spanish American Indian, stole silently 
 away in the darkness to the premises of his mas- 
 ter near by. Aj^proaching an outhouse, he pro- 
 duced a flame, applied it to the contents of the 
 structure, and in a moment a tongue of fire 
 lighted up the darkness. He had been followed 
 by his f ello^v conspirators, and as the flames burst 
 from the little building the slaves shouted an 
 alarm of fire. Roused from sleep, the neighbors 
 came, one by one, to the scene, and as they ap- 
 proached a spurt of flame from a gun blazed out 
 from an ambush, and the half awakened man 
 dropped in his tracks. Others M^ere surrounded 
 by the infuriated slaves and hacked to death with 
 hatchets and knives. Nine whites were killed 
 and six badly wounded in this manner. The 
 crackling flames, the gun shots, the blood-mad- 
 dened, howling slaves become savages, and the 
 shouts of "Fire!" and "Murder!" paralyzed 
 with fear the people in the vicinit}\ One or two 
 men, retaining their presence of mind, hurried to 
 the fort and gave the alarm. The rolling of the 
 drums called the soldiers from their slumbers, 
 and in a short time a detachment of regulars 
 hurried up town at the " double quick." ISIean- 
 while from coigns of vantage the whites, who 
 had armed when they had realized conditions, 
 fired rapidly in the direction from which came 
 the shots of the slaves. By the time the military 
 arrived on the scene the slaves had retreated past 
 the Common and the negroes' burial ground and, 
 scattering, had found hiding places in the for- 
 ests, caves and rocky fastnesses of the northern 
 part of Manhattan Island. Next day the city 
 was wild with excitement, fearing a general slave 
 
242 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 insurrection. Regulars were stationed at the fer- 
 ries, and the Governor called out the New York 
 and Westchester counties' militia " to drive " the 
 whole island. 
 
 The slaves, without friends or food, were com- 
 pelled to surrender. Six of them, realizing the 
 tortures that would follow conviction, commit- 
 ted suicide. Search parties dragged to the jail 
 every one suspected of complicity in the rising. 
 The Special Court quickly condemned twenty- 
 seven of the unfortunates to death. It was felt 
 that a terrible example must be made of the ring- 
 leaders, but it is difficult to realize that in the city 
 of New York less than two hundred years ago 
 several human beings were burned at the stake, 
 one broken on the wheel, one hung in chains until 
 he died of starvation, and the balance put to 
 death on the scaif old. Governor Hunter did not 
 approve of this wholesale slaughter. He wrote 
 at the time: " I am informed that in the West In- 
 dies where their laws against their slaves are most 
 severe, that in case of a conspiracy in which many 
 are engaged a few onty are executed for an ex? 
 ample . . . more have suffered than we can 
 find were active in this bloody affair." For this 
 reason he reprieved and asked the Queen's par- 
 don for the S j)anish American Indians Hosea and 
 John, who had petitioned him for freedom, and 
 two others. The regard in which the negro slaves 
 were held about this time by the people of New 
 York is set forth in Humphrej^'s " Account of 
 the Society for Propagating the Gospel in For- 
 eign Parts": "Frequent discourses were made 
 in conversation that they (the negroes) had no 
 souls and perished as beasts." 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 243 
 
 111 the fall of 1712 the sloops " Swallow," 
 " Sybell " and " Sunflower," under flags of 
 truce, carried a number of French prisoners to 
 the West Indies. A general illumination of the 
 city followed the receipt of the news that the 
 treaty of Utrecht had sealed a peace between 
 England, France and Spain. This peace procla- 
 mation caused great activity among the rascally 
 kidnappers, and complaints w^ere lodged with the 
 courts, of attempts to kidnap Spanish prisoners 
 of war and " run them off " before an exchange 
 could be eff*ected. 
 
 The Lords of Trade had begun to realize 
 that the sending of incapable, discredited mis- 
 sionaries from England to the Indians was 
 useless. In 1715 they WTote to Governor 
 Hunter: "And in regard it is of great im- 
 portance that the IMissionaries sent into Amer- 
 ica from hence be men of good lives & Character, 
 without which it will be impossible to defeat the 
 practise of the French Priests and Jesuits 
 amongst our Indians." Truly a most gratify- 
 ing, if unintentional, tribute to the sons of St. 
 Ignatius! 
 
 England and Spain w^ere again at war in 1718, 
 and in the summer of 1719 Gabriel Dubois Jour- 
 dain, a captain of cavalry in INIartinique and 
 owner of the ship " St. JNlichael," put into New 
 York, his vessel having been badly damaged in 
 a storm. He was permitted to sell a part of his 
 cargo to meet the cost of refitting. As he was 
 about to resume his voyage in September, he was 
 compelled to invoke the protection of the provin- 
 cial avithorities, one ISIiller, a piratical privateers- 
 man, having announced his intention of making 
 
244 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 a prize of the ship as soon as she was outside of 
 Sandy Hook. 
 
 The French West India Company's ship 
 " Victory," ChevaHer de Rossell, commander, 
 was captured outside of Havana in the early 
 summer by H.M.S. " Diamond " and taken to 
 New York. Among her passengers was Father 
 Andre Saens de Bitare, a Spanish priest. Cap- 
 tain Jacobs, commander of the " Diamond," 
 robbed the priest of a large sum of money and 
 put him ashore. Governor Hunter granted him 
 a pass to proceed to England, and he engaged 
 passage on the snow " Amazon," bound for Lon- 
 don. He took a boat at the dock to proceed to 
 the vessel, but was stopped by a boat from the 
 " Diamond " and again robbed and kept a pris- 
 oner by Jacobs. Luckily for Father Saens de 
 Bitare, there was a Dominican chaplain. Father 
 Thomas Grents, on the captured " Victory," and 
 he, learning of Father Saens de Bitare's misfor- 
 tunes, promptly petitioned the council for his re- 
 lease from the thievish clutches of Jacobs. The 
 council directed Colonel Peter Schuyler, who, as 
 president, had succeeded the upright Governor 
 Hunter, to request Jacobs to permit the priest to 
 resume his voyage. 
 
 The presence of two priests in the port, al- 
 though brought there by the fortunes of war, 
 made the doughty Albany Colonel and his coun- 
 cilors uneasy, and to provide for eventualities the 
 following blank indictment was prepared the 
 very day Schuyler succeeded Hunter. 
 " New York S.S. 
 
 " To the jurors for our Sovereign Lord the 
 King and the of the Province and county 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 245 
 
 of New York and upon their oath Do present 
 that Whereas in an act of the General Assembly 
 holden in the eleventh year of the reign of Will- 
 iam the Third late King of England, Scotland, 
 France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith etc., 
 among other things it has enacted, that all and 
 every Jesuit seminary priest, missionary or other 
 spiritual and ecclesiastical person, made or or- 
 dained by authority, power or jurisdiction and 
 derived, challenged or pretended from the Pope 
 or See of Rome, or that shall profess himself or 
 otherwise ajjpear to be such by practising and 
 teaching of others to say any papist prayers, by 
 celebrating mass, granting absolutions or us- 
 ing any other of the Romish ceremonies and rites 
 of worship by any name, title or degree soever, 
 such person should be called or known, or who 
 continued to teach and remain or come into this 
 province or any part thereof after the first day 
 of November next after the making of the said 
 act, should be deemed and accounted an incendi- 
 ary and disturber of the public peace and safety 
 and an enemy to the true christian religion and 
 should be adjudged to suffer perpetual impris- 
 onment as in the act of the General Assembly 
 aforesaid it is contained. 
 
 " Nevertheless one Being an ecclesi- 
 astical person made by authority pretended from 
 the See of Rome after the said first day of 
 November in the act aforesaid mentioned, to wit, 
 
 the day of in the 
 
 year of the reign of our Lord the King that now 
 is, Did come into the city and county of New 
 York, in the colony of New York aforesaid and 
 there remain and abide during the time and space 
 
246 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 of months after the date last aforesaid 
 
 and during the time aforesaid. To wit on the 
 
 day of in the said 
 
 year of the reign of our Lord the King and 
 divers other days and months as well before as 
 
 after within the time and space of 
 
 months aforesaid, at the City of New York 
 aforesaid he the said did profess him- 
 self to be an ecclesiastical person made and or- 
 dained by authority derived from the See of 
 Rome. And the jurors aforesaid uj^on their oath 
 
 aforesaid do further say that the said 
 
 after said day of in the 
 
 year of the reign of our Lord the 
 
 King that now is, at the city of New York afore- 
 said within the colony of New York aforesaid, to 
 
 wit the day of last past and 
 
 sundry times before and afterwards, Did appear 
 to be an ecclesiastical person made by authority 
 pretended from the See of Rome by celebrating 
 the mass and granting the absolution in con- 
 tempt of our Lord the King that now is, and 
 against the form of the act of Assembly afore- 
 said." 
 
 Father Thomas Harvey, S.J., who may truly 
 be called the pioneer priest of the Church in New 
 York, as he was the first priest known to have 
 been stationed on Manhattan Island, died this 
 year, in Maryland, aged 84 years. 
 
 William Burnet, a son of the Bishop of Salis- 
 bury and one of King James' bitterest enemies, 
 came to New York as Governor in 1720. In its 
 address of welcome the legislature addressed him 
 as " the son of that worthy prelate so instru- 
 mental, under our glorious monarch William III, 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 247 
 
 in delivering us from arbitrary power and its 
 concomitants, Popery, superstition and slavery." 
 
 The hearts of Governor Burnet and his like 
 were made glad, in July, 1721, by the arrival in 
 New York of one who had escaped from " Pop- 
 ery, superstition and slavery." John Durant 
 waited on the Governor and explained that he 
 was a former Recollect priest and had been chap- 
 lain of the French fort at Cataracouy. Durant 
 claimed to be of Huguenot stock, and was 
 desirous of changing his religion. He had a 
 memorial giving full particulars of the move- 
 ments of his countrymen at Niagara, and he was 
 anxious to submit the information to the govern- 
 ment at London — for a consideration. He evi- 
 dently carried credentials from Burnet to the 
 Lords of Trade, because that body wrote to the 
 Governor the following year: "We have done 
 what we cou'd for his (Durant's) Service tho' 
 not with so much success as we cou'd wish." It 
 is to be regretted that the Lords were not more 
 explicit in setting forth the reasons for their lack 
 of " success " with Durant. It would probably 
 have revealed the cause of his apostasy. 
 
 The Lords of Trade made bitter complaint to 
 King George at this time, that the Spaniards of 
 St. Augustine " give shelter to all our runaway 
 slaves." As 1,573 slaves had been carried into 
 New York from the West Indies between the 
 years 1701 and 1726, it is probable that a num- 
 ber of these found their way back to the Spanish 
 possessions. 
 
 The city was visited in 1726 by a son of the 
 distinguished Canadian, the Chevalier Claude de 
 Ramesay, Seigneur de Sorel and Governor of 
 
248 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 JVIontreal, and the following year Governor John 
 Bouillet, Sieur de la Chassaigne, with four asso- 
 ciates, arrived in the city with a letter from Gov- 
 ernor General Beauharnois to the Governor of 
 New York, protesting against British aggression 
 at Oswego. Boillet served with distinction at 
 Chambly, was commandant at La Chine and on 
 de Ramesay's expedition. He was a son-in-law 
 of the veteran Charles le JNIoyne, was Governor 
 of Trois Rivieres at the time of his visit to New 
 York, and w^as Governor of JVIontreal when he 
 died. A son of Fran9ois Hertel, another famous 
 soldier of New France, came to the city in 1731. 
 In after years he was one of Montcalm's bravest 
 subordinates, and one of the last to sheath his 
 sword in the final struggle between France and 
 England. 
 
 President Rip Van Dam, who was Acting 
 Governor in 1731, with his councilors, had " a 
 bad quarter of an hour " over an incident that 
 for the time looked as if " Popery " was not quite 
 extinct. Thomas Pullen had, for some time, dis- 
 charged acceptably the office of sheriff of 
 Orange County. In October, the following affi- 
 davit against Sheriff Pullen was handed to the 
 Acting Governor : 
 
 "The 8th day of October a.d. 1731 Their 
 apered before me Joseph Blinfield one of his 
 majesty's justices of the peace for the county of 
 Oreng, John Allison of full age and did declare 
 upon his sollem afFarmation that some time ago 
 he was at the house of Thomas Pullings and did 
 hear Thomas Pullings say that the pop of Rom 
 was a good cristian and that the papist Religion 
 was a good cristian Religion and swair he would 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 249 
 
 stand by it this depoiiant asked the said PuUiiig 
 if he was not ashamed to talk at that rate since 
 he was sworn to the contrary and how he would 
 ancer his oat But the said Pulling Replyed and 
 sayed it was a good cristian Religion and he 
 would stand by it, and furder his deponant saith 
 not. John Allison. 
 
 " taken before me 
 " Joseph Blauvelt." 
 
 If the object of John Allison's affidavit was to 
 produce a vacancy in the office of sheriff of 
 Orange County, it failed, because Thomas 
 Pullen, as the records show, was the incumbent 
 for some years afterwards. 
 
 Even in this dark and bitter time for Catholics 
 there were a few lowly ones who, despite perse- 
 cution and contempt, made public profession of 
 their faith. The New York Gazette contained 
 the following advertisement: "Ran away the 
 18th of August 1733, from Jacobus Van Cort- 
 landt of the City of New York, a negro man 
 slave, named Andrew Saxton — the shirts he had 
 with him and on his back are marked with a cross 
 on the left breast. He professeth himself to be 
 a Roman Catholic, speaks very good English." 
 
 John Leary, the livery-stable keeper and im- 
 porter of horses, on Cortlandt Street, traveled to 
 Philadelphia every yeai' to perform his Easter 
 duty, and avowed his faith so openly that the 
 whole town knew of it. Their derisive remark, 
 " John Leary goes to Philadelj)hia once a year to 
 get absolution " troubled him not. 
 
250 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IN WHICH A CASE OF BURGLARY IS TRANSFORMED 
 INTO A " POPISH " PLOT 
 
 George Clark was Lieutenant-Governor of 
 the province in 1740. He was a man of little 
 education, grasping, crafty and active, who, dur- 
 ing his administration and for a long time subse- 
 quently, turned every occasion, cunning politician 
 as he was, to his own pecuniary profit. The city's 
 population had increased to nearly twelve thou- 
 sand, about two thousand of whom were negro 
 slaves. As regards public sentiment at this time, 
 the preface to the second edition of Horsman- 
 den's " New York Conspiracy " says: " A holy 
 hatred of the Roman Catholics was inculcated by 
 Church and State." 
 
 On the night of Saturday, February 28th, 
 1741, the house of Robert Hogg, the proprietor 
 of a general store on Broad Street, corner of 
 Jew's Alley (now South William Street), was 
 broken into and robbed of money and goods. In 
 addition to keeping the store Hogg and his wife 
 had two well-to-do boarders and their two white 
 servants. In casting about for some one to sus- 
 pect, the Hoggs recalled that the servants of 
 their boarders had a constant visitor, one Chris- 
 topher Wilson, alias Yorkshire, a lad belonging 
 to H.M.S. " Flamborough," stationed at the port. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 251 
 
 Wilson was familiar with the Hoggs' premises, 
 and a little investigation revealed that he was on 
 very friendly terms with some slaves of dubious 
 reputation: Caesar, belonging to John Varck, a 
 baker; Prince, to John Auboyneau, merchant, 
 and Cuff ee, to Adolph Philipse. JMrs. Hogg re- 
 called that some days before the robbery Wilson 
 and some sailors from the " Flamborough " had 
 come to the store to make purchases, and she had 
 opened a till in which were a number of gold 
 coins. It came out that Wilson had told his 
 negro cronies of the booty to be had in Hogg's 
 store, and that they in turn had consulted John 
 Hughson, the keeper of a low negro resort and 
 " fence," or depot for the reception of stolen 
 goods, on Greenwich Street, near Thames 
 Street. JMargaret Sorubiero, alias Salinburgh, 
 alias Peggy Kerry, a dissolute white woman, was 
 an inmate of Hughson's house and a receiver of 
 stolen goods. She also frequented the resort of 
 John Romme, a cobbler and ale-house keeper 
 near the new battery. The day after the rob- 
 bery Wilson called on his friends in Hogg's 
 house and, being questioned by Mrs. Hogg, told 
 her that while he was in Hughson's place that 
 morning John Gwin had pulled from his pocket 
 a worsted cap full of silver coin, and had shared 
 it with Philipse's negro, CufFee. 
 
 That afternoon Wilson informed the author- 
 ities that John Gwin was an alias of the negro 
 Caesar, and Caesar was arrested, identified by 
 Wilson as John Gwin, and committed to the jail 
 in the City Hall for trial. Caesar was examined 
 by the magistrates next day, but denied all knowl- 
 edge of the robbery, and was remanded. Prince, 
 
252 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 arrested on suspicion for complicity, was also 
 committed. Hughson and his wife Sarah 
 were summoned to court, but denied all knowl- 
 edge of the stolen goods and were discharged. 
 High constable John Schultz and a posse made 
 several searches of the Hughson's premises, 
 but found nothing incriminating. Among the 
 inmates of Hughson's house was an inden- 
 tured servant, Mary Burton, the household 
 drudge, a bold, glib-tongued, profane j^oung 
 woman, but for whose volubility and mendacity 
 this chapter might not have disgraced the annals 
 of New York. Mary, while on an errand to the 
 house of Constable James Kannady, stopped to 
 gossip with Mrs. Kannady, and the Hogg rob- 
 bery having come up in the conversation, Mary 
 told Mrs. Kannady that her husband was not 
 cute enough to find the stolen goods in Hugh- 
 son's, but that " he had trod on them." Mrs. Kan- 
 nady and the constable hurried with the news to 
 Under Sheriff INIills, and Mary was taken by him 
 to Alderman Bancker's house, whence, after an 
 examination by the alderman, she was sent for 
 safe keeping to the City Hall, as she feared death 
 at the hands of Hughson because of her revela- 
 tions. 
 
 Hughson was hurried before the alderman, 
 confronted with the Burton girl's deposition, 
 weakened and confessed tliat some of the pro- 
 ceeds of the Hogg robbery were at his house. 
 He was sent home under guard and, returning 
 with the stolen goods, delivered them to the alder- 
 man. IVIary Burton, the next day, confronted 
 Hughson in court, accused him of receiving the 
 stolen goods, and he admitted it. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 253 
 
 An alarm of fire from the fort at one o'clock 
 in the afternoon of March 18th, brought the fire 
 engine from the City Hall down town at a lively 
 pace. The flames were licking up the cedar shin- 
 gles on the roof of his Majesty's house, as the 
 Governor's residence was called, and a stiff 
 breeze from the bay bade fair to carry the flames 
 to every structure within the fort's walls, if not 
 beyond. The soldiers of the garrison and the 
 militia, acting as fire companies, worked heroic- 
 ally, but the dry woodwork in the ancient house 
 was fine food for flames, and the building was 
 destroyed. In a short time the church and the 
 barracks followed, and the flames next consumed 
 the secretary's office over the sally-port, from 
 which a small army of volunteers had just re- 
 newed the provincial records. The high wind 
 had strewn many of these papers all over the 
 street, but most of them were recovered. The 
 fire was conquered as it was about to attack the 
 Governor's stable. It had leaped the fort walls 
 and damaged some of the near-by buildings. 
 Several soldiers had been burned or injured, but 
 no lives were lost. After the fire Van Home's 
 company of militia was posted as guards and re- 
 mained on duty during the night. An investi- 
 gation satisfied the authorities that sparks from 
 the charcoal furnace of Hilliard, a plumber, who 
 had been repairing a gutter between the residence 
 and the church, had caused the conflagration, 
 and almost a month later Lieutenant-Governor 
 Clarke, in a message to the assembly, so as- 
 cribed it. Subsequently self interest led him to 
 adopt another view^ that would and did enrich 
 him. One week later an alarm of fire brought 
 
254 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 the engine down to Captain Warren's house near 
 the long bridge. The fire was confined to the 
 roof and did httle damage. A spark from a 
 smoker's pipe, it was said, kindled the lumber in 
 Van Zant's old warehouse on April 1st, and three 
 days later fires that did slight damage were re- 
 ported from Quick's and Thomas's houses in the 
 Fly. The next day some dead coals were found 
 under a haystack near the coach house of Coun- 
 cilor Joseph ^lurray, on Broadway, and it was 
 whispered that incendiaries were abroad. The 
 whole town was discussing the fires, and a woman 
 sitting at an open window of a house on Broad- 
 way heard one of a group of passing negroes say : 
 
 " Fire, fire, scorch, scorch a little, a little damn 
 it, by and by." 
 
 Terrified, she hurried with the story to an al- 
 dernian, who, with bated breath, communicated 
 it to his associates the following day. A chimney 
 fire on the 6th, in the house of Sergeant Burns, 
 of the garrison, opposite the fort garden, became 
 a great mystery. About noon there was an alarm 
 of fire from Sirs. Hilton's house, next door to 
 the Fly market. Between ^Irs. Hilton's house 
 and Thomas's, from which an alarm of fire had 
 come on the 14th, was Captain Sarly's. Some 
 months previous to the fire in INIrs. Hilton's house 
 a Spanish prize ship had been brought into port. 
 Part of its crew claimed to be free Spanish sub- 
 jects, but, notwithstanding, they were condemned 
 to slavery by the Court of Admiralty. Captain 
 Sarly had bought one of these unfortunates. 
 After the Hilton house fire had been extin- 
 guished, the mob that had gathered surged in 
 front of Sarly's j) remises and shouted: 
 
7.V OLD NEW YORK 255 
 
 " The Si3aiiish negroes! The Spanish negroes! 
 Take up the Spanish negroes ! " 
 
 A magistrate signed an order and posses 
 scoured the town, arrested Sarly's negro and all 
 the others from the Spanish prize, and they were 
 committed to jail for examination. Spain and 
 England were at w^ar, but, in addition, the people 
 were conscious of having deeply wronged these 
 Spaniards for years, consequently public sus- 
 picion first pointed at them. It seems to be in- 
 grained in human nature to suspect and hate 
 those we have unjustly treated. 
 
 That afternoon an alarm of fire from Phil- 
 ipse's warehouse and an adjoining building drew 
 the mob in force. A fireman, seeing a negro 
 jump from a window of the house, shouted: 
 
 " A negro ! A negro! " 
 
 The crowd immediately changed the cry into: 
 
 "CufFPhilipse! Cuff Philipse ! The negroes 
 are rising! " 
 
 The crowd proceeded to Philipse's house, 
 dragged Cuff, Philipse's slave, therefrom and 
 bore him on their shoulders to jail. The negroes 
 who were assisting in extinguishing the fires were 
 seized by the mob and hurried to jail. The negro 
 who had excited the fears of the woman on 
 Broadway, who overheard him talking of the 
 fires, was identified as Quack, or Quaco, a slave 
 belonging to John Walters. He was arrested, 
 and at his examination declared, and was cor- 
 roborated by his companions, that they were dis- 
 cussing Admiral Vernon's recent capture of 
 Porto Bello. On the night of this eventful day 
 the fears of the people were further increased by 
 the establishment of a military night watch that 
 
256 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 was continued during this eventful summer. 
 John Hughson and Sarah, his wife, were com- 
 mitted to jail by Mayor John Cruger on the 8th, 
 charged as accessories to divers felonies and mis- 
 demeanors. 
 
 At a session of the Common Council on the 
 11th, Recorder Daniel Horsmanden spoke of the 
 recent fires, " which had put the inhabitants into 
 the utmost consternation." They were occa- 
 sioned, he said, " by some villainous confederacy 
 of latent enemies amongst us." The Common 
 Council requested the Lieutenant-Governor to 
 issue a proclamation offering a reward for the 
 discovery of the incendiaries or their confeder- 
 ates. Two days later the alderman and council- 
 man of each ward, accompanied by constables, 
 made a house-to-house search. At every alarm 
 of fire the householders in the vicinity tumbled 
 their belongings pell mell into the street. Nu- 
 merous complaints of missing goods came to 
 the authorities from these panic-stricken citizens, 
 and as a result the house-to-house search was in- 
 stituted. When it was finished no stolen goods 
 and no suspicious persons had been found. Two 
 of John Chamber's slaves, Robin and Cuba, his 
 wife, had articles in their possession that, in the 
 opinion of the aldermanic investigators, were un- 
 becoming their position as slaves, and they were 
 committed to jail. 
 
 Lieutenant-Governor Clarke, with the advice 
 of his INIajesty's council, issued a proclamation 
 offering a reward of £100 to any white person 
 who would give information leading to the con- 
 viction of any one concerned in the recent fires, 
 the informer to be pardoned if concerned therein; 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 257 
 
 any slave informer to be freed, the master of 
 such slave to receive £25 therefor, the slave £20 
 and a pardon, if concerned; and a free negro, 
 mulatto or Indian £45 and a pardon, if impli- 
 cated. 
 
 From April 6th to 17th, the magistrates were 
 busy examining witnesses, but could elicit no in- 
 formation. Cuff, Philipse's negro, when exam- 
 ined, proved by witnesses that he had labored to 
 extinguish the fire in his master's warehouse. He 
 was, notwithstanding, committed for trial. The 
 ancient Staat Huys in Coenties Slip had been 
 succeeded as a City Hall, in 1700, by a neat two- 
 story and attic stone building on Wall Street, at 
 the head of Broad Street. The first floor was en- 
 tered by a flight of steps from Wall Street, which 
 led to a great lobby or corridor more than half 
 the building in width and extending through to 
 the rear. On the west side of this lobby an apart- 
 ment in front housed the city fire engine, and in 
 the rear was located the city prison, its cell in the 
 center of the space. On the east of the main 
 lobby a short corridor led to the keeper's room in 
 the rear, and opposite it the stairway to the floor 
 above. The center of the second story was occu- 
 pied by the Supreme Court room, the place made 
 infamous by the proceedings about to begin. It 
 was divided lengthwise by a railing which shut 
 ofl* the public, on the Wall Street side, from the 
 space occupied by the bench, court officers and 
 members of the bar. East of the court room was 
 the jury room, and on the other side of the court 
 room the Common Council chamber or JNlayor's 
 court. The debtors' ])rison was in the attic, or 
 garret, a bare, unplastered apartment. 
 
258 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 The Supreme Court of Judicature for the 
 Province of New York opened its term in the 
 court room in the City Hall April 21st. Impres- 
 sive in their great wigs and scarlet gowns, Sec- 
 ond Justice Frederick Philipse and Third 
 Justice Daniel Horsmanden, " the New York 
 Jeffreys," were on the bench. Justice Philipse, 
 in charging the grand jury, spoke impressively 
 of the recent mysterious fires in the city : 
 
 " My charge, gentlemen," he said in closing, 
 " further, is to present all conspiracies, combina- 
 tions and other offences, from treasons down to 
 trespasses; and in your inquiries, the oath you 
 and each of j^ou have just now taken, will, I am 
 persuaded, be your guide, and I pray God to 
 direct and assist you in the discharge of your 
 duty." 
 
 The grand jury sent a constable for Mary 
 Burton, but she sent up word that " she would 
 not be sworn or give evidence." She was pro- 
 duced, nevertheless, and the seventeen grand 
 jurymen subjected her to something similar to 
 what is known in the New York police depart- 
 ment of to-day as the " third degree." She was 
 threatened with all kinds of punishment in this 
 world and the next if she did not divulge. It was 
 a favorite formula of the day to urge a brow- 
 beaten and harassed prisoner to save his or her 
 life by " making a free and ingenuous confes- 
 sion." No doubt the questions of the seventeen 
 inquisitors furnished JMary with a complete story 
 of their surmises and suspicions concerning the 
 supposed plot to burn the town and kill the in- 
 habitants. She weakened at length under the 
 ordeal and consented to be sworn and to testify. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 259 
 
 She accused the Iliighsons of receiving the goods 
 stolen from Hogg's house and said that she had 
 heard Caesar, Prince and Cuff (PhiHpse's slave) 
 talk with Hughson and his wife of an intention 
 to burn the fort and town and kill the people. 
 She further swore to seeing seven or eight guns 
 and some swords in Hughson's house. 
 
 " That she never saw any white person in com- 
 pany when they talked of burning the town but 
 her master, her mistress and Peggy Kerry." 
 
 These revelations caused a sensation in the 
 grand- jury room, and were communicated at 
 once to Arch Prosecutor Horsmanden. The wily 
 Lieutenant-Governor saw in the fire at the fort, 
 and these rumors of a conspiracy, an opportunity 
 to add to his hoard, and wrote, on the 22nd, to the 
 Lords of Trade: " JNIy private loss is very great 
 and more than I am able to bear without bending 
 under it." The legal lights of the city held a 
 conference on the 23rd with the justices, and it 
 was decided not to proceed against the accused 
 negroes in the summary way provided for negro 
 slave cases in the law of October 29th, 1730, but 
 to try them in the Supreme Court. For a day 
 and evening the grand jury subjected Peggy 
 Kerry to the ordeal that had broken JNIary Bur- 
 ton, promising her a pardon if she would turn 
 State's evidence, but she positively denied any 
 knowledge of the fires. 
 
 When the residence in the fort was burned, 
 many of the effects of the Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor were stored in the house of Captain Vin- 
 cent Pease. Some of these goods were stolen, 
 and a servant of Pease's, Arthur Price, was 
 arrested for the theft and committed to jail 
 
260 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 to await trial. Conviction meant death, and when 
 Price was approached with an offer of clemency 
 if he would ingratiate himself with his fellow 
 prisoners, committed to jail on suspicion of com- 
 plicity in the conspirac}'', he accepted the in- 
 famous position. 
 
 John Hughson, Sarah his wife, and Peggy 
 Kerry were tried and found guilty, ]May 6th, of 
 feloniously receiving stolen goods, and were re- 
 manded for sentence. Sarah Hughson, John's 
 daughter, was arrested as a conspirator, and 
 Jack, a slave of Joshua Slydall's, was committed 
 on suspicion of having attempted to hurn 
 jNIurray's haystack. Arthur Price in the jail 
 " pumped," as Horsmanden expresses it, Sarah 
 Hughson, and on the information said to have 
 been obtained from her, Robert Todd's slave, 
 Dundee, was arrested. Peggy Kerry, examined 
 again, implicated twelve negroes in a conspiracy 
 concocted at John Romme's resort. Caesar and 
 Prince were tried on the 8th, on a charge of rob- 
 bery. No counsel was allowed them or any one 
 tried during these troublous times. They were 
 sentenced to be hanged, and Caesar's body to be 
 hung in chains. Both Mary Burton and Peggy 
 Kerry's confessions under examination were iden- 
 tical in many particulars, but Mary swore that 
 Hughson's place was the scene of the conspiracy, 
 while Peggy swore the whole mischief was con- 
 cocted at John Romme's. Romme, at the first 
 hint of trouble, had absconded, and Elizabeth, 
 his wife, under examination emphatically denied 
 all knowledge of any conspiracj''. 
 
 A great crowd witnessed the execution of 
 Caesar and Prince on the 11th. From a higli 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 261 
 
 gibbet near the powder house, on an island in the 
 Collect Pond, the body of Caesar hung in chains 
 for many a day. As Caesar and Prince would 
 not utter a word when importuned to confess at 
 the scaffold, earnest efforts were made to extract 
 a confession from Cuff ee, Philipse's negro. The 
 infamous Arthur Price was put in the cell with 
 the negro and the under sheriff was directed to 
 " give them a tankard of punch, now and then, in 
 order to cheer up their spirits and make them 
 more sociable." " This," in the words of Hors- 
 manden, " produced the desired effects." Cuff ee, 
 under the influence of the punch, told Price that 
 he was a member of the Geneva Club, an organi- 
 zation of negroes thus named to commemorate 
 the theft of a quantity of Geneva gin some time 
 before. " But it came out," says Horsmanden, 
 " upon the examination of these negroes, that 
 they had before that time the impudence to as- 
 sume the style and title of Free Masons, in imi- 
 tation of a society here, which was looked upon as 
 a gross affront to the provincial grand master 
 and gentlemen of the fraternity at that time, and 
 was very ill accepted ; however, from this time the 
 negroes may be supposed to have declined their 
 pretensions to this title; for we heard nothing 
 more of them afterwards under that stile. But it 
 is probable that most of this Geneva Club that 
 were sworn (as Cuff said) were of the conspir- 
 acy; and it is likely that by the swearing Cuff 
 meant sworn of the conspiracy." Nothing could 
 be less likely. Arthur Price's deposition makes it 
 very plain that while he was talking to Cuff ee of 
 those sworn to the conspiracy to burn the town 
 and kill the people, poor, ignorant, rum-be fud- 
 
262 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 died Cuff ee's replies had reference to those who 
 took the oath or obligation of the Geneva Club, 
 the successor to the interdicted spurious Masonic 
 lodge. 
 
 JNIary Burton did some more swearing on the 
 13th, which was a day of public fasting and 
 humiliation because of the province's calamities. 
 She implicated three more slaves, and, probably 
 to ingratiate herself with the justices, testified to 
 friendly relations between Hughson and John 
 Romme. The following day Romme was ap- 
 prehended in New Brunswick, N. J., and was 
 brought to New York, where he later denied any 
 knowledge of a conspiracy. The court, on the 
 20th, recommended Peggy Kerry to the Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor for pardon, provided " that it 
 should not pass the seal till she should be thought 
 amply to have merited it." Simply a bait to be 
 dangled before her to produce further revela- 
 tions. Sawney, or Sandy, a negro boy of 
 Thomas Niblet's, brought down from Albany, 
 where his master had sent him to be sold, to 
 be examined as to his knowledge of the con- 
 spiracy and promised a pardon if implicated, 
 provided he would make " a free and ingenuous 
 confession," glibly told his story, implicating a 
 number of negroes, including several of the 
 Spanish Americans. According to his testimony, 
 the fort and city were to be burned, and the de- 
 sign of the negroes was " to kill the gentlemen 
 and take their wives." There were, he said, " two 
 lodges," as Horsmanden records it, " of negroes, 
 the ' Long Bridge Boys ' and the ' Fly Boys.' " 
 Having satisfied themselves that they had suf- 
 ficient evidence to secure a conviction, the author- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 263 
 
 ities brought to trial Quack and Cuffee, who had 
 been indicted for conspiracy to kill, murder and 
 burn. The trial proceeded with eight jurymen. 
 " The panel being mislaid, no more of the jurors 
 could be recollected." After hearing the evi- 
 dence and Attorney-General Smith's charge, the 
 jury quickly found a verdict of guilty. Justice 
 Horsmanden delivered a harangue fanatical, 
 abusive and unjudicial, and the sentence was pro- 
 nounced as follows: " That you and each of you 
 be carried from hence to the place from whence 
 you came and from thence to the place of execu- 
 tion, where you and each of you shall be chained 
 to a stake and burnt to death ; and the Lord have 
 mercy upon your poor wretched souls." There 
 was a revolting scene enacted next morning at 
 the place of execution. The condemned, Quack 
 and Cuffee, surrounded by a mad, howling mob, 
 were approached by Deputy Secretary Moore 
 and John Roosevelt, Quack's owner, and the 
 hope of a reprieve was hinted at if they con- 
 fessed. Each of them was obliged to flatter his 
 respective criminal that his fellow had begun 
 (a confession), which stratagem prevailed." 
 Both negroes, it was alleged, denounced Hugh- 
 son as " the first contriver " of the whole plot and 
 " promoter " of it. Quack, Jt was asserted, con- 
 fessed that on the night of March 17th, he put a 
 brand under the shingles of the house in the fort, 
 and^ returning next morning, found it still ig- 
 nited, blew it and went away. When the confes- 
 sions were finished. Deputy Secretary Moore 
 asked the sheriff to delay the executions until 
 the Lieutenant-Governor's pleasure in the mat- 
 ter of a reprieve could be learned. Horsmanden's 
 
264 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 account of the proceedings at this point is not 
 clear. It would appear that the Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor favored a reprieve, but the crowd, becom- 
 ing threatening, overawed the sheriff, and the un- 
 fortunate negroes died in the flames. As a result 
 of Quack's and CufFee's confessions, another 
 batch of accused slaves was committed to jail. 
 
 In far-off Georgia, Governor James Ogle- 
 thorpe wrote the following letter, the receipt of 
 which in New York created a tremendous sensa- 
 tion in official and other circles and in fear-de- 
 ranged minds the robbery of Hogg's store devel- 
 oped by stages into a " Popish " plot. 
 
 " Frederica, in Georgia, May 16th, 1741. 
 
 " Sir: — A party of our Indians returned the 
 eighth instant from war against the Spaniards; 
 they had an engagement with a party of Spanish 
 horse, just by Augustine, and brought one of 
 them prisoner to me: he gives me an account of 
 three Spanish sloops and a snow, privateers, who 
 are sailed from Augustine to the northward for 
 the provision vessels brought from the northward 
 to the West Indies, hojiing thereby to supply 
 themselves with flour, of which they are in want. 
 Besides this account which he gave to me, he 
 mentioned many particulars in his examination 
 before our magistrates. Some intelligence I had 
 of a villainous design of a very extraordinary 
 nature, if true, very important, viz. that the 
 Spaniards had employed emissaries to burn all 
 the magazines and considerable towns in the 
 English North- America, thereby to prevent the 
 subsisting of the great expedition and fleet in 
 the West Indies : and that for this purpose, many 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 265 
 
 priests were employed, who pretended to be 
 physicians, dancing-masters, and other such 
 kinds of occupations ; and under that pretence to 
 get admittance and confidence in famihes. As 
 I could not give credit to these advices, since the 
 thing was too horrid for any prince to order, I 
 asked him concerning them; but he would not 
 own he knew anything about them. 
 
 " I am, sir, your very humble servant 
 " Superscribed James Oglethorpe. 
 
 " To the honourable George Clarke, Esq., 
 " Lieutenant-Governor of New York." 
 
 On receipt of this letter there were few physi- 
 cians, dancing masters or school teachers who 
 were not put under observation. It was recalled 
 that about a year before the mj^sterious fires 
 Luke Barrington, a young man of twenty-five, 
 had arrived in the city and had taken a position 
 as teacher in a school in Ulster County. He pro- 
 fessed to be the son of an Anglican minister, had 
 left home after a quarrel with his father, and 
 while traveling in Italy had become a Catholic. 
 While in Ulster County, during a drinking bout 
 a companion " drank King George's health, who 
 (Barrington), taking the bason of liquor," had 
 drunk the health of King Philip of Spain. 
 Threatened with denunciation for his act, Bar- 
 rington disappeared. It was recalled that, al- 
 though a man of marked intellectual attainments, 
 he preferred the company of Irish Catholic serv- 
 ants in the neighborhood to some of the prom- 
 inent people who sought his acquaintance. He 
 was arrested and incarcerated in Kingston jail, 
 but effected his escape. These and similar stories 
 
266 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 of mysterious " Papists " came from all parts of 
 the province. 
 
 Hughson sent for Horsmanden from the jail, 
 June 1st, and the justice, sure that Hughson had 
 decided to confess, hurried to his cell, but Hugh- 
 son swore positively to his innocence. John 
 Hughson, his wife, daughter and Peggy Kerry 
 were arraigned for trial on the 2nd. They were 
 allowed no counsel. Mary Burton gave her 
 usual testimony. Eleanor Ryan testified that she 
 and her husband had lodged for two months in 
 Hughson's house during the time the negroes 
 were alleged to have assembled there, but had 
 seen no negroes there except Caesar and CufFee. 
 Peter Kirby said of Hughson, " That he knew 
 no harm of him." Gerardus Comfort, a next- 
 door neighbor of Hughson's, swore that he had 
 seen nothing amiss at Hughson's and " had seen 
 no harm there." After a short absence from the 
 court-room the jury returned with a verdict of 
 " guilty " against all the prisoners. 
 
 The slaves Bastian, Francis, Albany and Cura- 
 9ao Dick were tried on the 10th. Francis, a 
 Spaniard, spoke little English, and was allowed 
 an interpreter. All were convicted and sentenced 
 to be burned at the stake. Bastian, having turned 
 State's evidence, was respited. He denounced 
 Hughson as the chief conspirator and said that 
 the negroes were sworn on a Bible by Hughson 
 to burn the town, kill the people and hold the 
 place until the arrival of the French and Span- 
 iards. 
 
 Five Spanish negroes, " lately imported into 
 this city as prize slaves," were brought to the bar 
 on the 15th: Antonio (De Lancey's), Antonio 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 267 
 
 (INIesnard's) , Pablo, Juan and Augustine. They 
 entered a plea that they had been unjustly treated 
 in having- been sold as slaves, when they were 
 free subjects of the King of Spain. On this 
 ground their indictment was faulty. They fur- 
 ther pleaded that as ]\Iary Burton, the only white 
 witness against them, did not understand Span- 
 ish, and as they could not speak English, it was 
 impossible for her to truthfully testify what con- 
 versation, she alleged, had taken place between 
 them at Hughson's. This strong defence, which 
 indicated the great intellectual superiority of the 
 Spaniards over the average negro slaves, evi- 
 dently embarrassed the prosecution, as the trial 
 was adjourned until the 17th. On that date a 
 second indictment for counseling and advising 
 the negro Quack to burn the fort, etc., was pre- 
 sented against Antonio de St. Bendito, Antonio 
 de la Cruz, Pablo Ventura Angel, Juan de la 
 Silva and Augustine Guiterez, the five Spaniards 
 having handed in their surnames to the Court. 
 For the King appeared, to assist the Attorney 
 General, Joseph IMurray, James Alexander and 
 John Chambers. No counsel was permitted the 
 accused, although an interpreter was assigned 
 them. ]Mary Burton, the only white witness, 
 gave her usual testimony, naming only De Lan- 
 cey's Antonio. Several of the negro informers 
 were permitted to testify for the Crown. Rich- 
 ard Nichols, Deputy Register of the Admiralty, 
 swore that nineteen negroes and mulattoes were 
 brought into port by Captain Lush, in a prize 
 libelled in the Court of Admiralty, as Spanish 
 slaves, and sold as such in May, 1740. Captain 
 Lush testified that Juan de la Silva could speak 
 
268 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 English and De Lancey's Antonio just enough 
 to be understood. Jack, one of the negro in- 
 formers, testified that Pablo Ventura Angel, 
 Becker's slave, had furnished the conspirators 
 with clasp knives. Benson, a business partner of 
 Becker's, testified that he had but three knives in 
 his possession when he came to live in Becker's 
 house, not many with which to arm a conspiracy. 
 The greater number of these Spaniards were 
 badly frostbitten or otherwise disabled by the ex- 
 treme rigors of their first winter in a northern 
 climate, and their owners, reputable members of 
 the community, testified in the prisoners' behalf, 
 in most of the cases, that their disabilities confined 
 them to their master's houses during the period of 
 the alleged plotting. Peter De Lancey, Abraham 
 Peltreau, Dr. Dupuy, Gilbert Budd, Mrs. Mes- 
 nard, Captain Jacob Sarly and others, amongst 
 the most influential people of the city, testified to 
 the general good character of the Spaniards. In 
 charging the jury, the Court held that if the ac- 
 cused had desired to enter the plea that they were 
 free subjects of the King of Spain it should have 
 been made in the proceedings before the Court 
 of Admiralty, as if these strangers, ignorant of 
 the processes of English law and of the lan- 
 guage, could have understood the nature of the 
 proceedings that condemned them to a life of 
 bondage. The jury, after a half hour's delibera- 
 tion, brought in a verdict of guilty. Juan de la 
 Silva was condemned to be hanged, the others 
 were transported to the Spanish West Indies. 
 
 On the Feast of the Assumption, August 15th, 
 Juan, neatly dressed in white, devoutly j^raying 
 in Spanish, with his eyes fixed upon a crucifix, to 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 269 
 
 which his hps were frequently pressed, was taken 
 to the place of execution and hanged, solemnly 
 protesting his innocence to the last. His col- 
 lected behavior and sincere devotion made a deep 
 impression even on the fanatics who were guilty 
 of his judicial murder. 
 
 Lieutenant-Governor Clarke issued a proc- 
 lamation the 19th, relating to the " conspiracy 
 which had been set on foot, abetted encouraged 
 and carried on by several white people in con- 
 junction with divers Spanish negroes brought 
 hither from the West Indies, and a great num- 
 ber of other negroes within this city and country, 
 for the burning and destroying this whole city, 
 and murdering the inhabitants thereof." 
 
 Since the receipt of Oglethorpe's letter, the 
 authorities had convinced themselves that the 
 " hand of Popery was in it," and a close search 
 was made in the city for " Popish emissaries." 
 In May, 1740, a pale, ascetic-looking, spectacled 
 little man, John Ury, had taken lodgings in 
 Croker's " Fighting Cocks " tavern and had an- 
 nounced himself as a schoolmaster willing and 
 anxious to take pupils. He found a few, but 
 subsequently entered into a partnership with 
 Campbell, a schoolmaster, to conduct a school, 
 Ury to teach Latin and Greek. Horsmanden's 
 spies heard of him, and their chief thus records 
 the circumstance : " Information having been 
 given for some time past, that there had of late 
 been Popish priests lurking about the town, dili- 
 gent inquiry had been made for discovering 
 them, but without effect; at length information 
 w^as given, that one Ury or Jury, who had lately 
 come into this city, and entered into partnership 
 
270 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 with Campbell, a school-master, pretending to 
 teach Greek and Latin, was suspected to be one, 
 and that he kej^t a^ private conventicle ; he was 
 taken into custody, this day, and not giving a 
 satisfactory account of himself was committed to 
 the City jail." 
 
 Mary Burton, glib, obliging, imaginative 
 Mary, made another affidavit on the 25th. She 
 was told that John Ury had been arrested the 
 day before, on suspicion of being a Roman Cath- 
 olic priest, and was confronted with him. Did 
 she know him? Had she ever seen him at Hugh- 
 son's? Did she know him! Why, he used to 
 come to Hughson's every night for a fortnight 
 and sleep there sometimes. He called himself 
 Ury and Jury and Doyle, and he went up with 
 the Hughsons into the room where the negroes 
 were plotting to burn the city and kill all the 
 white people, " though she cannot say she ever 
 heard him speak out, but said she esteemed his 
 actions and behavior to signify his approbation 
 and consent to what was carrying on by the com- 
 pany touching this conspiracy." 
 
 What a keen analyst of motives, and graphic 
 describer of 'them, was INIary, the indentured 
 drudge of the keeper of a negro dive, who, two 
 months before, solemnly swore " that she never 
 saw any white person in company when they had 
 talked of burning the town but her master, her 
 mistress and Peggy Kerry." Of all the negroes 
 who had been searchingly examined by the keen- 
 est legal lights of the city, or who had confessed 
 during the past two months, who had graphically 
 and minutely described every person and thing 
 about Hughson's place and its frequenters and 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 271 
 
 their words and acts, not one had mentioned Ury 
 until he had been brought face to face with JNIary 
 Burton and she had been told all there was to tell 
 concerning him, and presto! Hughson was de- 
 posed as arch conspirator, and the mild, inoffen- 
 sive little schoolmaster Ury took his place. 
 
 The community had grown wearied of the 
 " hellish negro plot." There had been, it is true, 
 some fires of mysterious origin, but no white man, 
 woman or child had been molested or injured by 
 a negro. Save for one old gun, hidden near the 
 fort, no concealed arms had been found, and the 
 ten thousand whites were becoming incredulous 
 concerning a plot involving about a hundred 
 blacks armed with the clasp knives with which they 
 cut their daily food. Bloody as were the effects 
 of Mary Burton's confessions, the non-slave- 
 owning people were beginning to smile incredu- 
 lously over them, while the slave owners were dis- 
 mayed and sore over the loss of so many of their 
 human chattels, but — " the hand of Popery is in 
 it," cried the crafty Clarke. " Popish priests 
 lurking about the town," mysteriously whispered 
 the bloodthirsty Horsmanden. These ominous 
 utterances and Oglethorpe's " Popish " night- 
 mare letter fired at once Protestant fears, indig- 
 nation and zeal, and the sordid robbery of 
 Hogg's general store, with its after develop- 
 ments, was carefully nursed into a " Popish 
 plot," of which even London might be envious. 
 
 It was realized that it would not be safe to 
 attempt to properly work up public opinion 
 against Ury on Mary Burton's unsupported evi- 
 dence, and there was no other free man available 
 to swear against him, so Adam, a slave of Joseph 
 
272 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Murray's, of counsel for the Crown, who had 
 announced his wilHngness to confess, and " who 
 had just now been shewn him (Ury) in prison," 
 testified that Hughson had asked him " last new 
 year was three years " to join the negroes in 
 burning the town and killing the whites. He 
 had attended a meeting at Hughson's " soon 
 after new year holidays last," at which he had 
 been sworn into the plot, but, before taking the 
 oath, had suffered from scruples that had been 
 allayed by Hughson telling him " that there was 
 a man he knew that could forgive him all his sins ; 
 whereupon he took the oath." He further con- 
 fessed that he had seen the little short man, just 
 shown him in prison, at Hughson's four or five 
 times, who was, Hughson told him, one of the 
 two priests who could forgive sins. During his 
 calls at Hughson's he had seen Ury in a room 
 with Hughson and the negroes four or five times, 
 whispering and talking, but did not remember 
 hearing any one talk about the plot when Ury 
 was present. This was all very gratifying to 
 the authorities, but poor Adam began to say too 
 much, and related how Cuff ee had told him that 
 John Romme had promised to join the plot and 
 *' was very forward for it." Now, although this 
 corroborated Peggy Kerry's recanted confession 
 and made out Romme as " forward " for the 
 plot, as was Hughson, it was evidently not agree- 
 able to the authorities to have witnesses connect 
 Romme with it, for on the evidence, such as it 
 was, Romme was as plainly a receiver of stolen 
 goods and a conspirator as Hughson, yet, owing 
 to some mysterious but powerful influence, 
 Romme was discharged on furnishing security to 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 273 
 
 leave the province, while Hughson was gibbeted. 
 Adam, however, redeemed himself and did honor 
 to that learned man-of-law Murray, his master, 
 by swearing that he had seen two white men. 
 Holt, the dancing master, and a Doctor Hamil- 
 ton, sworn by Hughson into the plot, and he had 
 seen four or five white men at Hughson's. 
 
 " That Holt's Joe (a slave) told him (Adam) 
 not once but an hundred and an hundred times 
 that he, Adam, need not be afraid, for that his 
 (Joe's) master was concerned in the plot; and 
 that he had spoke to Hughson for the biggest 
 room he had there, to hold a free mason's lodge." 
 " Holt, it seems," says Horsmanden, " was a free 
 mason." The names of Holt, his slave Joe and 
 Doctor Hamilton are not in the list of those taken 
 into custody because of complicity in the so-called 
 conspiracy. 
 
 Twenty other negroes " confessed " on the 
 27th, and not one of them mentioned having seen 
 Ury at Hughson's. There was one man holding 
 an office in New York city who seems to have re- 
 tained some sanity and conscience in these dark 
 days. High Constable John Schultz appeared 
 before the court July 1st, and made an affidavit 
 that let in a flood of light on the manner in which 
 the miserable, ignorant, deluded negroes were 
 lured, deceived and cajoled into assisting in con- 
 structing an imaginary plot and rushing to their 
 own destruction. Schultz, in his affidavit, swore 
 that, at the justice's orders, he had taken the writ- 
 ten confession of Pierre Depuyster's slave Pedro, 
 in which Pedro had sworn that he and Van 
 Horn's Kid, Dr. Henderson's Caesar and sev- 
 eral other slaves had taken an oath at Hughson's 
 
274 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 to burn the town and kill the whites. Schultz 
 swore that on June 30th, and subsequently, in 
 the presence of white witnesses, Pedro had de- 
 clared that his confession was utterly false and 
 had been j)i'ompted by his fellow prisoner. Will, 
 a slave, who assured him that unless he manu- 
 factured a confession and dragged in two or 
 three others he would be hanged or burned. Will 
 had further suggested the names of the proper 
 negroes for Pedro to denounce. Pedro offered 
 to produce four witnesses to prove Will's com- 
 plicity. In another affidavit Schultz testified 
 that Breasted's slave Jack had, after a searching 
 examination, admitted that he had falsely impli- 
 cated Hereford, a young slave of Samuel JNI. 
 Cohen's. 
 
 The jail was overcrowded with negroes, and 
 to thin it out the court recommended the names 
 of forty-two of them to the Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor for transportation. Anthony Ward's slave 
 Will was burned at the stake July 4th, and made 
 a confession implicating William Kane and Ed- 
 ward Kelly, " soldiers belonging to the garrison, 
 and reputed papists." Private William Kane 
 was arrested and examined next day. He testi- 
 fied that he was born in Athlone, Ireland. That 
 he had no acquaintance with John Romme, had 
 never met Ury or Jury or attended any of his 
 congregations or meetings. Professed himself 
 a member of the Church of England, and was 
 never at any Roman Catholic service in his life. 
 The only assemblage of negroes he had ever heard 
 of was a dance at Private Edward Kelly's house. 
 While Kane's examination was proceeding, an 
 under sheriff told the justices that JNIary Bur- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 275 
 
 ton's memory had become further refreshed, and 
 that she could swear she had often seen Kane at 
 Hughson's. She was brought into court, con- 
 fronted with Kane, and swore to his identity. 
 Chief Justice De Lancey, who had been absent 
 from the city since the negro plot trials began, 
 was on the bench this day for the first time, and 
 he seems to have had some misgivings concerning 
 Mary and her stories. He solemnly admonished 
 her concerning the nature of an oath and the 
 crime of perjury, but she persisted in her state- 
 ment, and, being sworn, testified that Kane had 
 often discussed the plot with the Hughsons, 
 Peggy and the negroes, and had promised to 
 help them " all that lay in his power." The Bur- 
 ton woman having withdrawn, the justices sub- 
 jected Kane to the " third degree," and he nearly 
 fainted under the ordeal. He was told that he 
 " must not flatter himself with the least hopes of 
 mercy, but by making a candid and ingenuous 
 confession of all that he knew of the matter." 
 Realizing that all who made an ingenuous con- 
 fession were leniently dealt with, and all who re- 
 fused went to the scaffold or the stake, he " con- 
 fessed," and before many days outshone INIary 
 Burton as a confessor. He swore that he had 
 gone with Jerry Corker, the Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor's stableman, to John Coffin the peddler's 
 house to attend a " Romish " christening. That 
 three persons acted as priests, one of whom was 
 Ury. Coffin, Corker and Daniel Fagan had dis- 
 cussed the matter of burning the town. He ad- 
 mitted having attended two meetings at Hugh- 
 son's, and had seen Corker, Fagan, Coffin, 
 Hughson's father and three brothers there. Ury 
 
276 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 on one occasion had endeavored to " seduce him " 
 to the " Romish " rehgion, " and there happened 
 a squabble," after which Kane left, " or else he 
 don't know but they would have seduced him, the 
 priest and Coffin pressed him so." " Peter Con- 
 nolly (a soldier), on the Governor's Island, has 
 owned himself to have been bred a priest to him 
 (Kane), and was often in company with Jury; 
 Kelly (Private EdM^ard Kelty) is a Roman; Con- 
 nolly and he were intimate." He had seen Hugh- 
 son swear eight negroes into the plot with the 
 following impressive ceremony: A black ring 
 was drawn on the floor about two and a half feet 
 in diameter. Hughson bid every one pull off the 
 left shoe and put his toes inside the ring. Mrs. 
 Hughson held a bowl of punch over the heads of 
 the initiates, and Hughson solemnly administered 
 the oath to each, after which INIrs. Hughson 
 treated them to a ladle of punch. Corker had 
 told him that Hughson and he had designed to 
 burn the English church on Christmas day dur- 
 ing the service, but Ury had requested them to 
 defer the burning until more favorable weather 
 had dried the roof and filled the edifice with a 
 larger congregation. The greatest spite of the 
 conspirators, especially Ury, was against the 
 English church. 
 
 John Coffin, the peddler, was examined on the 
 6th, and held for further examination. Sarah, a 
 negress, was sentenced to be hanged because her 
 testimony in certain of the cases was so different 
 from her confessions " that the Court could give 
 no further credit to her evidence." Sarah evi- 
 dently gave more satisfaction to the Court sub- 
 sequently, as she was not executed. Slow-witted, 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 277 
 
 miserable, tortured Sarah Hughson, who had 
 been repeatedly sentenced to death and as often 
 respited, concluded to make an " ingenuous con- 
 fession " on the 8th, and implicated her father, 
 mother and Ury. On her return to her cell she 
 retracted every syllable of it and declared she 
 knew nothing of any conspiracy. The Court de- 
 termined to order her execution once more as a 
 last " experiment " to force a confession. 
 
 William Kane and ]Mary Burton were again 
 examined. Kane denounced Private Edward 
 IMurphy, of the garrison, also David Johnson, 
 white, a hatter of the city. Mary Burton cor- 
 roborated Kane's testimony, and, not to be out- 
 done, implicated Private William Kelly and 
 seventeen soldiers of the garrison, Holt, a danc- 
 ing master, John Earl and John Coffin. High 
 Constable John Schultz appeared in court on the 
 10th and deposed that C. Codwise's slave, Cam- 
 bridge, had retracted his confession and denied 
 all participation in and knowledge of any plot, 
 and swore that he had been induced to manu- 
 facture a confession because his fellow prisoners 
 had told him it was the only way to escape hang- 
 ing. 
 
 Sarah Hughson was again examined on the 
 10th, and swore she had seen John Ury often in 
 her father's house, and that he was deep in the 
 plot. Peggj^ Kerry was a Catholic, and Ury, 
 she thought, had " made her father and mother 
 papists." This was promising, and next morn- 
 ing she was brought before the chief justice for 
 further probing, but she denied emphatically 
 every word she had uttered on the 8th and 10th. 
 To make up for this disapj^ointment, Mary Bur- 
 
278 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 ton, on the 13th, impHcated Corry, a dancing 
 master, said to be a Catholic, and a Scotch doctor 
 whose name she did not know. 
 
 John Ury, " apprehended upon suspicion of 
 being a Romish priest and a confederate in the 
 conspiracy," was examined on the 14th by the 
 chief justice and Horsmanden. Ury declared 
 that he was in no wise connected with the con- 
 spiracy, and was never in any way acquainted 
 wdth the Hughsons or Margaret Kerry, and to 
 his knowledge never saw them in his life. Mary 
 Burton on this day surpassed herself. She 
 described a fight in Hughson's place between one 
 Butchell and an old man named Alanor. Dili- 
 gent search of the city failed to discover any one 
 who had ever heard of Alanor. Mary must have 
 deemed it incumbent on her to produce some new 
 victim, and, having exhausted the list of every 
 one she had ever heard of, proceeded to manu- 
 facture names. William Kane, re-examined, had 
 seen " a young gentleman with a pigtail wig " 
 frequently in company with the conspirators. A 
 feeling of uneasiness now began to pervade the 
 white men of the city. The Burton woman and 
 Kane were denouncing so many, and were rap- 
 idly advancing in the social scale in their choice 
 of victims for denunciation. 
 
 John Ury, indicted on two counts for " coun- 
 selling, aiding, abetting and procuring, etc.," a 
 slave called Quack to set fire to the King's house 
 in the fort and for " being an ecclesiastical per- 
 son made by authority pretended from the See of 
 Rome . . . and did appear so to be by celebrat- 
 ing masses, and granting absolutions, &c.," 
 pleaded not guilty to both indictments on the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 279 
 
 15th. A diary or journal had been found among 
 Ury's effects that showed he had arrived at Phil- 
 adelphia February 17th, 1739, and had traveled 
 through southern New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 
 teaching school for a time at various places, until 
 his arrival in New York, November 2nd, 1740. 
 Two entries read as follows: "Baptised Tim- 
 othy Ryan, born 18th, April, 1740, son of John » 
 Ryan and Mary Ryan, 18th May, 1741." There 
 were efforts made to locate John Ryan, but no 
 trace of any one of that Christian name could be 
 found in the city. " Pater confessor Butler 2 
 Anni non sacramentum non confessio." Who 
 Father Confessor Butler w^as remains a mystery. 
 
 Two more soldiers of the garrison, Thomas 
 Evans and James O'Brien, were implicated on 
 the 18th b}^ Othello, a slave of Chief Justice De 
 Lancey's. 
 
 An error having been discovered in the indict- 
 ment against Ury, he w^as arraigned again as an 
 " ecclesiastical person, etc.," on the 22nd, and he 
 renewed his former plea of not guilty. The sen- 
 tencing and respiting of Sarah Hughson had so 
 terrified and broken her down that when the 
 chief justice took her in hand the following 
 " confession " w^as j)roduced. She had fre- 
 quently, she swore, seen Ury at her father's house 
 and had heard him talking to the negroes about 
 the plot. Standing in the middle of a ring with 
 a cross in his hand he had administered the con- 
 spirator's oath to the blacks. He had baptized a 
 number of the slaves, and assured them he would 
 forgive all their sins. Some of the negroes told 
 her they had gone to Ury's lodgings, " where 
 they used to pray in private after the popish 
 
280 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 fashion, and that he used to forgive them their 
 sins for burning the town and destroying the 
 town and cutting of the people's throats." 
 Peggy Kerry, she declared, was a strong " Pap- 
 ist," and used to confess in private to Ury. This 
 was all very satisfactory, but the prosecution was 
 determined to weave a halter for John Ury that 
 could not possibly be broken during the trial, and 
 there seems to have been a preliminary examina- 
 tion before the trial of every one who had any 
 knowledge of Ury. Elias Debrosse, a confec- 
 tioner, was examined the 24th by one of the jus- 
 tices, and his story was that in the previous April 
 Ury, in company with Joseph Webb, a carpen- 
 ter, came to his (Debrosse's) place of business 
 and asked if he could sell him any sugar bits or 
 wafers, and if the Lutheran minister bought his 
 wafers of him. Debrosse had no wafers, and ad- 
 vised Ury to have a joiner make a mold for him. 
 To an inquiry of Debrosse's as to where his con- 
 gregation worshipped, Ury did not reply. 
 
 Joseph Webb, the carpenter who accompanied 
 Ury to Debrosse's, was before one of the jus- 
 tices for examination on the 27th. He testified 
 that he had known Ury for about ten months, 
 having met him at John Croker's " Fighting 
 Cocks " tavern, where Ury lodged. Learning 
 that Ury was a schoolmaster, lately come from 
 Philadelphia, Webb sent his child to him as a 
 pupil. Becoming more intimate, Webb invited 
 Ury to his house and board, and during Ury's 
 stay they had frequently discussed ecclesiastical 
 subjects. Ury had told him that he was a non- 
 juring minister and had been arrested in London 
 for publishing a book that had been denounced 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 281 
 
 as treasonable. Through the good offices of a 
 powerful friend he got away from England, but 
 had forfeited thereby a church preferment of 
 £50 annual income. 
 
 " Ury," said Webb, " in some of his conversa- 
 tions upon religious topics expressed himself in 
 such a dark, obscure and mysterious way that he 
 could not understand him, and would give hints 
 that he could not make neither head nor tail of." 
 There is much about Ury, and the testimony con- 
 cerning him, to indicate that his mind was de- 
 ranged on the subject of religion. In INIay, to 
 continue Webb's story, Ury had joined Camp- 
 bell, a schoolmaster, in conducting a private 
 school, and both had removed to the house for- 
 merly occupied by John Hughson. One day the 
 negro was the subject of conversation between 
 Ury and Webb, and Webb had remarked that 
 the negroes had souls to be saved or lost the same 
 as other people. 
 
 " They are not proper subjects of salvation," 
 replied Ury. 
 
 " What would you do with them, then, would 
 you damn them all? " asked Webb. 
 
 " No," said Ury, " leave them to that Great 
 Being that has made them. They are of a slav- 
 ish nature ; it is of the nature of them to be slaves. 
 Give them learning, do all the good you can, put 
 them above the condition of slaves, and in return 
 they will cut your throats." 
 
 John Ury's trial began July 29th, before the 
 chief justice, Justice Philipse and Justice Hors- 
 manden. Associates with Attorney - General 
 Bradley in the prosecution were ]\Iessrs. Murray, 
 Alexander, Smith and Chambers. Poor John 
 
282 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Ury was allowed no legal adviser in his fight f or 
 life. The indictment charged him with abetting 
 the negro slave Quack in setting fire to the King's 
 house. In opening the indictment the attorney 
 general appealed to the bigoted fanaticism of 
 the jury with the following tirade against the 
 Catholic Faith: "... These and many other 
 juggling tricks they have in their hocus pocus, 
 bloody religion, which have been stripped of all 
 their wretched disguises and fully exposed in 
 their own wretched colours by many eminent 
 divines, but more particularly by the great Dr. 
 Tillotson, whose extraordinary endowments of 
 mind, his inimitable works and exemplary piety 
 and charity have gained him such universal es- 
 teem and applause throughout all the Protestant 
 world as no doubt will endure as long as the Prot- 
 estant name and religion lasts, which I hope will 
 be to the end of time." 
 
 The star witness, ]Mary Burton, was put on the 
 stand. INIary told her usual story and introduced 
 a novelty. She had been spjang under the door 
 of a room in Hughson's house in which Ury, the 
 Hughsons and Peggy Kerry were in conference 
 with the negroes and had seen " a black ring on 
 the floor, and things in it that seemed to look like 
 rats, I don't know what they were." Horsman- 
 den learnedly conjectures that they were " the 
 negroes, perhaps, pulling their black toes back- 
 wards and forwards." 
 
 Mary Burton was followed by Private Will- 
 iam Kane, who testified to Ury's complicity in 
 the plot and his own arduous trials and tribula- 
 tions in escaping Ury's machinations to subject 
 him to " Romish " baptism. Sarah Hughson re- 
 
IN OLD NEW. YORK 283 
 
 peated the testimony ^iven at her last examina- 
 tion, and received as her reward " his Majesty's 
 most gracious pardon." As a finishing touch for 
 the prosecution, Governor James Oglethorpe's 
 letter was read to the jury. With this the prose- 
 cution rested, and the slight, pale, spectacled 
 little man, looking pitiably forlorn and deserted, 
 arose and faced the three stern-faced, bewigged 
 justices and the array of legal talent opposing 
 him. In opening he told of Webb coming to 
 him more than a week before his arrest with the 
 information given him by ]Mr. Chambers, of 
 Counsel for the Crow n, that " the eyes of this city 
 were fixed on me, and that I was suspected to be 
 a Romish priest and thought to be in the plot," 
 but, certain that his innocence would protect him, 
 he had made no attempt to leave the city. " As 
 there is a great, unknown and tremendous being 
 whom we call God, I never knew or saw Hugh- 
 son, his wife, or the creature that was hanged 
 with them, to my knowledge, living, dying, or 
 dead, or the negro that is said to have fired the 
 fort, excepting in his last moments." He Mas 
 interrupted by the Court and told to examine his 
 witnesses if he had any and make his defence 
 afterwards. 
 
 John Croker, the landlord of the " Fighting 
 Cocks," the first witness called for the defence, 
 testified that Ury had lodged in his house from 
 November, 1741, until he and Campbell had hired 
 the house in which Hughson had formerly lived. 
 While lodging in his house, Ury reached home 
 nightly as early as eight o'clock, and only once 
 or twice after twelve. He had heard Ury preach 
 on one occasion, and before the sermon Ury had 
 
284 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 prayed for King George and the royal family. 
 
 Webb, the next witness, repeated the testi- 
 mony given at his preliminarj^ examination, and 
 added that he had constructed something for Ury 
 " which I have since heard called an altar." It 
 consisted of two pieces of board which formed a 
 triangle, and was raised against the w^all, at the 
 bottom of which was a shelf; on each side was a 
 place to hold a candle. Ury's partner, John 
 Campbell, swore that when he and Ury went to 
 take possession of Hughson's house, Ury mis- 
 took Gerardus Comfort's house for Hughson's. 
 He considered Ury " a grave, sober, honest 
 man." 
 
 Campbell's wife followed him on the stand and 
 related that she, her husband and Ury went on 
 May day to take possession of the house for- 
 merly occupied by Hughson and hired by her 
 husband. They had found Hughson's daughter 
 Sarah on the premises, and the witness told her 
 she must vacate, as her husband had hired it, 
 whereupon Sarah Hughson cursed and swore at 
 her. 
 
 " How dare you talk so impertinently and 
 saucily to an old woman, you impudent hussy! 
 Go out of the house or I will turn you out," Ury 
 had said. 
 
 Sarah " swore miserably " at him, and added: 
 " You have a house now, but shall not have one 
 long." 
 
 At the close of Mrs. Campbell's testimony the 
 Attorney-General announced that, as the prisoner 
 had been endeavoring to prove that he was not a 
 " Romish priest, and has already insisted on it as 
 part of his defence, I shall beg leave to examine 
 
7.V OLD NEW YORK 285 
 
 a witness or two to that point." Joseph Hildreth, 
 a rival schoolmaster to Campbell and Ury, was 
 sworn and testified to various conversations with 
 Ury which to the unj)rejudiced mind would carry 
 conviction that Ury was anything but a Catholic 
 priest. One of their talks Hildreth repeated, as 
 follows: " Says he (Ury), your Romish priests 
 will make you believe that black is white, and 
 white black, and that wafer and wine is the real 
 body of Christ." Strange talk from a Catholic 
 priest ! 
 
 " I seeing the altar placed in a corner," testi- 
 fied Hildreth, concerning a visit to Ury's room, 
 " I asked him what use that was for? First he 
 said only to lay books on, or for a candle to sit 
 and read by ; but I told him I could not think it, 
 for I supposed it for the sacrament by its form 
 and odd colour. I begged him to let me know 
 what it was, so after some time he seriously told 
 me it was for the sacrament. And he told me, I 
 think, every saint's day it was exposed, only cov- 
 ered with a piece of white linen, and that he ad- 
 ministered on some proper days. And he told 
 me they received the wafer instead of bread, and 
 white instead of red wine. I asked him why the 
 wafer? Because, says he, the wafer is more pure; 
 and no bread he thought pure enough to repre- 
 sent the body of our Lord. . . ." Hildreth fur- 
 ther testified that Ury kept a private meeting 
 and made use of " the Church form of prayer " 
 every Sunday evening in his room in John 
 Campbell's house. 
 
 Richard Norwood testified that Ury taught his 
 children to read and write. Ury's conversation 
 led the witness to suspect that he was a " popish " 
 
286 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 priest. Norwood was curious as to where Ury 
 went evenings, and had intended " to have dogged 
 him " to find out. One day, meeting Campbell, 
 the schoolmaster, speaking of Ury, said: 
 
 " D n him, he is a popish priest." 
 
 With this the evidence closed, ]Mr. Smith, 
 armed with several ecclesiastical looking tomes, 
 proceeding to prove that the ceremonies used by 
 Ury were so similar to the usages of the Catholic 
 Church as to convince everybody that he was a 
 priest of the Roman Church. He read from 
 Peter de INIoulin's " Anatomic de la Messe," in 
 reference to the use of salt, and from Montalte 
 on absolution. Poor Ury's defence was that 
 there had been no evidence presented to prove 
 that he was a priest of the " Church of Rome." 
 Smith's speech to the jury, which followed, was 
 a vile tirade against the Catholic Church and 
 grossly insulting to the accused. At its close the 
 Chief Justice charged the jury, and that body, 
 after an absence of fifteen minutes, returned with 
 a verdict of guilty. Ury was placed at the bar 
 for sentence August 4th, and, when asked why 
 sentence of death should not be pronounced 
 against him, " had nothing to offer," but asked 
 for time in which to arrange his private affairs. 
 The Chief Justice, " after taking notice of the 
 heinousness of the offence of which he was con- 
 victed, the dangerous and pernicious tendency of 
 the doctrines of the Church of Rome, which em- 
 boldened her disciples to embark in the most haz- 
 ardous, wicked and inhumane enterprises, which 
 he illustrated from several passages cited from 
 the works of the late Archbishop Tillotson," sen- 
 tenced Ury to be hanged on August 15th. One 
 
7.Y OLD NEW YORK 287 
 
 of the Spaniards, Juan de Sylva, was sentenced 
 to be hanged on the same day. Ury was res- 
 pited. Day after day the bloodthirsty rabble 
 had collected at the place of execution to abuse 
 and jibe at the rum-deadened blacks sent into 
 eternity, or to roar with ferocious laughter at the 
 strange antics of the fear-crazed victims. The 
 same crowd had assembled on August 15th, but 
 it looked not upon the shocking details that at- 
 tended the end of the black heathen, but on the 
 peaceful, collected passing away of a Catholic 
 Christian. Even the hardened Horsmanden was 
 forced to declare that Juan " behaved decently." 
 John Ury was hanged August 29th. Joseph 
 Webb, the carpenter, who testified in his defence, 
 was his faithful friend to the last, accompanying 
 him to the scaffold. He handed Webb a copy 
 of his last speech. Horsmanden prints in his 
 book a speech which he says was a copy of the 
 manuscript written by Ury, but admits that it dif- 
 fers from one " supposed to have been printed in 
 Philadelphia," and adds that the speech printed 
 in Philadelphia " perhaps might have been altered 
 and corrected by some of his associates." In the 
 speech, as given by Horsmanden, Ury solemnly 
 protests his innocence and, referring to the Sacra- 
 ment of Penance, saj^s: "I firmly believe and 
 attest that it is not in the power of man to for- 
 give sin; that it is the prerogative only of the 
 great God to dispense pardon for sin; and that 
 those who dare pretend to such a power, do in 
 degree commit that great unpardonable sin, the 
 sin against the Holy Spirit, because they pre- 
 tend to that power, which their own consciences 
 proclaim to be a lie." 
 
288 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 " The law passed against the Cathohc priests," 
 says John Gihiiary Shea, " was once only en- 
 forced, and then to bring to death a Protestant 
 clergyman." 
 
 With the execution of Ury, the negro plot hal- 
 lucination seems to have died. John Corry, the 
 dancing master, and the soldiers, Andrew Ryan, 
 Edward Kelly, Edward Murph}^ Peter Conolly, 
 John Coffin, the peddler, and David Johnson, the 
 hatter, were discharged from custody August 
 31st, no one appearing to prosecute, and on Oc- 
 tober 21st the relatives of John Hughson were 
 pardoned, on condition of their leaving the prov- 
 ince. During the continuance of this public 
 mania, in addition to the whites who had suf- 
 fered, eleven negroes had been burned at the 
 stake, eighteen hanged and fifty transported. 
 The book written by Horsmanden, the originator 
 of the plot, " whose conscience smote him," says 
 Shea, " is a monument of their (the authorities) 
 senseless credulity, disregard of law and reason, 
 and greedy bigotry," but it proved a lucrative 
 venture. The plot was also a " lucrative ven- 
 ture " to Clarke, the Governor. This man, whose 
 losses, he claimed, by reason of the fire in the fort, 
 were " very great and more than I am able to 
 bear without bending under it," took with him 
 from the province, according to the historian 
 Smith, the sum of £100,000. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 289 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IN WHICH MANY FRENCH AND SPANISH PRISON- 
 ERS OF WAR AND REFUGEES COME TO THE CITY, 
 INCLUDING AN APOSTATE RECOLLECT 
 
 The relations between England and France 
 were strained to the breaking point in 1743, and 
 every Frenchman in New York city not known 
 to be a Huguenot possessed of letters of deniza- 
 tion, was carefully watched to ascertain if he was 
 a spy. There was a big Moravian settlement 
 in Dutchess County, and there were grave fears 
 in the council that the disaffected among the 
 Moravians were furnishing information to the 
 French. These suspicions included the JNIoravian 
 ministers, and the sheriff of Dutchess County 
 was directed to investigate and to order the 
 clergymen to New York city for examination by 
 the council. 
 
 Every visitor to the city whose garb or tongue 
 suggested anything French or Canadian was re- 
 ported to the authorities, and when, in June, 
 1744, a strange Frenchman, accompanied by a 
 woman, arrived and took up lodgings, Governoi: 
 Admiral George Clinton was informed, and he 
 confined them to their apartment and placed two 
 sentinels at the door to make sure that they did 
 not escape. The man gave the name of Michael 
 Houdin and said the woman was his wife. Noth- 
 
290 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 ing further was learned concerning them until a 
 letter from Lieutenant Lindesay, in command of 
 the fort at Oswego, was read at the council meet- 
 ing, July 5th, 1744, in which he told that Houdin 
 and his companion had passed that way from 
 Canada and had informed him that a body of 
 eight hundred Frenchmen would attack the fort 
 as soon as the provision fleet arrived from 
 France. Houdin and the woman were examined 
 by the council, and for their safer keeping were 
 ordered to take up their abode in Jamaica, Long 
 Island. Houdin had little means, was generally 
 regarded as a French spy, and avoided by the 
 people of the place. 
 
 In August he wrote to Governor Clinton, 
 representing his circumstances as very precarious 
 and bewailing his inability to do anything in 
 Jamaica to earn a living, and that consequently 
 he and his wife would soon be reduced to want. 
 He and the woman were permitted to come to the 
 city, and the oath of allegiance was administered 
 to him. 
 
 The sheriff of Dutchess had found Estien la 
 Roche, a French deserter, among the INIoravians, 
 and, February 12th, 1745, sent him to New York 
 for examination. La Roche met Houdin in New 
 York, and at once recognized and identified him 
 as Father Potencien, one time Superior of the 
 Recollects at Trois Rivieres. It would be very 
 dangerous, in the council's judgment, to have a 
 " Romish " priest, even though a runaway, at 
 large, so " Father Potencien " was again con- 
 fined to his lodgings. It was learned subse- 
 quently that Houdin was born in February, 1705^ 
 and in 1730 had been ordained in the Franciscan 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 291 
 
 order b}^ the Archbishop of Treves. On his 
 arrival in Canada he had been preferred to 
 the office of Superior of the Convent of 
 Recollects. 
 
 He had so far ingratiated himself into the 
 good graces of his new friends in New York that 
 after publicly renouncing the Catholic faith and 
 subscribing to the Articles of the Church of Eng- 
 land, on Easter Sunday, 1747, he was invited, in 
 June, 1750, to officiate as a minister in Anntown, 
 Allentown, Bordentown, and Trenton, New 
 Jersey. Without waiting for a license from the 
 Bishop of London, he accepted the call from 
 New Jersey. For his New Jersey missionary 
 labors he received an annual gratuity of £30 
 from the Society for the Propagation of the Gos- 
 pel in Foreign Parts. He preached in Trinitj^ 
 Church, New York city, about this time. 
 
 By command of Lord Loudon, he accompan- 
 ied the expedition under General Wolfe against 
 Canada in 1759, and ranked as chaplain in Lord 
 Amherst's army in 1761. The New York Post 
 Boy, issue of June 4th, 1761, contained the fol- 
 lowing: " We hear from JNIontreal that the Vicar 
 General of all Canada, residing at INIontreal, has 
 wrote a pressing invitation to the Rev. IVIr, 
 Udang (Houdin) the Chaplain of a Regiment 
 at Quebec to return to the Romish religion with 
 a promise of great preferment in the Church, 
 which Mr. Udang put into the hands of General 
 Murray, who sent it enclosed to General Gage, 
 who, upon the receipt of it sent a guard to take 
 the Vicar General into custody; what will be the 
 issue is not known." As the British authorities 
 at that time were anxious to conciliate the Can- 
 
292 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 adians, it is not likely that the " issue " was very 
 serious for the Vicar General. 
 
 The Society for the Propagation of the Gos- 
 pel in Foreign Parts appointed Houdin mission- 
 ary to the church in New Rochelle in August, 
 1761, and the wardens and vestrymen petitioned 
 Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader Colden to 
 grant a brief through the province to collect £400 
 to build a parsonage for Houdin — " a French 
 Refuge, a Gentleman of Good Character." An 
 application for a church charter in 1762 was 
 signed, among others, by " Michael Houdin, 
 Minisr, John houdin, Catherine houdin, Kitty 
 houdin and Elizabeth houdin." 
 
 Houdin died in October, 1766, and the Rev. 
 Harry Munro, of Yonkers, preached the funeral 
 service from the text, " Prepare to meet thy 
 God." The body was placed beneath the chancel 
 of the old French church. The building was de- 
 molished in course of time, and the shifting of 
 street lines left Houdin's dust under the high- 
 way. In the Liste Chronologique of the Cana- 
 dian clergy, " Potentian Houdin," a Recollect, is 
 recorded as having left the country in 1748, but 
 this date is evidently erroneous. 
 
 " Popery " was again appearing, it was feared, 
 in the city in 1744. To better their fortunes, 
 Christian Frederic Post, a joiner, and David 
 Zeisberger, a carpenter, came to town in Febru- 
 ary, and were at once arrested and imprisoned in 
 the City Hall under suspicion of being disguised 
 " Papists." Public excitement was allayed, and 
 they were released when they protested that they 
 were Moravians from Pennsylvania, and to 
 prove it produced a document from the famous 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 293 
 
 Moravian leader, Conrad Weiser, Justice of the 
 Peace of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, coun- 
 tersigned by Governor George Thomas of that 
 province, certifying that the bearers were true 
 Protestants. 
 
 War was declared by France against England 
 in 1744, and French prizes and prisoners began 
 to come into the port. The following description 
 of a prize, from the columns of the New York 
 Evening Post of June 28th, reads a trifle too 
 much like romance. The " brave and active 
 Thomas Frankland " brought in a French ship of 
 400 tons and 20 guns, " having on board 800 
 serons of coca in each of which 'tis said is depos- 
 ited as customary a Bar of Gold 68 Chests of 
 Silver Coins (already found) containing 310,000 
 Pieces of Eight. Private Adventure in Gold 
 and Silver Coins, and wrought Plate of equiv- 
 alent Value besides which there had been also 
 found a compleat Set of Church Plate, a large 
 Quantity of Gold Buckles and Snuff-boxes, a 
 curious Two-wheeled Chaise of Silver the Wheels 
 and Axles &c of the same ]Metal a large Quan- 
 tity of Diamonds, Pearl and other precious 
 Stones, upwards of 600 Weight of gold &c. 
 Gold was also found secreted in the ship's knees 
 and Barricades and the prisoners wore shoes with 
 hollow heels also full of Gold. Among the pris- 
 oners was a nephew of the Viceroy of Mexico." 
 The weak point in this IMunchausen-like story is 
 that there is no " brave and active Thomas Frank- 
 land " recorded as from the port of New York, 
 but the story is interesting, if only for its indica- 
 tion that the eighteenth century newspaper re- 
 porter was not lacking in imagination. 
 
294 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 The French and Spanish prisoners were not 
 allowed at large during the summer of 1744, but 
 were confined in the county jails and were main- 
 tained, such maintenance as they got, as county 
 charges. Any of them found straggling about 
 the town were brought before a magistrate. Of- 
 ficers of vessels were allowed to remain in town 
 upon giving their ]^siro[e of honor not to 
 " stir out " unaccompanied, and on promise to 
 return to quarters early every night. Boatswain 
 mates and carpenters of prizes were permitted 
 to seek employment from carpenters and riggers 
 in the city, but the prejudice against them pre- 
 vented their finding employment. 
 
 Governor Clinton informed the assembly that 
 it must care for and maintain the Frenchmen 
 and Spaniards as all civilized nations took care 
 of their prisoners of war. The assembly was of 
 opinion that the owners of privateers should pro- 
 vide for the officers of prizes taken by their ves- 
 sels, but the owners refused to spend a penny for 
 their maintenance. The assembly, as the number 
 of prisoners increased, began to chafe under the 
 expense of their subsistence, and wanted them 
 shipped off to French ports without delay. Nich- 
 olas Bayard and Henry Cuyler offered to trans- 
 port them to any port the Governor would 
 designate, at £20 a head, if granted permission 
 to carry a flag of truce. During 1745 many 
 French and Spanish prisoners were carried from 
 the port to the West Indies in " flags of truce." 
 It will be recalled that, in the trials of the Span- 
 ish negroes accused of complicity in the negro 
 plot of 1742, their claim to be freemen was dis- 
 allowed on the ground that their petition for 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 295 
 
 freedom should have been submitted at the pro- 
 ceedings for their condemnation as slaves. Re- 
 ports of these trials must have reached the Span- 
 ish West Indies, because, June 6th, 1745, 
 Fernando Bernard, Fernando Bernal and An- 
 tonio Agilar, three Spanish negroes, presented 
 to Governor Clinton a petition on behalf of 
 themselves and five others captured and brought 
 into port by the privateer " Batchelors," setting 
 forth that they were free Spanish subjects, and 
 praying that they be not condemned and sold as 
 slaves. 
 
 Notwithstanding the presence of numbers of 
 French and Spanish Catholic prisoners of war 
 in the city, the Reverend Robert Jenney wrote, 
 November 14th, from Philadelphia, to the Sec- 
 retary of the Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel in Foreign Parts : " There is not in New 
 York the least trace of Popery." 
 
296 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 CONCERNING NEW YORK PRIVATEERSMEN AND 
 THEIR INHUMAN TRAFFIC IN SPANISH FREE- 
 MEN 
 
 New York city, a hotbed of political and re- 
 ligious hatred and suspicion, was not a desirable 
 place of abode in colonial war times. Even pro- 
 fessional men did not hesitate to discredit and 
 destroy rivals by appealing to the bigotry of 
 the community. 
 
 Among the physicians practising in the city 
 in 1746 were Doctors Thomas Standard, Will- 
 iam Browne John and Magraw. A letter was 
 handed to the Clerk of the Council by Doctor 
 Standard, February 10th, in which he stated 
 that Doctor Browne John had told the writer 
 that Doctor JNIagraw, a practising physician of 
 the city, was a pensioner of the King of France. 
 This information, it was asserted, had come from 
 a Mrs. Garland, or Galland, who had it from 
 jNIagraw's wife. The council was startled. That 
 a pensioner of the King of France was in the 
 city in a position to enter the families of men 
 of all stations and acquire information of all 
 kinds in war time suggested spying and unlaw- 
 ful correspondence with the King's enemies. 
 
 The council appointed a committee of five to 
 investigate, with instructions to seize and secure 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 297 
 
 Doctor Magraw's person and papers if it should 
 appear that he was in the French King's pay. 
 The disclosure caused a flurry of excitement, 
 and a Frenchman from Cura^oa and two others 
 from Connecticut, with a pass from the Gov- 
 ernor of that province, were imprisoned until a 
 flag of truce was ready to carry them to some 
 French port. The council's committee met with- 
 out a day's delay and summoned all the people 
 mentioned in Doctor Standard's letter to ap- 
 pear for examination. Doctor Browne John, be- 
 ing sworn, testified: "That his wife told him 
 that Doctor Fisher told her and that Mrs. Gal- 
 land told him or his wife that Mrs. Magraw told 
 INIrs. Galland that Doctor Magraw was a pen- 
 sioner of the King of France, and the deponent 
 further stated that he had often heard that Doc- 
 tor Magraw was brought up a Jesuit." (Worse 
 and worse!) 
 
 Doctor Archibald Fisher, being called, testi- 
 fied " that some time last spring, to the best of 
 his remembrance, INIrs. Galland told him that 
 JNIrs. Magraw informed her that Doctor Magraw 
 had been a pensioner of the French King or 
 Court of France." Mrs. Galland, the next wit- 
 ness, testified: " That INIrs. Magraw and she 
 had been talking about traveling. JNIrs. INIagraw 
 told her that Doctor INIagraw, her husband, had 
 formerly had a pension from the Court of 
 France, and that it had been taken away from 
 him four or five years ago." The committee 
 deliberated for awhile and reached the sensible 
 finding that the grounds w^ere not sufficient to 
 warrant Doctor Standard in writing his letter 
 of denunciation to the council's clerk. 
 
298 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Aroused by the frequent condemnation to 
 slavery of free Spanish subjects in New York 
 and the capture of Spanish flag-of -truce vessels 
 on the high seas, the Spanish authorities in the 
 West Indian islands took steps to end these in- 
 tolerable conditions. Arthur Helme, a piratical 
 privateersman, owner of the New York privateer 
 "Polly" (2nd), was a notorious offender 
 against the Spaniards. He was in southern 
 waters with a flag of truce in the spring of 1746, 
 and was captured by the Spanish authorities, 
 likely on the ground that his actions had put him 
 outside the operation of the laws of civilized 
 nations. His capture caused a flurry in New 
 York governmental circles, and was referred by 
 the Governor and council to a committee for 
 consideration and report. Horsmanden, of 
 negro plot notoriety, was chairman of the com- 
 mittee, and his report, submitted May 3rd, was 
 a characteristic specimen of British bluster. The 
 report recommended that the Advocate- General 
 prosecute Helme as soon as he arrived in New 
 York, and that the Governor write the Marquis 
 De Caylus, Governor of Martinico (Martin- 
 ique), expressing surprise that he should detain 
 English subjects prisoners, as justice would be 
 done by Helme's government on him. It recom- 
 mended that the Governor detain all Spanish 
 prisoners until the INIarquis released the Eng- 
 lishmen detained by him. 
 
 In reference to a complaint from the Gov- 
 ernor of Havana that several Spanish mulattoes 
 had been condemned as slaves, the committee 
 recommended the Governor of New York to 
 write to him of Havana, " expressing j^our sur- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 299 
 
 prise at his detaining English subjects in the 
 same manner as the JNIarquis De Caylus," and 
 promising that Governor Clinton would direct 
 the Judge of the Admiralty to reconsider the 
 sentences of condemnation to slavery in cases 
 in which the Spanish Governors would certify 
 that the condemned were free Spanish subjects, 
 and concluded " lastly, that your Excellency in- 
 sist on the discharge of such of the King of 
 Great Britain's subjects as are now prisoners at 
 the Havannah upon the matter of this com- 
 plaint." 
 
 The British colonial governments were soon 
 to learn that bluster and bluff would not settle 
 this serious matter. In June, Governor Clinton 
 received a letter from Governor William 
 Greene, of Rhode Island, requesting him to re- 
 lease from slavery as many Spanish free sub- 
 jects taken by the privateersmen John Dennis 
 and Robert Morris as could be found in New 
 York. It developed that, as early as February, 
 Don Juan Franz de Nunez y Havasitas had 
 written to John Tinker, Governor of the Baha- 
 mas, informing him that he had exchanged cer- 
 tain English prisoners, and demanding the 
 release of free Spaniards made slaves in New 
 York, threatening retaliation in the event of a 
 refusal. 
 
 The Spanish sloop " San Miguel y la Virgen 
 de los Dolores," flying a flag of truce, sailed up 
 New York Bay July 19th. Her commander, 
 Don Jose Espinosa, was a fine type of the 
 Spanish gentleman and sailor, admirably fitted 
 for the difficult mission that had taken him to 
 New York. He bore twenty-one letters from 
 
300 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Governor Nunez y Havasitas to Governor Clin- 
 ton, including a list of sixty-nine English pris- 
 oners sent by the Governor of Havana on Es- 
 pinosa's sloop for exchange. The first business 
 considered seems to have been a review of the 
 disposition of the petition of the free Spanish 
 negroes, Bernal, Agilar and others, presented to 
 Governor Clinton in 1745. The results were as 
 follows: Fernando Bernal, sold for £28, was 
 liberated. Antonio Agilar, sold to the priva- 
 teersman, Thomas Seymour, for £46, and car- 
 ried by him to sea, was declared free on the oath 
 of Don Jose Espinosa that he was a freeman. 
 Thomas Joseph, sold to another privateersman. 
 Captain Thomas Grennell, for £51, had died. 
 Manuel Cervantes, who was about to be sold to 
 Captain Farman, was freed on Don Jose Es- 
 pinosa's affidavit. Anthony De Ferres, who 
 had been sold to Thomas Barnes for £31, was 
 likewise liberated by Espinosa's affidavit. Two 
 other negroes, sold to Captains Grennell and 
 Keleltas for £56 and £42, were condemned as 
 slaves. 
 
 Espinosa wrote to Mayor Stephen Bayard, 
 July 29th, a letter that throws some light on the 
 character of British colonial privateersmen, even 
 when dealing with their own countrymen in mis- 
 fortune. A privateer brigantine from Rhode 
 Island, commanded by Captain Sangrene ( Sam 
 Green?), with Daniel Denton, lieutenant, cap- 
 tured a Havana galley and other Spanish ves- 
 sels near Cape San Antonia. Two of these 
 vessels were retaken by the Spaniards, on one of 
 which were twenty-one Englishmen, including 
 Daniel Denton. At Havana the prisoners were 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 301 
 
 positively identified as having sold free Spanish 
 negroes and mulattoes, captured as prisoners of 
 war, into slavery in the English colonies. The 
 Governor of Havana thereupon told Denton 
 that, unless he brought back to Havana every 
 free Spanish subject sold by him and his mates 
 as slaves, he would condemn the twenty English 
 l^risoners to slavery. The prisoners executed a 
 power of attorney to Lieutenant Daniel Denton 
 to receive the shares due them in Rhode Island 
 for the prizes taken, and with this money he was 
 to redeem the Spaniards and reconduct them to 
 Havana. Denton sailed away to the north, and 
 nothing further was heard from him. The 
 Spanish Governor awaited his return for a 
 reasonable time and then imprisoned the Eng- 
 lishmen in a castle. 
 
 " I, the supplicant," wrote Espinosa to Bay- 
 ard, " has seen them at his departure w'th teers 
 in their eyes that their affliction was so great, 
 they only desired him to doe all in his power for 
 them. And having sertain inteligence that there 
 is in the City sundry free Spanis mulattos and 
 negroes sold as slaves I cannot discharge the 
 trust imposed in me if I did not pray for your 
 Honor's assistance that they may be restored to 
 me." 
 
 Such was the attitude of a Spanish colonial 
 Governor and an agent towards a black man one 
 hundred and sixty years ago. In this, at least, 
 the Latin was far in advance of the so-called 
 Anglo-Saxon. Espinosa in this letter gave the 
 names of nineteen Spanish Americans held in 
 New York as slaves who were, he could swear 
 positively, Spanish free subjects. He asked the 
 
302 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 mayor to obtain a passport for lago Ferara, one 
 of his men, to enable him to proceed to Rhode 
 Island to endeavor to find the Spaniards who 
 were held in slavery there and to recover, if pos- 
 sible, <£400 that Ferara had advanced in Havana 
 to Denton and his fellow prisoners. In conclu- 
 sion, he asked Bayard for permission to refit his 
 vessel for the return voyage. 
 
 The activity of the Spanish authorities in be- 
 half of Spanish subjects worried the New York 
 government. Governor Clinton wrote from Al- 
 bany, in August, concerning the council's action 
 in referring to a committee the matter of con- 
 demnation of Spanish mulattoes. He urged the 
 committee " to proceed with the utmost despatch 
 in the matter thus referred to them, that justice 
 may be done without delay, with respect to said 
 Spanish Prisoners reclaimed by this flag of truce 
 (Espinosa's), otherwise the equity of this gov- 
 ernment would be reflected upon, and ill conse- 
 quences ensue to every English prisoner that 
 now or hereafter may fall into the enemy's 
 hands." The Governor did not deem it prudent 
 to grant Espinosa's request for a pass to permit 
 Ferrara to proceed to Rhode Island, but was 
 willing to transmit to the Rhode Island author- 
 ities demands to be made on any person there 
 and to press the Governor to issue orders that 
 justice should be done. While the Governor 
 was urging haste in the matter of the condemned 
 Spaniards, efforts were made by some masters 
 of privateers to smuggle them out of the prov- 
 ince. Watchful and energetic Espinosa learned 
 of their purpose, and charged Captains Thomas 
 Seymour and Thomas Barnes with such inten- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 303 
 
 tion. On his complaint an order was granted 
 for the two captains to appear before the council 
 and make explanations. 
 
 Espinosa had arrived in the port July 19th, 
 and September 16th he had to petition the colo- 
 nial authorities for the sum due him, either in 
 cash or provisions, for the transportation and 
 maintenance of the sixty-nine English prisoners 
 brought by him to New York for exchange, 
 having up to that date received nothing. He at 
 the same time, tired of the shilly-shallying, made 
 a formal demand for all the Spanish free ne- 
 groes and mulattoes, prisoners of war in the 
 province. A few words concerning the manner 
 in which these sixty-nine Englishmen were taken 
 prisoners will indicate the forbearance of the 
 Spaniards. Two vessels from Havana captured 
 the privateer snow " Cruizer," William Clymer, 
 master, of Philadelphia, May 3rd, 1746, and 
 found on board of her, armed, eighteen English 
 sailors who had been taken out of the Eng- 
 lish sloop " Kingston," Thomas Parker, master. 
 Parker's sloop had been granted a flag of truce 
 by the Governor of Havana to proceed along 
 the Cuban coast to the south of Cape Corrientes 
 to pick up English prisoners and carry them to 
 Jamaica for exchange. In violation of the mari- 
 time laws of war Clymer had taken these men 
 from the flag of truce and had enrolled them in 
 his crew. It w^as these men Espinosa had car- 
 ried to New York. The council's committee on 
 the condemnation of the Spaniards having con- 
 cluded its labors, a decree of admiralty was 
 handed down September 29th. It stated that 
 but nine of the mulattoes, Indians and negroes, 
 
304 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 claimed by the Governor of Havana were 
 brought into New York, the others into Rhode 
 Island. It was ordered that Anthony De Tor- 
 res, Fernando Bernal, Anthony Agilar, or 
 Aguilar, and INIanuel Cerventes be restored to 
 freedom " upon the purchasers of them being 
 respectively paid their money." 
 
 Having finished the repairs to his sloop, and 
 with the Spanish prisoners exchanged for the 
 Englishmen he had taken to New York, Espin- 
 osa sailed for Havana in October. He bore a 
 certificate and passport, with the seal of the 
 province afiixed, granted him by Governor Clin- 
 ton. In it the Governor requested all com- 
 manders of his Majesty's ships and privateers 
 to grant the sloop protection and safe conduct. 
 Midway between Governor's Island and the 
 Narrows, within the jurisdiction of the New 
 York government, Espinosa's sloop was at- 
 tacked and captured by the New York priva- 
 teer " Ranger," John Easom, or Easoner, com- 
 mander. Espinosa produced the Governor's 
 certificate, but Easom ignored it and took the 
 Spanish sloop into Perth Amboy, New Jersey. 
 Espinosa and his men were made prisoners and 
 the Governor's passj)ort and every other docu- 
 ment taken from them by Easom and his men. 
 Easom filed a libel in the Vice- Admiralty Court 
 of New Jersey October 22nd, praying that all 
 the goods on the Spanish vessel be unloaded and 
 everything not necessary for the subsistence of 
 the crew and passengers condemned as a lawful 
 prize. Accordingly everything on board was 
 put ashore at Perth Amboy, and Easom's insin- 
 uation that the cargo consisted in part of gun- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 305 
 
 powder, sliot and munitions of war was proven 
 false. Having found some private property of 
 Espinosa's on board, not necessary for the sub- 
 sistence of the crew, Easom pressed for its con- 
 demnation as a lawful prize. Espinosa appealed 
 to Governor Clinton for aid and protection un- 
 der his passport, and the Governor, on Novem- 
 ber 18th, directed Advocate-General Richard 
 Bradley, of the province of New York, to enter 
 and prosecute a claim in the Vice- Admiralty 
 Court on Espinosa's behalf for the libeled goods. 
 The law's quibbles held Espinosa in these parts 
 until late in the spring of 1746, but long before 
 that time the New York authorities had taught 
 Easom that it was a dangerous contempt to ig- 
 nore a Governor's passport, and Espinosa had 
 obtained from the council a decision that Span- 
 ish mulattoes sold as slaves were thenceforth to 
 be treated as prisoners of war. 
 
 A skirmish between inhabitants of Albany 
 County and a band of Canadian Indians on the 
 frontier, June 3rd, 1746, caused apprehensions 
 of an invasion from that quarter, and the coun- 
 cil advised the Governor to order all the French 
 prisoners of war in New York city to be sent 
 over to Jamaica, Nassau (Long) Island. Three 
 days later Clinton ordered the sheriff of Kings 
 County to take eleven of the prisoners to Flat- 
 bush and the sheriff of Queens County to take 
 nine of them to Jamaica, all to be quartered in 
 such houses as the local justices of the peace 
 would deem most convenient. 
 
 Among the French prisoners in the city were 
 Charles De Bougie, Judge of Martinico; An- 
 thony Le Moyne, commissary of that island ; M. 
 
306 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Sherbeil and JNI. Duplessis, who had been cap- 
 tured on the high seas and taken into the port by 
 the privateer " Prince Charles." They peti- 
 tioned the Governor to permit them to take 
 passage on the sloop " William " for Madeira, 
 and their request was granted, with the proviso 
 that they should carry away no letters. The 
 French prisoners were searched and examined 
 September 30th, and every scrap of writing in 
 their possession was seized and sealed. Among 
 the papers was found a list of the vessels in Ad- 
 miral D'Anville's fleet. 
 
 Some idea of the number of prisoners in the 
 city may be formed from the fact that in the lat- 
 ter part of 1746 and beginning of 1747 seven 
 sloops, four brigantines and one snow were ap- 
 pointed flags of truce to carry the Frenchmen 
 and Spaniards to West Indian ports for ex- 
 change. The assembly put a very scandalous 
 and embarrassing question to Governor Clinton 
 in 1747, when it asked if he had heard the rumor 
 that he had been " grafting," as it is called in 
 modern parlance, by selling French and Spanish 
 prisoners of war to flag-of-truce vessels for sev- 
 eral pistoles a head. He indignantly denied the 
 rumor. 
 
 Affidavits made by Bernard Eyraud, surgeon, 
 and Jean Dupuy, second lieutenant, of the 
 French ship " Marguerite," of Bordeaux, indi- 
 cate the heartlessness and inhumanity of the 
 commissioned pirates, known as privateersmen, 
 who hailed from New York in that day. The 
 two French officers testified that their ship was 
 attacked and captured by the New York priva- 
 teers " Triton," " Castor " and " Pollux," and 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 307 
 
 that Eyraud, Dupuy and thirteen others of the 
 crew were put into a small boat, without a com- 
 pass, somewhere off the island of Cuycos, and 
 left to shift for themselves. After suffering the 
 greatest hardships, three of them were rescued 
 and taken to New York, twelve of the fifteen 
 having succumbed to their sufferings. The New 
 York authorities investigated the case, and the 
 Advocate-General prosecuted Captain Abraham 
 Man of the " Triton," John Burgess of the 
 " Pollux " and the captain, " unknown," says the 
 record, of the " Castor." It is an odd coincidence 
 that one of the two captains who commanded the 
 " Castor " between 1743 and 1748 was John 
 Easom of Espinosa capture notoriety. 
 
 A treaty of peace was signed between Eng- 
 land, France and Spain April 30th, but even 
 after news of it reached New York, the priva- 
 teers continued to prey on French and Spanish 
 commerce. Captain John Burgess, of the 
 " Royal Catherine," captured the French priva- 
 teer " Le Mars," after a sharp fight, six leagues 
 from Sandy Hook, June 4th, and took her crew 
 to the city to swell the French population. The 
 Common Council presented Burgess with the 
 freedom of the city. 
 
 In June twenty-five Frenchmen were sent to 
 Canada by way of Crown Point, and a flag of 
 truce was granted to carry off a hundred Span- 
 iards and Frenchmen. A letter from the Duke 
 of Bedford reached the Governor August 9th, 
 announcing the end of hostilities between Eng- 
 land, France and Spain. Three French vessels, 
 " Le Marechal de Saxe," " Le Concorde " and 
 " Le Zephire," were captured and taken into 
 
308 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 New York after peace had been proclaimed. 
 Their masters, Jean Larradi, Joseph OlHer and 
 Pierre le Prince, petitioned to have them re- 
 turned. Edward JMenzies, master of the priva- 
 teer " Brave Hawk," was heard in opposition to 
 their petition, but the vessels were restored to 
 their masters, but with such conditions that they 
 received them under protest. The prize brig 
 " L'Industrie," Guillaume Chapeliere, master, 
 was also returned. There seems to be sufficient 
 grounds for the belief that JNIenzies, of the 
 " Brave Hawk," Thomas Randall, of the 
 " Fox," and others who had captured the French 
 ship " L'Amazone," polocca " St. Charles," ship 
 " Le Marechal de Saxe," ship " Le Concorde " 
 and brigantines " Le Zephire " and " L'Indus- 
 trie," and the Spanish schooner " San Vincente 
 Ferrer " knew of the cessation of hostilities when 
 they took the vessels, and it developed during 
 the legal proceedings that an effort was made to 
 bribe the boatswain of the " JMarechal de Saxe " 
 to swear falsely to certain maritime irregular- 
 ities that w^ould have justified the confiscation of 
 that vessel. Clinton, in the latter part of 1748, 
 liberated between three and four hundred French 
 prisoners of war, sending them home at govern- 
 ment expense, and returned to their masters 
 seven prizes captured by privateers. 
 
 A distinguished French officer, accompanied 
 by three brother officers and sixteen Frenchmen, 
 Canadians and Indians, arrived in the city and 
 presented his credentials to the council, October 
 8th. He was Lieutenant Constant de INIarchand 
 Des Ligneris, sent b}'- the Marquis de la Galis- 
 soniere to negotiate for an exchange of pris- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 309 
 
 oners of war. In the letter from the Governor 
 of New France, Galissoniere, to Governor CHn- 
 ton, he signified his willingness to set at liberty 
 and send into the province all English prisoners 
 in Canada and all Indians belonging to the Six 
 Nations, provided Clinton would release and de- 
 liver to him all French captives among the In- 
 dians. Des Ligneris, after the negotiations had 
 dragged along for two weeks, wrote to Clinton, 
 begging him to expedite the exchange of prison- 
 ers to permit his return to Canada before the 
 winter season made travel difficult. The delay 
 was occasioned by the efforts that w^re necessary 
 to induce the unwilling JMohawks to liberate 
 their Canadian captives. That Des Ligneris 
 was an official and social success in New York 
 is indicated in a letter written by Clinton to de la 
 Galissoniere in October, 1748: "Before I con- 
 clude I must do justice to Mr. Desligneire who 
 by his behaviour has gained my esteem, and the 
 esteem of the Gentlemen of this place. It will 
 give me pleasure to hear of any favours you 
 shall bestow on him on that account." Des Lig- 
 neris returned to Quebec in the fall with a party 
 of exchanged prisoners, and in December was 
 back in New York with thirty-one liberated Eng- 
 lishmen. He passed the winter in New York 
 and returned to Canada April, 1749. In the fall 
 of that year he was sent to New York again by 
 Governor de la Jonquiere with an Abnaki 
 sachem to treat for the exchange of prisoners. 
 He was joined by another Canadian soldier, 
 Lieutenant Alexander le Neuf La Valliere, 
 Sieur de Beaubassin, in the early summer of 
 1750. Beaubassin had with him twenty-four 
 
310 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 English prisoners for exchange. Thirteen other 
 prisoners had become Cathohcs in Canada and 
 refused to return to New York. Either Des 
 Ligneris or Beaubassin took thirteen exchanged 
 Frenchmen back to Canada. 
 
 Lieutenant Des Ligneris performed distin- 
 guished services in many parts of what is now 
 the United States. He was engaged in De Ram- 
 esay's expedition against New York in 1710, 
 and later was at Michilimackinac. At a confer- 
 ence in Quebec in 1741 he advised Governor de 
 Beauharnois to send an expedition against the 
 Fox tribe, and had a command in the force that 
 operated against the Foxes and Chickasaws, and 
 was stationed for a time at Fort Assumption, 
 where Memphis, Tennessee, now stands. Later 
 he saw service in Acadia. In the spring of 1752 
 he was commandant at the Ouyatanons, a French 
 j)ost in what is now Indiana, and in July, 1755, 
 with M. Dumas, he commanded the detachment 
 of 800 French, Canadians and Indians that de- 
 feated General Braddock in the battle of the 
 Monongahela. He was campaigning on the 
 Ohio at Fort Duquesne in 1757-8, and in the lat- 
 ter year was nearly surprised by the English at 
 Fort Duquesne, but sent out a detachment that 
 defeated and pursued them, killed and wounded 
 between six and seven hundred, and took the 
 commander, four officers and one hundred men 
 prisoners. In November, menaced by a force of 
 6,000, he removed his artillery, munitions of war 
 and subsistence and, having fired the fort, re- 
 tired to Fort Machault, at the mouth of French 
 Creek, Pennsylvania. He used every endeavor, 
 in JNIarch, 1759, to induce his Indian allies to at- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 311 
 
 tack the English, but they besought him to fall 
 back on Presque Isle. In July of that year Pou- 
 chot, the commandant at Fort Niagara, ordered 
 him to fall back for the defence of that post. 
 He hurried to Pouchot's assistance, but was de- 
 feated, wounded and taken prisoner near Fort 
 Niagara, after a half century of border war- 
 fare under the lily-spangled flag. 
 
 Don Melchor De Navarette, Governor of St. 
 Augustine, corresponded with the New York 
 provincial government in 1750-1 concerning free 
 Spanish Christian negro and mulatto prisoners 
 of war held in slavery, and in reference to the 
 crew of an English vessel wrecked oiF the coast 
 of Florida, rescued by a Spanish vessel and sent 
 by him to New York in an English ship. In the 
 following year, 1752, Don IMelchor sent to Gov- 
 ernor Clinton a list of fortj^-five Spanish Amer- 
 icans in bondage in New York, and requested 
 their freedom. He also asked for the restora- 
 tion to its owners of the Spanish schooner " Sen- 
 orita Del S. Carmen," captured by the privateer 
 " Hester " and condemned after the cessation of 
 hostilities between England and Spain. The 
 various documents issued by the legal depart- 
 ment of the New York government are enlight- 
 ening as to the methods then in vogue to defeat 
 justice. In answer to a summons from Judge 
 Lewis Morris of the Court of Vice- Admiralty 
 to the possessors of all Spanish negroes and mu- 
 lattoes held in slavery and certified to be freemen 
 by the Spanish Governor, to appear in court 
 with their slaves May 28th, 1752, only four of 
 them were produced. A few others appeared 
 at later sessions of the court, but of the forty- 
 
312 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 five many had been carried off in slavery to other 
 provinces. The proceedings dragged along, and 
 another letter from Governor Garcia De Solis 
 in October urged an early settlement of the mat- 
 ters in dispute between the two governments. 
 Attorney General Kempe suggested to Judge 
 Morris that, as the schooner " Del Carmen " was, 
 without doubt, captured and condemned after 
 the date agreed upon for ceasing hostilities, the 
 Court should reverse its sentence of condemna- 
 tion and return the schooner or her value to the 
 owners, but the judge refused to reverse his de- 
 cision, and maintained that the only remedy the 
 owners had was to appeal to the courts of Great 
 Britain. It was customary for privateers to be 
 bonded upon granting letters of marque to them, 
 but Kempe was dubious concerning both the 
 sufficiency of penalty and the financial ability of 
 the bondsmen of the brigantine " Hester," there- 
 fore the owners of the "Del Carmen " had no 
 redress save an appeal either to " his Majesty in 
 Chancery " or a " Commission of Delegates." 
 
 The utter failure of the authorities to carry 
 into efi'ect the decisions of the Court of Vice- 
 Admiralty, granting freedom to the Spanish 
 negroes and mulattoes, and the inability or disin- 
 clination of the Court to punish for contempt 
 those who defied its mandates, would indicate 
 collusion between the authorities and the lawless 
 privateersmen who were traffickers in human be- 
 ings. Robert Troup, the master of the privateer 
 " Hester," carried on so extensive a business in 
 kidnapping and selling these free Spaniards as 
 to require the services of an agent to manage 
 the traffic. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 313 
 
 During" the court proceedings that ended in 
 declaring Paul JNIesquina, a Spanish mulatto, a 
 freeman, Troup sent Mesquina to Albany, in 
 chains, to be sold into slavery. The Governor 
 and council directed Attorney General Kempe 
 to prosecute every one who had any part in the 
 abduction, but he could find no law to fit the 
 case, and Judge Morris decided that he had no 
 authority to fine Troup for contempt. 
 
 Juan de Dios de Sozto, or Chiegneto, illegally 
 held in slavery by one Milliner, a butcher, was 
 declared free. He was spirited away from Mil- 
 liner's house and sold to a Newark, N. J., boat- 
 man. Francisco Isquiena, a freeman, taken 
 prisoner of war by Troup on the " Fleur de la 
 Mar," was decoyed by Troup from Fort George, 
 whither he had gone to submit proofs of his be- 
 ing a freeman to the Governor, seized and sold 
 to a tailor in New Brunswick. Edwards, a New 
 York tailor, bought and took him back to New 
 York. Isquiena admitted having told Edwards 
 he was a slave, but pleaded as an excuse for his 
 falsehood that he had been warned of his im- 
 prudence in claiming to be a freeman because 
 Edwards would not buy him and take him to 
 New York, where he could appeal to the author- 
 ities for freedom, but he would be sent to distant 
 parts, where he could never hope to gain liberty. 
 After serving Edwards faithfully for five years, 
 to reimburse him for the price he had paid, Is- 
 quiena appealed to the Court of Vice Admiralty 
 and was declared free. Despite the court's de- 
 cision, he had to be smuggled on a vessel bound 
 for Cartagena to prevent Edwards from spirit- 
 ing him out of the Court's jurisdiction. The 
 
314 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 condition of affairs is set forth in the report of 
 Attorney General Kempe to Governor CHnton: 
 
 " This, Sir, in obedience to your Excellency's 
 Commands, I thought it my duty to acquaint 
 your Excellency with what has been done since 
 my last report towards restoring such of the 45 
 Spanish JMulattoes and negroes claimed as free 
 subjects by the King of Spain, as have applyed 
 for it, and appear to be entitled to, to their free- 
 dom, but how farr the ordinary method of Jus- 
 tice may be effectual to answer this end, I cannot 
 say, whilst people are so hardy as to dare to act 
 in opposition to it, as Troup and Milliner have 
 done, and Edwards threatens to do; and it is to 
 be feared others will act in like manner by their 
 example, if some method be not found to pre- 
 vent or punish it." 
 
 There was a warm controversy in the city in 
 1753 between the Church party and the dis- 
 senters as to whether the newly established 
 King's College (now Columbia) should be a 
 secular or Church of England institution. In 
 the heat of controversy the Catholics did not es- 
 cape without insult. The following extract 
 from an article by William Livingston in the 
 Independent Reflector of JNIarch 29th, a publi- 
 cation issued by the advocates of a secular col- 
 lege, indicates that Catholics were still consid- 
 ered outside the pale of society: "Add to all 
 this that in a new Country as ours, it is incon- 
 sistent with good Policy to give any religious 
 profession an ascendency over others. The ris- 
 ing Prosperity of Pennsylvania is the Admira- 
 tion of the Continent and tho' disagreeing from 
 them I should always for political Reasons ex- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 315 
 
 elude Papists from the common and equal Bene- 
 fits of Societ3^" 
 
 Lieutenant Governor James De Lancey, in a 
 letter to the Lords of Trade, commended the 
 minister, elders and deacons of the Dutch church 
 to their lordshi23s as " loyal people that detest 
 the Pope and the Pretender most cordially." 
 
 In America and India, in 1754, France and 
 England were drifting into the great conflict 
 known in history as the Seven Years' War. 
 From the banks of the Ohio and the Canadian 
 border came news of battle, and every French 
 visitor to New York was regarded with suspicion 
 or detained in custodj^ ]M. Paco came to town 
 early in JNIarch, and, on the authorities learning 
 that he purposed leaving the province suddenly, 
 the sherifl* apprehended him, and he was kept in 
 custody and compelled to give a bond for £1,000 
 not to leave the province without permission. 
 The authorities always feared French dancing 
 masters, and when a letter was received from 
 Governor Lawrence, of Halifax, N. S., in April, 
 warning them that one of that profession, who 
 had recently arrived in the city, was said to be a 
 spy, he was seized, his papers examined, and he 
 was sent to jail, but afterwards confined in his 
 lodgings. He escaped, was captured, and, with 
 a number of other Frenchmen, kept within 
 bounds until July, when they were shipped to 
 Europe or the West Indies, or allowed to pro- 
 ceed to Philadelphia or Boston. A few deserters 
 from the French garrison of Fort Niagara came 
 down to New York, and in December all French 
 subjects were ordered to leave the city. 
 
316 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IN WHICH ACADIAN EXILES AND FRENCH PRIS- 
 ONERS OF WAR SWELL THE CITY's POPULA- 
 TION 
 
 The activity of the French along the St. 
 Lawrence and the Ohio rivers, in 1755, caused 
 warHke preparations in New York. Sir Will- 
 iam Pepperel's 51st Regiment was encamped 
 on Governor's Island in June, and in the follow- 
 ing month Shirley's 50th Regiment, otherwise 
 known as the " Dirty Half Hundred," was in 
 the city. Both of these regiments contained a 
 number of Catholics. 
 
 Braddock's crushing defeat on the Ohio, in 
 July, caused consternation, and shortly after the 
 news reached the city the Reverend Samuel 
 Auchmuty, D.D., preached a sermon in Trinity 
 Church, in which he urged his hearers to draw 
 their swords in defence of country and religion, 
 saying: " Death itsself is far more eligible than 
 slavery and Popery, ye effects of which two 
 dreadful evils will be felt should bad manage- 
 ment, temerity or a want of public spirit prevail 
 amongst us." The dismay over Braddock's de- 
 feat and death were changed to joy when the 
 tidings of Sir William Johnson's victory over 
 Major General Baron de Dieskau, at Lake 
 George, reached the city. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 317 
 
 Governor Sir Charles Hardy, on his way up 
 the river to Albany, September 10th, met a. sloop 
 near that city carrying twenty-one French pris- 
 oners to New York. Several of them were dan- 
 gerously wounded and in a pitiable condition. 
 As there was no surgeon on board, he ordered 
 the sloop to return to Albany, put on board 
 needed stores, and obtained a surgeon. The city 
 authorities made provision to care for the pris- 
 oners, and they secured the services of Doctor 
 Bard to attend the sick and wounded. The 
 Baron de Dieskau and Lieutenant de Bernier, 
 of the Royal Swedish Regiment, his aide-de- 
 camp, arrived in the city October 14th. Both 
 were wounded, Dieskau having received four 
 wounds, one of them a shot through the hips, 
 injuring the bladder, and Bernier slightly hurt 
 by a splinter. They were quartered in Mrs. Jon- 
 court's, near the harbor, and were moved next 
 day to Charles Arding's, near the Common, " as 
 more convenient." Another French officer, Cap- 
 tain La Coste, was quartered in Mrs. Dimmock's 
 on Broadway. On the arrival of these officers 
 orders were issued to confine the French pris- 
 oners more closely. De Bernier, wandering be- 
 yond the limits set him by his custodians, was 
 ordered to keep within the Arding house and not 
 to presume to send any letters away until they had 
 been read by the authorities. De Bernier sailed 
 to England on a man-of-war in February, 1756. 
 After his exchange he returned to Canada in 
 February, 1758, as Assistant Commissary of 
 War. Before and after the siege of Quebec in 
 the following year he was in charge of the mili- 
 tary hospital, and after the fall of the city the 
 
318 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 victors did not ask his surrender. He was the 
 intermediary between the French and EngHsh 
 commanders, and won the praises of both armies 
 for his excellent services and his care of the sick 
 and wounded. He reported to the government 
 the cajjitulation of Canada by M. de Vaudreuil 
 in 1760, and superintended the embarkation of 
 the evacuating French troops. De Bernier re- 
 turned to France with the Chevalier De Levis on 
 the " Mary," November, 1760. 
 
 Baron Dieskau's wounds were slow in healing. 
 He was sent to Boston in 1756, and after a short 
 stay was returned to New York. He sailed for 
 Falmouth, England, in March, 1757. He died 
 in Surenne, France, from the effects of his 
 wounds, September 8th, 1767. Dieskau was a 
 Saxon and a lieutenant colonel of cavalry in 
 the army of JVIarshal Saxe. After his defeat he 
 seems to have been badly treated by the French 
 government. Braddock and Dieskau, both 
 brave and experienced soldiers in European 
 warfare, were defeated by their entire ignorance 
 of the tactics of American frontier strife. In a 
 a letter to Doctor Cooper, of Kings College, 
 Colonel Babcock wrote shortly after the battle 
 of Lake George: "The Six Nations, had Sir 
 William been defeated, undoubtedly would have 
 joined the Baron — And the City of New York 
 would have been the Baron's Head Quarters." 
 
 The tattered uniforms of the prisoners of the 
 Regiments La Reine and Languedoc were no 
 novelty in New York at that day, and soon the 
 quaint costumes of the Acadian peasantry were 
 seen in the city. Governor Lawrence, of Nova 
 Scotia, wrote Governor Sir Charles Hardy, un- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 319 
 
 der date August 11th, 1755, that " about thirty 
 famihes of the settlers in Nova Scotia, taken at 
 the reduction of that part of the province inhab- 
 ited by the people commonly called neutral 
 French, acquainting his Excellency (Gover- 
 nor Hardy) that the resolution of the Council 
 called on that occasion was that these people 
 should be dispersed among the several provinces 
 and that in consequence thereof he had sent a 
 vessel with that part of the families to this 
 province." 
 
 By war and treaty the peninsula of Acadia, 
 or Nova Scotia, as it is now called,- had three 
 times passed from France to England, until its 
 final cession to England, in 1713. The inhab- 
 itants, after the final cession, had the privilege 
 of leaving within two years, but most of them 
 remained on their farms. They took the oath of 
 fidelity to the British Crown, but their strong 
 Catholic faith and love of France prompted 
 them to refuse the oath of allegiance. They 
 were exempted from bearing arms against their 
 countrymen, and hence were known as neutral 
 French. They were permitted the practice of 
 their religion, and were allowed to choose their 
 own magistrates. The French of Cape Breton 
 kept up a war with the British and incited the 
 Indians to attack their settlements. The blame 
 for this unrest was put upon the Acadians, and, 
 in 1755, having previously begun the coloniza- 
 tion of Nova Scotia with English, a wholesale 
 deportation of the Acadians, 18,000 souls, was 
 determined on. They again refused to take the 
 oath of allegiance or to bear arms against the 
 French. The unfortunates were forced to give 
 
320 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 up their property, the torch was apphed to their 
 homes and crops, and they were crowded pell- 
 mell into ships — in many cases a father sent to 
 Georgia, a mother to Pennsjdvania and the 
 children divided betw^een New York and Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 The ship with the Acadians arrived in the har- 
 bor of New York April 30th, 1756. It had been 
 driven off the coast by winter storms and had 
 reached the island of St. Christopher. Some of 
 the more fortunate of the exiles had found 
 means to escape to one of the French West In- 
 dian islands. There remained on board twenty- 
 one families, numbering 151 men, women and 
 children. They were sent to Richmondtown, 
 Staten Island, temporarily, pending their dis- 
 posal in settlements adjacent to New York. The 
 Governor, by advice of his council, commended 
 to the city authorities the farming out of the 
 boys and girls, separating them, in many cases, 
 from their parents forever. Agents were sent 
 among the Acadians to represent to them the ad- 
 vantage of such a provision for their children, 
 enabling them to learn trades by which they 
 could, in time, support themselves and their fam- 
 ilies. The adults and children were distributed 
 in the following places: Richmondtown, Staten 
 Island; I'latbush, Bush wick, Jamaica, New- 
 town, Flushing, Hempstead, Oyster Bay, 
 Huntington, Southold, Easthampton, South- 
 ampton, Brookhaven and Smithtown, Long 
 Island; New Rochelle and Rye, Westchester 
 County. Some of the descendants of these 
 exiles, still bearing their French Acadian names, 
 are living in the communities to which their an- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 321 
 
 cestors were banished, but they are utterly ig- 
 norant of their French Cathohc ancestry. 
 
 Rene Leblanc, an aged Acadian, who had 
 served the British government in Acadia as a 
 notary pubHc, was one of those landed in New 
 York. He had been seized and hurried on ship- 
 board with his wife and two younger children. 
 Eighteen other children and about 150 grand- 
 children were scattered among the colonies along 
 the Atlantic seaboard. Leblanc was in infirm 
 health when he landed in New York, but he 
 made his way to Philadelphia. He found there 
 three more of his children, but his sorrows and 
 hardships proved too much for his enfeebled 
 frame, and he died shortly after his arrival. 
 Poor Leblanc had, like his beloved Acadia, suf- 
 fered from both sides. Some years prior to his 
 deportation he had been captured by the Indian 
 allies of the French, his house had been pillaged, 
 and he had been imprisoned four years in a 
 French fort. 
 
 A nimiber of battues, containing seventy- 
 eight Acadians, were beached on the shores of 
 Long Island August 22nd. These Acadians had 
 been sent by Governor Lawrence to Georgia. 
 The Georgians did not want them, and, with a 
 passport, they embarked on their frail craft and 
 voyaged to Carolina. 
 
 A home was denied them there, and they were 
 permitted to journey further north. The voy- 
 agers were in hopes of reaching Boston, with the 
 ultimate intention of returning to their beloved 
 Acadia. They landed on Long Island, probably 
 to replenish their stores. There their voyage ter- 
 minated. Governor Hardy ordered that their 
 
322 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 boats be seized and the Acadians secured. Hardy 
 distributed them to " the most remote and secure 
 parts " of the province. The local magistrates 
 were instructed to obtain employment for the 
 strangers and their cliildren — 59 boys and 49 
 girls were bound out as apprentices in West- 
 chester and Orange counties. 
 
 The lot of these exiles among strangers, who 
 hated their faith and nationality, was so hard 
 that occasionally a little party would brave the 
 terrors of the northern wilderness in the hope of 
 reaching New France. The New York Mer- 
 cury of July 11th, 1757, says: "We hear that 
 a party of French Neutrals, who have been for 
 some Time past at and near Westchester made 
 their Escape from that Place and were taken up 
 near Fort Edward, on their way to Crown 
 Point." When the news of the surrender of 
 Fort William Henry to the French reached the 
 city, August 10th, Lieutenant Governor James 
 De Lancey, who had succeeded Hardy, ordered 
 all the French prisoners and the Acadians to be 
 imprisoned, and three days later orders were is- 
 sued directing the sheriffs of the counties to jail 
 the prisoners of war and Acadians. 
 
 A letter was received from Fort Neck, Long 
 Island, directing attention to the uneasiness 
 caused in that section by the growing intimacy 
 between the Acadians and negro slaves. A ris- 
 ing was feared. In Richmond County the male 
 Acadians only were confined in the jail. At 
 Brooklyn Ferry seventy-eight Acadians were 
 confined in houses transformed into jails. So 
 strict was the scrutiny to which foreign stran- 
 gers coming to the city were subjected that 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 323 
 
 the masters of vessels were obliged to notify the 
 government before permitting strangers to go 
 ashore. A M. Dumas, a former French army 
 officer, landed from a vessel arrived from St. 
 Eustatia, in June, 1756, without notification, 
 and took up his abode in JNIr. Vallarde's. The 
 sheriff arrested him, and he continued in cus- 
 tody, without being permitted writing materials, 
 until his deportation. 
 
 Bad news reached the city in August. The 
 Marquis De Montcalm had captured and de- 
 stroyed Forts Ontario and Oswego, taken one 
 hundred and twenty cannon, six war vessels, 
 three hundred boats, three chests of money, 
 stores, ammunition and 1,400 prisoners. Lord 
 Loudoun, the Commander-in-Chief, billeted one 
 thousand regulars upon the citizens of New 
 York despite their protests. In the garrison 
 was a battalion of the 60th Royal American 
 Regiment, containing a number of Catholics. A 
 proclamation was issued in September, appre- 
 hending and securing all subjects of the French 
 King and confining all strangers unable to give 
 a satisfactory account of themselves. 
 
 The Spanish American governors, Don Fran- 
 cisco Caxegal de Vega, of Havana, and Don 
 Alonzo Feruz de Hondia, of St. Augustine, 
 were active in their efforts to restore enslaved 
 subjects of the Spanish King to freedom, and 
 the New York traffickers in human chattels had 
 become more audaciously lawless. Judge Lewis 
 Morris, of the Court of Admiralty, complained 
 to Governor Hardy that, despite the Court's 
 judgment declaring a negro free, one Francis 
 Johnstone, a cooper, had kidnapped him from an 
 
324 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 outward-bound flag of truce. In another case the 
 Court had decreed that a Spanish negro should 
 be committed to the custody of the sheriff while 
 his case was pending, because of his owner's 
 threat to send him beyond the Court's jurisdic- 
 tion. 
 
 There were, up to January 5th, 1757, thirty 
 privateers hailing from New York, and fourteen 
 prizes, aggregating in value £100,000, had been 
 taken into the port. The masters of privateers 
 had become so bold that they considered a 
 vessel flying any other flag than the English 
 fair spoil of war, and this indiscriminate plun- 
 dering brought Master Richard Hadden, of the 
 privateer " Charming Peggy," of New York, 
 and the master of the privateer " Bermuda," 
 from Halifax, into the dock, charged with 
 piracy. The ship " Nuestra Senora de Guada- 
 lupe " sailed from Santander, Spain, for Santi- 
 ago de Cuba, after having been examined and 
 passed by a British war ship. Off the coast of 
 Bermuda she was attacked and captured by Had- 
 den and his Halifax consort and taken into New 
 York, with Philip De La Pedra, her master and 
 part owner, and her crew of seven, prisoners of 
 war. Elated with his success in capturing thus 
 easily the vessel of a friendly power, Hadden 
 sought his fortunes in the same waters and pres- 
 ently took into New York as a prize the Spanish 
 schooner " La Virgen del Rosario y el Santo 
 Cristo de Buen Viage." Hadden had gone too 
 far. The Earl of Holderness, Secretary of 
 State for Foreign Affairs, forwarded to New 
 York a batch of letters and affidavits from Vice 
 Admiral Townsend and others relating to the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 325 
 
 piraticai behavior of several privateers fitted up 
 in North America towards the Spaniards in the 
 West Indies, particularly of the " Peggy," of 
 New York, Hadden, master, and a privateer 
 from Halifax, Snooke, or Sleeth, master. Prose- 
 cutions were commenced against Hadden, and 
 his sureties and his vessel w^re detained in port. 
 The Spanish vessels were released with pass- 
 ports, and the " Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe," 
 was granted permission to ship French prisoners 
 to make up a crew. There were two hundred of 
 these French prisoners in the city in June, and 
 the council ordered their distribution in Kings, 
 Queens and Westchester counties, and ordered 
 that they should be subsisted at the public ex- 
 pense. 
 
 The number of commissions issued to priva- 
 teers and the manning of all these vessels had 
 drained the port of seamen, and as the author- 
 ities were very anxious to get rid of the con- 
 stantly increasing number of prisoners. Sheriff 
 John Roberts was directed to permit merchants 
 " to take such French prisoners as they may 
 want to navigate their vessels." In July and 
 August the number of prisoners was redviced by 
 shipping them to French ports on flags of truce 
 and as sailors on merchant vessels. Fifty were 
 delivered by the sheriff of New York at Brook- 
 lyn ferry for distribution among the villages in 
 Kings County, and twenty-five were shipped to 
 Brookhaven, Suffolk County, by water, with in- 
 structions to quarter them in the different com- 
 munities if the county jail could not accommo- 
 date them. The request of a number of people 
 for permission to employ them was granted. 
 
326 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 The privateers " Revenge " and " Hornet " 
 brought into the harbor in September as a prize, 
 the Genoese ship " Immaculate Conception and 
 St. Ignatio de Loiola," Lorenzo Ghiglino, mas- 
 ter, flying the Papal flag and bearing a pass 
 from Pope Benedict XIV. There was a strong- 
 protest against this seizure, and the British min- 
 ister, William Pitt, interested himself. In 1758 
 Ghiglino was permitted to victual for the voy- 
 age and, with a number of French prisoners, 
 sailed for Genoa. Prisoners of war continued 
 to arrive by land and sea, and their maintenance 
 became a large item of expense. The assembly 
 embarrassed the provincial government, in Jan- 
 uary, 1758, by resolving to make no further 
 provision for them. The council advised the 
 Lieutenant-Governor to take measures to send 
 them from New York. 
 
 Among the French and Canadian officers pris- 
 oners of war in New York, in ]\Iarch, were Cap- 
 tain Jacques Corriveau, Charles Legrand, J. 
 Parent, Cadets de Fontenay, Lachauvignerie 
 and Laplante, Captain Bonneau, Chevalier De 
 Rene, Chevalier Bernard, Lieutenant Jaubert, 
 Larochelle, Sieurs Granet and Permittet. Cor- 
 riveau, Legrand and Parent engaged themselves 
 with General Abercromby to proceed to Canada 
 and endeavor to secure from Governor Vau- 
 dreuil an exchange for Colonel Peter Schuyler 
 and Benjamin Staats, and, if unsuccessful, to 
 return to captivity the following January. This 
 proposal for an exchange was refused by Gov- 
 ernor Vaudreuil on the ground that the articles 
 of capitulation of Fort William Henry had re- 
 stored these officers to liberty. Corriveau had 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 327 
 
 been a prisoner of the British since the defeat of 
 Dieskau in 1755. Vaudreuil permitted Captain 
 Woodward, a mihtia officer, to return to New 
 England until Abercromby had reclaimed Cor- 
 riveau. 
 
 There was jubilation in the city in June over 
 the fall of Louisburg. The Spanish sloop " St. 
 Joseph," Louis Parlon, master, was captured by 
 the privateer " George," and after her cargo 
 had been condemned she was released. In June 
 140 French prisoners, including eight officers, 
 were sent down to the city, and these were joined 
 in July by 125 more, including seven officers. 
 The last batch was shipped to Suffolk County. 
 In July seven French prisoners broke jail and 
 fled north. A hue and cry was raised in the river 
 counties, and the sheriff of Orange County re- 
 captured two of them. They were returned to 
 New York and put in irons. The French pris- 
 oners of war in the city were of the Regiments 
 La Reine, La Sarre, Royal Rousillon, Langue- 
 doc, Guienne and Berry, with some Canadians 
 and many officers and sailors of French priva- 
 teers and merchant vessels. 
 
 The Lieutenant-Governor, in October, commu- 
 nicated to the council a letter he had received 
 from Governor Stephens, of Rhode Island, rel- 
 ative to a complaint from the Governor of San 
 Domingo against one Shearman, who had 
 broken into and sacrilegiously robbed the church 
 at Porto Plata of its sacred vessels and other 
 treasures. Captain John Gregg, the master of 
 the 16-gun privateer " General Johnson," had 
 taken the plunder from Shearman and carried 
 it, it was supposed, to New York. His excel- 
 
328 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 lency of Rhode Island desired his brother of 
 New York to do all in his power to " regain the 
 plate and punish the villany." Many of these 
 commissioned privateers of that day were no 
 whit better than Henry Morgan, Lovell and 
 others who flew the Jolly Roger. For the two 
 years of the war thirty-nine of these licensed 
 buccaneers had taken fifty-eight prizes into the 
 port. The fortunes of war had changed in 1758. 
 In addition to Louisburg, Fort Frontenac had 
 surrendered and, later. Fort Duquesne had fallen 
 into the hands of the British. 
 
 It was a serious and expensive matter for a 
 neutral vessel taken by a privateer and carried 
 into New York to endeavor to get out again. 
 Captain Michael Angelo Michele, of the Geno- 
 ese polacca " St. Joseph," found it so. After 
 having been declared by the authorities at liberty 
 to proceed, he petitioned to be permitted to sell 
 his vessel and cargo to pay the expenses to which 
 he had been subjected. 
 
 In August, 730 French prisoners, including 
 the eminent engineer. Captain Pouchot, among 
 the officers, were brought to the city from Fort 
 Niagara, which surrendered July 25th, 1759. 
 The officers were sent to Suffolk County, 200 of 
 the men to New Jersey, 200 to Connecticut, and 
 the others distributed throughout the province. 
 These prisoners were detachments of the regi- 
 ments of La Sarre, Royal Rousillon, Guienne, 
 Beam and the Marines. 
 
 Non-Catholics, while admiring the zeal and 
 undaunted courage of the Jesuit missionaries, 
 have urged against them that their zeal for 
 the salvation of souls was always equalled by 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 329 
 
 their political activity to bind the Indians to 
 French interests. A letter of no less distin- 
 guished a Protestant prelate than Archbishop 
 Thomas Seeker, of Canterbury, to Reverend 
 Doctor Samuel Johnson, President of King's 
 College, September 27th, 1758, may be taken as 
 an indication that he had no sympathy with 
 this objection. Writing concerning Church of 
 England missionaries in America, he said : " I 
 suspect that we ought to have more upon the 
 frontiers; at least when it shall please God to 
 bless us with a peace. For JNIissionaries there 
 might counteract the artifices of the French 
 Papists; and do considerable service religious 
 and ijolitical at once, amongst the neighboring 
 Indians; both which points the Society [for 
 the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts] 
 hath been heavily charged, on occasion of the 
 present war, with having neglected." 
 
 The war fever was high in the city in 1759, 
 even the pulpit urging recruiting. A sermon 
 entitled " The Curse of Cowardice " was printed 
 in pamphlet form and found a ready sale. An 
 extract read: "Ye that love your religion, en- 
 list; for your religion is in danger. Can Prot- 
 estant Christianity expect quarter from heathen 
 savages and French Papists?" 
 
 During this year victory remained with the 
 English. Following the surrender of Niagara, 
 Ticonderoga was abandoned and, September 
 28th, the British flag supplanted the French over 
 the citadel of Quebec. 
 
 General Thomas . Gage, the British com- 
 mander in New York, wrote a letter in June, 
 1760, that was the first evidence of an improved 
 
330 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 condition of feelings towards the " abhorred 
 brood of Jesuits." It was addressed to the 
 Jesuit Father Robert Harding, pastor of St. 
 Joseph's Church, Philadelphia, asking him to 
 send a priest to minister to the Indians of the 
 Illinois. 
 
 In September the news reached the city that 
 Vaudreuil had capitulated, and that Montreal 
 and all the French posts in Canada had been sur- 
 rendered. 
 
 The Count de Choiseuil, the French King's 
 lieutenant in San Domingo, with his suite, ar- 
 rived in the city in September, and he was 
 granted a passport to proceed by packet to Fal- 
 mouth. 
 
 The elders and deacons of the French Prot- 
 estant Church in New York undertook a task, 
 in 1763, shortly after the signing of the treaty 
 of peace that ceded New France to England, 
 that is still far from accomplishment — the con- 
 version or perversion of the French Canadians. 
 In a petition to Governor Robert Monckton, 
 they asked him to grant the French Church a 
 charter, and continue: "As they flatter them- 
 selves that a French Protestant church in this 
 city may invite foreigners of their persuasion to 
 come over and settle here, increase the number 
 of useful inhabitants, and be a means to reclaim 
 the King's Popish subjects in Canada who will 
 visit these parts, from the errors, idolatry and 
 superstitions of the Church of Rome, and thus 
 facilitate their hearty submission to the English 
 government." 
 
 Sir William Johnson, writing to the Lords of 
 Trade on the subject of missionaries, in Novem- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 331 
 
 ber, 1763, said: "Other JNIissionaries [Prot- 
 estant] who have too often used their influence 
 in obtaining grants of land which gives the In- 
 dians the most unfavorable opinion of their 
 worldly and interested views. The Mohawks 
 lately told me that they apprehended the reason 
 they had not Clergy as formerly amongst them, 
 was, because they had no more land to spare. 
 The French, who greatly oustripped us in mak- 
 ing Proselytes, sent Jesuits and others amongst 
 the Indians, who lived in their Castles, and took 
 care to form them by their immediate example 
 and precept. I fear w^e shall be unable to pro- 
 cure such persons amongst our Clergy." 
 
 Sir James Jay, in a petition to the King, in 
 1764, asking for a grant of 200,000 acres of 
 land in New York for the endowment of King's 
 College, urged the necessity for a seminary for 
 the education of ministers, and gives among his 
 reasons " the amazing pains w^hich Your Maj*^* 
 Popish Enemies were everywhere perceived to 
 take for the propogation of their peculiar Ten- 
 ents and the many Establishments they were 
 making for that purpose in all the Countrys of 
 America subjected to them ." 
 
 The INIarquis de Fenelon, Governor of Mar- 
 tinique, applied to the New York government 
 to permit the Sieur Nadeau de Belair to take 
 150 of the Acadians to the West Indies, in July, 
 1764, but Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader 
 Colden refused permission without the King's 
 consent. 
 
 An advertisement in the New York Weekly 
 Gazette, in 1768, read: " To be sold, three doors 
 below INIr. Leary's livery stable, in Leary Street, 
 
332 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 SL variety of new saddlery ware by Francis Foth- 
 ergill." This was the John Leary who traveled 
 to Philadelphia to conform with the Church's 
 law of Easter duty. Scoville, in his " Old Mer- 
 chants of New York," says: "A man did not 
 dare to say he was a Catholic in those days." 
 John Leary not only said it, but lived it, not- 
 withstanding the popular hatred of his religion. 
 Leary's fellow townsmen evidently honored him 
 by giving his name to a street. 
 
 The following year the saintly Father George 
 Hunter, for some years Superior of the Jesuit 
 Missions in Maryland, passed through New 
 York, on his way to Canada. New York had 
 grown since the last visit of a Jesuit. Its closelj^ 
 settled portion had extended to Reade Street on 
 the west side and Catherine Street on the east 
 side. Seventeen churches and a synagogue 
 housed its worshippers. Its citizens were proud 
 of the City Hall in Wall Street, the Province 
 House in the fort, the Royal Exchange in Broad 
 Street, King's College, its imposing stone build- 
 ing in park-like grounds bounded by what are 
 now Church Street, West Broadway, Murray 
 and Barclay streets. The city had its theater on 
 John Street. Its principal hostelries were the 
 Province Arms, the Queen's Head (Fraunce's), 
 the King's Arms, De la INIontanye's and Hamp- 
 den Hall, with the Gentlemen's, the Merchants 
 and the Exchange coifee houses. In the sum- 
 mer pleasure seekers sought the Ranelagh and 
 Vauxhall gardens. The Kennedy mansion. No. 
 1 Broadway, and the Walton house, Queen's 
 Street, St. George's Square (now Franklin 
 Square), were the best private dwellings. Since 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 333 
 
 1762 the streets had been lighted by public lamps 
 on lamp-posts. 
 
 Father Hunter was born in Northumberland, 
 England, in 1713, and entered the Society of 
 Jesus in 1730. Seventeen years later he was 
 sent to the JNIaryland JNIission, remained in 
 Maryland nine years, and returned to England. 
 Three years later he was again in Maryland. 
 After a short stay in Canada, in 1769, he went 
 to England. Again he was sent to Maryland, 
 and labored there at St. Thomas' Manor, Port 
 Tobacco and Bohemia until he died at St. 
 Thomas Manor, Charles County, August 1st, 
 1779. 
 
 In the province of Ontario to-day are several 
 model communities of Scotch Highland Cana- 
 dians, staunch Catholics, some of whose ances- 
 tors came to America from Glengarry on the 
 invitation of Sir William Johnson in 1773. 
 They suffered hardships, lack of food and ill 
 treatment on the voyage to New York city, and 
 it is recorded that a collection was taken up in 
 Trinity Church for their relief. They journeyed 
 north to the beautiful INIohawk Valley and pros- 
 pered there until they followed the fortunes of 
 the Tory son of their benefactor. Sir John John- 
 son, across the border. 
 
334 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 CONCERNING SOME CATHOLICS WHO FOUGHT 
 AND LABORED FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 
 AND OTHERS WHO FOUGHT AGAINST IT 
 
 For some years prior to 1765 there were mut- 
 terings against English rule because of " inter- 
 nal taxations and duties by authority of parlia- 
 ment." John Morin Scott in that year published 
 an article, over the signature " Freeman," in 
 which he asserted: "The English government 
 cannot long act towards a part of its dominions 
 upon principles diametrically opposed to its 
 own, without losing itsself in the slavery it would 
 impose upon the colonies, or teaching them to 
 throw it off and assert their freedom." The 
 Stamp Act was passed March 22nd, 1765, and 
 October 7th, of that year, seventy-eight dele- 
 gates, representing all the colonies except Vir- 
 ginia, North Carolina and Georgia, New York 
 being represented by its Committee of Cor- 
 respondence, met in New York. A petition to 
 the King, to Parliament, and a declaration of 
 rights and grievances were the outcome. The 
 Stamp Act was to become oj^erative November 
 1st. The mutterings became a storm. In March, 
 1766, the Stamp Act was repealed, and joy 
 throughout the colonies was unbounded. The 
 quartering of troops on the citizens of New 
 
7iV OLD NEW YORK 335 
 
 York was a constant source of trouble, which 
 culminated in a collision between the citizens and 
 some of the Sixteenth Regiment on John Street, 
 between Cliff and William streets. This en- 
 counter, in which several were hurt on both sides, 
 is sometimes called the battle of Golden Hill. 
 
 The Continental Congress assembled in Phil- 
 adelphia in September, 1774!. The same year, in 
 June, the Quebec Act had been passed in Parlia- 
 ment, and this proved the " last straw," because 
 it introduced into the troubles between England 
 and her colonies the bitterest and most irrecon- 
 cilable difference of all — religious hatred. The 
 Quebec Act by its provisions enlarged the 
 boundaries of the Catholic province of Quebec 
 as defined in 1764. They were extended on one 
 side to the frontiers of New England, Pennsyl- 
 vania, New York, the Ohio and the left bank of 
 the Mississippi, and north to the Hudson's Bay 
 territory. The act preserved to the Catholics the 
 rights assured them by the articles of capitula- 
 tion, including the right of tithes for the sup- 
 port of religion, and relieved them from the 
 operations of the infamous Test Act. French 
 civil procedure and English criminal law and 
 laws of successions to property were to be en- 
 forced. A governing council, part Catholic, 
 part Protestant, was provided. The King re- 
 served the right to found all civil and ecclesiasti- 
 cal tribunals. 
 
 The passage of this act raised a tremendous 
 storm of protest on both sides of the ocean. 
 King George, it was charged, had " established 
 Popery in Canada." It was the general convic- 
 tion that this act was the price paid by the Eng- 
 
336 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 lish government for Canadian cooperation in 
 the " enslavement of the Protestant colonies." 
 Religious bodies and town meetings throughout 
 the colonies fulminated against it, and the Con- 
 tinental Congress, in an " Address to the People 
 of Great Britain," declared, October 21st, 1774: 
 " That we think the Legislature of Great Brit- 
 ain is not authorized by the Constitution to es- 
 tablish a Religion fraught with sanguinary and 
 impious Tenets," and, further, " Nor can we 
 suppress our astonishment that a British Parlia- 
 ment should ever consent to establish in that 
 country, a Religion that has deluged your Island 
 in blood and dispersed Impiety, Bigotry, Perse- 
 cution, JNIurder and Rebellion through every part 
 of the World." 
 
 These tirades were for British and home con- 
 sumption, but the assistance of the Canadians 
 was needed, and within the same month the same 
 Congress, in an " Address to the Inhabitants of 
 Quebec," said: " What is offered to you by the 
 late Act of Parliament — Liberty of Conscience 
 in your Religion? No. God gave it to you and 
 the temporal powers with which you have been 
 and are connected finally stipulated for your 
 enjoyment of it." The following INIay a letter 
 was addressed to the inhabitants of Quebec, 
 which read, in part: "The enjoj^ment of your 
 very Religion, on the present system, depends 
 on a Legislature in which you have no Share, and 
 over which you have no Control, and your Priests 
 are exposed to Expulsion, Banishment and 
 Ruin, whenever their Wealth and Possessions 
 furnish sufficient Temptation. . . . We are your 
 friends, not your enemies." Such was the con- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 337 
 
 dition of affairs in the colonies on the eve of the 
 Revolutionary War. The anti- Catholic feeling 
 awakened by the Quebec Act was strong in New 
 York city. A folio broadside, issued in JNIarch, 
 advising the people to resist British tyranny and 
 uphold their representatives in the Continental 
 Congress, was headed: "No Placemen, Pen- 
 sioners, INIinisterial Hirelings, Popery and Ar- 
 bitrary Power." In a procession of the " Friends 
 of Freedom " through the streets to attend a 
 meeting in the Exchange, a large Union flag 
 with a blue field was carried, on which was the 
 following inscription: " George III Rex. The 
 Liberties of America. No Popery. The Union 
 of the Colonies. The Measures of the Con- 
 gress." 
 
 New^ York was at this time rapidly approach- 
 ing a state of anarchy, and the mob was in the 
 ascendant. The more law-abiding of the repub- 
 licans held a meeting for the purpose of signing 
 a convention to restore peace in the city and 
 province and to protect them from mob rule. 
 Isaac Low, Chairman of the Committee, a mem- 
 ber of the Provincial and Continental Congress, 
 and afterwards an ardent Tory, in the course of 
 his address in opening the proceedings, asserted, 
 it is said, by Thomas Jones, in his " New York 
 in the Revolutionary War," that King George 
 was a Roman Catholic tyrant ; that he had broken 
 his coronation oath by establishing the " Popish " 
 religion in Canada, which w^as shortly to be ex- 
 tended to all the other colonies. 
 
 There w^as a little house in Wall Street to 
 which sometimes, on Sunday mornings, a hand- 
 ful of people would journey. In the troublous 
 
338 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 times of 1775, when plotting and counterplot- 
 ting were continually carried on, these meetings 
 in the little house of Idley, the German, were 
 not remarked, but had it been whispered that a 
 Jesuit priest celebrated JVIass therein, there would 
 have been trouble. The priest was the devoted 
 pioneer. Father Farmer, who for many years 
 traveled the sparsely settled regions of Pennsyl- 
 vania and New Jersey, and carried religious con- 
 solation to the few scattered Catholics. Unfor- 
 tunately there are few details of his ministry in 
 New York. Joseph Idley, sexton of St. Peter's 
 Church in 1807, told of the celebration of Mass 
 in his house in Wall Street, and that the 
 windows had to be tightly shuttered to avoid 
 detection. Archbishop Carroll praises the zeal 
 of Father Farmer, and refers to his visits to 
 New York before the Revolutionary War, when 
 the legal punishment was death for priests or 
 Jesuits presuming to set foot in the province. 
 Barbe ]\Iarbois, the French minister, in 1784, and 
 Louis Otto, the French Charge d'AfFaires, in 
 1786, writing to the French government, both 
 say there was a Catholic chapel in New York 
 that was destroyed in the great fire that followed 
 the American evacuation in 1776. 
 
 Father Ferdinand Farmer, or Steenmeyer, 
 for he changed his name the better to adapt it to 
 English tongues, was born in South Germany in 
 1720. He became a Jesuit priest, and was sent 
 to Philadelphia in 1758. He was stationed in 
 Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for six j^ears, from 
 whence he visited the Catholic families of Penn- 
 sylvania and New Jersey, and entered New 
 York before the Revolutionary War. 
 
TN OLD NEW YORK 339 
 
 In the spring of 1775 hostilities began, and 
 Canada was invaded. Ticonderoga, Crown 
 Point, Chambly, St. John's and jNIontreal sur- 
 rendered to the patriots. In October and 
 November detachments of French Canadian 
 and Enghsh prisoners of war, women and 
 children as well as soldiers, passed through New 
 York and were sent to Amboy, and thence to 
 Reading, Bristol and Trenton. Among the 
 French Canadians of note who were sent South 
 or to Hartford, Connecticut, were St. Ours, 
 Hervieux Heurimont, de Chambault, la Marque 
 Duchene, Demuraux, Corne de St. Luc, Gais- 
 son, Hertel, de la Magdelaine, Rouville, Game- 
 Ion, Ryall, Chartier de Lotbiniere, Tonancour, 
 Fleuromont and JNIajor Regonville, of the 
 King's Legislative Council and an officer of the 
 Corps of Canadian Militia. In December, Re- 
 gonville, a prisoner in Trenton, applied to Con- 
 gress for permission to go to Philadelphia " to 
 confess himself to a Priest"; that is, perform 
 his Christmas duty. The request was granted. 
 The Canadian prisoners, with two exceptions, 
 were liberated October 10th, 1776. 
 
 The news from Concord and Lexington 
 reached New York city, Sunday, April 23rd, 
 and public feeling became so intense that, ]May 
 26th, the detachment of one hundred of the 18th 
 Royal Irish Regiment, Major Isaac Hamilton, 
 commander, ^^ith the soldiers' families, embarked 
 on the w^arship " Asia," lying oif the Battery. 
 On the march to the water front many of the 
 men deserted, and the wagons containing stores 
 and baggage were seized by the people. This 
 regiment was one of four recruited in Ireland 
 
340 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 during the reign of William III, and contained, 
 originally, according to law, none but Prot- 
 estants; but England needed fighting men, and 
 the law was relaxed. The regiment was ordered 
 to America in 1767, and detachments were sent 
 to different parts of the country. Father Gi- 
 bault, known to American Catholics as the 
 " Patriot Priest of the Revolution," reported to 
 Bishop Briand, of Quebec, June 15th, 1769, that 
 he found Catholics in the 18th Roj^al Irish Regi- 
 ment, stationed in Kaskaskia, the commandant 
 giving the men every facility to attend to their 
 religious duties. 
 
 The Americans who invaded Canada were re- 
 ceived with open arms by the people, and their 
 early successes were due in great measure to the 
 assistance given by the Canadians. It was not 
 long before Canadian sentiment changed. There 
 were a number of causes for this: The transla- 
 tion and dissemination of the address of Con- 
 gress to the people of Great Britain and the let- 
 ter to the inhabitants of Quebec, which convicted 
 Congress of insincerity and revolted and in- 
 sulted the French Canadians; the weakness and 
 lack of resources of the invaders and their scurvy 
 treatment of the Canadian clergy and people; 
 but, more far-reaching and powerful than all 
 other agencies in weaning the Canadians from 
 the Americans, was the vigorous hostility of 
 Bishop Jean Oliver Briand, of Quebec. By ex- 
 hortation, admonitions, i^ublic penances, excom- 
 munications and suspensions, he drew his clergy 
 back from rebellion and held them loyal to Great 
 Britain. Who shall blame him? On the one 
 hand, English rule had been established for fif- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 341 
 
 teen years, and every promise made to the 
 Church by the EngUsh authorities, at the time of 
 the capitulation, had been faithfully observed. 
 On the other hand, the " perfidious, double-faced 
 Congress," as the Canadians called it, heaped 
 insults on the religion of the Canadians in ad- 
 dressing the British Protestants and offered 
 friendship and liberty of conscience to the Cana- 
 dians at the same time, whilst every American 
 community raved about " Popish establish- 
 ment." 
 
 The Congress quickly realized the change of 
 sentiment and strove, too late, to avert it. On the 
 last day of 1775, the gallant JNIontgomery 
 stormed Quebec, and fell in the assault. Con- 
 gress, February 15th, 1776, resolved " that a 
 committee of three — two of whom to be mem- 
 bers of Congress — be appointed to repair to 
 Canada, there to pursue such instructions as shall 
 be given them by that body." Dr. Benjamin 
 Franklin, Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll, of 
 Carrollton, were named, the first two being mem- 
 bers. A special resolution requested Charles 
 Carroll " to prevail on INIr. John Carroll to ac- 
 company the Committee to Canada to assist 
 them in such matters as they shall think useful." 
 John Carroll, a JNIarylander by birth and a 
 Jesuit by vocation, was an American patriot in 
 every fiber of his body, and his cousin, Charles 
 Carroll, had no difficulty in prevailing on him to 
 respond to the call of his country. " No greater 
 power of combined wealth, intellect and enthusi- 
 asm existed anywhere in America," says a writer, 
 " than the union of the Carrolls and the Jesuits 
 in Maryland in the person of John Carroll." 
 
342 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Born in Upper Marlborough, Maryland, in 
 1735, he was in the flower of his manhood at this 
 time. He developed a vocation early, but the 
 rigid anti-Catholic laws of his native province 
 prohibiting Catholics from maintaining schools, 
 he was sent to the Jesuit College of St. Omer's, 
 in Flanders, and then to the house at Liege. He 
 surrendered all his property rights to his brothers 
 and sisters before his ordination to the priest- 
 hood at Liege, in 1759. For twelve years he was 
 Professor of Moral Philosophy at St. Omer's 
 and Liege. For two years he traveled through 
 Europe as tutor to a son of Lord Stourton, and 
 afterwards was prefect in the college at Bruges, 
 having left France at the time of the expulsion 
 of the Jesuits. The Pope suppressed the Soci- 
 ety of Jesus, and Father Carroll and the Eng- 
 lish-speaking Jesuits retired to England. He 
 was chaplain to Lord Arundel until June, 1774, 
 and then returned to America, arriving in Mary- 
 land June 26th. 
 
 Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, born in An- 
 napolis, Maryland, was two years younger than 
 his cousin. Charles was educated in the Jesuit 
 colleges at St. Omer's and Rheims, and at the 
 colleges of Louis Le Grand, Bourges and Paris. 
 He studied law in the Middle Temple, London, 
 and returned to Maryland in 1765. In the agi- 
 tation that culminated in the revolution he was 
 a staunch patriot. 
 
 New York city was in possession of an Amer- 
 ican army commanded by General Charles Lee, 
 when the two Carrolls, Doctor Franklin and INIr. 
 Chase arrived in the city. It was an armed camp, 
 and at every strategic point the army was for- 
 
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 TT^vT^^^I^H^^^^^H 
 
 
 
 
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 r^t\^9i^^^^^^S^^H^H^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^I 
 
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 bII 
 
 CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 343 
 
 tifying. Writing to his mother from Montreal, 
 May 1st, 1776, Father Carroll, referring to New 
 York city, said: " When we came to New York, 
 it was no more the gay, polite place it used to be 
 esteemed, but it was almost a desert, unless for 
 the troops. The people were expecting a bom- 
 bardment, and had therefore removed themselves 
 and their effects out of town; on the other side, 
 the troops were working at the fortifications 
 with the utmost activity. After spending some 
 disagreeable days at this place, we proceeded by 
 water up to Albany." 
 
 The commissioners embarked on a sloop at 
 five o'clock in the afternoon of April 2nd, and 
 sailed up the Hudson to Albany. They saw and 
 heard the sights and sounds of war, according to 
 Charles Carroll's journal, before proceeding 
 far. They had sailed thirteen miles up the river. 
 " About one o'clock in the night," wrote Mr. 
 Carroll, " were awakened by the firing of can- 
 non; heard three great guns distinctly from the 
 ' Asia ' ; soon saw a great fire, which we pre- 
 sumed to be a house on Bedloe's Island, set on 
 fire by a detachment of our troops. Intelligence 
 had been received that the enemy were throwing 
 up entrenchments on that island, and it had been 
 determined by our generals to drive them off. 
 Dr. Franklin went upon deck, and saw waving 
 flashes of light appearing suddenly and disap- 
 pearing, which he conjectured to be the fire of 
 musquetry, although he could not hear the re- 
 port." 
 
 Albany was reached on the 7th, after a long 
 and fatiguing journey, its hardships increased by 
 the snow and ice in the northern wilds. The com- 
 
344 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 missioners entered Canada April 27th, but they 
 arrived too late. The " fourteenth colony " was 
 lost. There were one hundred and fifty thousand 
 Catholics and three hundred and sixty Prot- 
 estants in the province of Quebec, the Church 
 had spoken in no uncertain terms, and her 
 children had yielded obedience. The Bishop of 
 Quebec " forbid his clergy to have any inter- 
 course with Father Carroll." Father Pierre 
 Rene Floquet, the only Jesuit in Montreal, had 
 been kind to the Americans, and he was sus- 
 pended. In his defence, presented to Bishop 
 Briand, he wrote: " One Father Carroll, a mis- 
 sionary from Maryland, having come to Mon- 
 treal with two members of Congress, presented 
 a letter from Father Farmer, first missionary at 
 Philadelphia. The Seminary saw this letter, 
 which contained nothing objectionable. Never- 
 theless I did not answer it. Father Carroll did 
 not lodge with me, and dined with me but once. 
 He said Mass in our house by JNIonsignor Mon- 
 golfier's permission." 
 
 The Commissioners met at St. John's May 
 12th. The hardships to which Doctor Franklin 
 had been exposed at his age — seventy years — 
 and the bad prospects of the American cause 
 determined him to return to Congress, and 
 Father Carroll, hopeless of effecting anything 
 with the Canadian clergy, resolved to accom- 
 pany him. Their progress to Albany was diffi- 
 cult. At that city General Philip Schuyler fur- 
 nished them with a private coach, in which they 
 continued the journey to New York city. The 
 Jesuit tenderly cared for the old philosopher on 
 the long, tedious ride of 160 miles, and a warm 
 
 — ^.^-^-^.^C— —^ — , ■■ .1. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 345 
 
 appreciation and friendship was formed. " As 
 for myself," wrote Doctor Franklin, in New 
 York, May 27th, " I find I grow daily more 
 feeble, and I think I could hardly have got so 
 far but for ]Mr. Carroll's friendly assistance and 
 tender care of me." Eight years later, while in 
 Passy, France, the following entry was made 
 by Doctor Franklin in his diary: "July 1st, 
 1784. The Pope's Nuncio called and acquainted 
 me that the Pope had, on my recommendation, 
 appointed Mr. John Carroll superior of the 
 Catholic clergy in America, with many powers 
 of bishop ; and that, probably, he would be made 
 bishop, in imrtibus, before the end of the year." 
 
 Concerning this mission of Father Carroll to 
 Canada, De Courcy and Shea, in the " History 
 of the Catholic Church in America," say; " In 
 the extraordinary history of the Society of Jesus, 
 the case of this Jesuit, ambassador from a Con- 
 gress of Republican Protestants, is not the least 
 remarkable episode; and while the democrats of 
 every clime reproach the Children of St. Igna- 
 tius with being the tools of despotic power, 
 they can offer Father John Carroll as a sin- 
 cere patriot, a zealous partisan of liberty, and 
 one of the real founders of American indepen- 
 dence." 
 
 Washington had assumed command in New 
 York city April 14th, and by the end of the 
 month there were 8,301 officers and men in the 
 city and vicinity, available for duty. The Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, on his arrival, made his head- 
 quarters in a house on Broadway, but the city 
 was unhealthy, and he later removed to the for- 
 mer home of Abraham Mortier, or Motier, the 
 
346 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 British paymaster, a fine Colonial mansion later 
 known as " Richmond Hill," now the southwest 
 corner of Varick Street and Charlton Street. 
 There, no doubt, Doctor Franklin and Father 
 Carroll called on him. Charles Carroll's jour- 
 nal, June 9th, reads: "Arrived in New York 
 at one o'clock p.m. Waited on General Wash- 
 ington at JNIotier's: saw Generals Gates and 
 Putnam, and my old acquaintance and friend, 
 ]Mr. Moylan. About six in the evening got 
 into General Washington's barge, in company 
 with Lord Sterling, and was rowed around by 
 Staten Island and the Kilns, within two miles 
 of Elizabeth town, where we got by ten at night." 
 Among the first patriots who hurried to join 
 the army before Boston was Stephen Moy- 
 lan, Charles Carroll's friend, a merchant of 
 Philadelphia, a native of Ireland and a brother 
 of the Catholic Bishop of Cork. He had re- 
 ceived a good education in Ireland, had after- 
 wards lived for a time in England, came to 
 America, and, after traveling extensively, set- 
 tled in Philadelphia. Upon the recommendation 
 of John Dickinson, he was placed in the com- 
 missary department. Washington was greatly 
 attracted to the young Irishman, then in his for- 
 ty-second year, and in JMarch, 1776, he appointed 
 him one of his aides-de-camp. When Mrs. 
 Washington joined the General, Moylan en- 
 deared himself still more to his chief by his as- 
 siduity in providing for the comfort of Mrs. 
 Washington. About the time that Carroll and 
 Moylan met in New York, the latter, on General 
 Washington's recommendation, was appointed 
 Quartermaster General by Congress, but the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 347 
 
 Irish blood in INIoylan yearned for the firing 
 hne, and in the following October he resigned 
 and organized the 4th Light Dragoons of the 
 Continental service that became famous in fight, 
 song and story as " JNIoylan's Dragoons." He 
 endured with his regiment the suffering of the 
 terrible winter of 1777-8 at Valley Forge, cam- 
 paigned along the Hudson River and in Con- 
 necticut in 1779, and in the following year ac- 
 companied Wayne on the Bull's Ferry expedition 
 and later took part in the southern campaign. 
 He fought to the end of the war and retired with 
 the rank of Brigadier General. Moylan was 
 one of the founders of the Order of the Cin- 
 cinnati and w^as the first President of the So- 
 ciety of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of 
 Philadelphia. After the war he resumed mer- 
 cantile business in Philadelphia, and was for 
 several years U. S. Commissioner of Loans. 
 He died in Philadelphia in 1811 and was in- 
 terred in St. Mary's Churchyard. 
 
 Another member of General Washington's 
 military household while in New York w^as Lieu- 
 tenant Colonel John Fitzgerald, of Alexandria, 
 Virginia. This young Irish Catholic came to 
 Alexandria in 1769 or 1770 and, although an 
 alien in race and creed, seemed to have been ad- 
 mitted to the exclusive social circles of Virginia, 
 and was regarded as a rising business man in the 
 old Virginia city. He first met Washington at a 
 ball, in 1770, given in honor of Washington's 
 election to the House of Burgesses. He con- 
 ceived an affection for the great Virginian which 
 lasted until his death. 
 
 At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, 
 
348 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Fitzgerald joined Washington at Cambridge, 
 Massachusetts, and was appointed aide-de-camp 
 to the general. While not officially named as 
 a Secretary to the Commander-in-Chief until 
 November, 1776, he assisted his fellow Catholic, 
 Colonel Stephen Moylan, who had been ap- 
 pointed Secretary to Washington, March 15th, 
 1776. 
 
 Fitzgerald was constantly in attendance on his 
 chief until 1782, except when on details for mili- 
 tary purposes, and was largely instrumental in 
 unearthing the Conway cabal against Wash- 
 ington. After the war Washington and Fitz- 
 gerald maintained their social relations, visiting 
 one another frequently, and were associated in 
 the Potomac Company, a corporation organized 
 to improve the navigation of the Potomac River. 
 Colonel Fitzgerald was elected Mayor of Alex- 
 andria in 1787, and in 1798 President Adams 
 appointed him Collector of the Port of Alex- 
 andria. 
 
 His wife was Jane Digges, daughter of Doc- 
 tor Digges, of Warburton Manor, on the Mary- 
 land side of the Potomac, opposite Mount Ver- 
 non, an old Catholic family. Before the erection 
 of a Catholic church in Alexandria, Mass was 
 offered in Colonel Fitzgerald's house. He died 
 in 1800, and was buried in the Catholic cemetery 
 in Alexandria. Wilham Hill Lee, a banker, and 
 John Fitzgerald Lee, a lawyer, both of St. Louis, 
 are his descendants. 
 
 Among the many Frenchmen given commis- 
 sions in the American army by Congress in 
 1776 a number called on the Commander- 
 in-Chief in the Motier house. Those commis- 
 
72V OLD NEW YORK 349 
 
 sioned in that year were M. Dugaii, who served 
 in the Canadian campaign; Chevaher De Saint- 
 Aulaire, a captain in the same campaign; An- 
 toine Fehx Vibert, engineer; Colonel Louis Du- 
 bois, Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Antoine De 
 Franchessen, Knight of St. Louis; Lieutenant 
 Colonel Saint INIartin; Brevet Major Jean Ai'- 
 thur De Vermenet; Fidele Darre; Brevet Cap- 
 tain Jacques Paul Govert; Brevet jMajor the 
 Marquis de JVIalmady; Chevalier Du Plessis 
 Mauduit; Captain Jean Louis Imbert; Major 
 Chretien De Colerus. Some of these proved to 
 be worthless adventurers, others fought well for 
 the cause of liberty. Among those who were in 
 the city in February and INI arch was Dohicky 
 Arundel, who brought a certificate from the 
 military school at Strasburg and two lieutenants' 
 commissions from the French King. Richard 
 Smith's diary, under date February 5th, 1776, 
 records: "The Foreigner whom Dr. Franklin 
 and St. Clair were to examine as to his Profi- 
 ciency in the knowledge of Artillery was now 
 recommended to General Schuyler for Prefer- 
 ment, tho' some members, Paine and Sherman 
 in particular, did not approve of employing in 
 our Service Foreign Papists." Arundel was 
 commissioned a Captain of Artillery. This 
 " Foreign Papist " was killed by the bursting 
 of a mortar in the battle of Gwyn's Island, Vir- 
 ginia, July 19th, 1776. Of him General Charles 
 Lee wrote: "His loss is irreparable! He be- 
 haved with great spirit and activity, and was 
 so hearty in our cause that he is universally 
 lamented." 
 
 Another Frenchman in New York in 1776 
 
350 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 was Christophe Pelissier. He was a native of 
 Lyons, France, and in Quebec, in 1767, organ- 
 ized the Company of St. Maurice Iron Works. 
 He was active in the encouragement and aid he 
 gave the invading American army during its 
 occupation of Three Rivers. On the evacuation 
 of that place he went with the Americans to 
 St. John and Ticonderoga and acted as engineer 
 there for a time. Congress commissioned him 
 a Lieutenant-Colonel, and indemnified him for 
 his losses. He shortly afterwards returned to 
 France. 
 
 The American forces had been increased in 
 New York during the summer, and early in Au- 
 gust there were 17,225 officers and men in the 
 city, only 10,514 of whom were fit for duty. 
 Among the regiments from Pennsylvania there 
 were two in Mifflin's brigade. Heath's division; 
 five in Sterling's brigade, Sullivan's division, 
 and one in Nixon's brigade, Greene's division. 
 One regiment from Maryland, in Sterling's bri- 
 gade, Sullivan's division. There w^ere a number 
 of Catholics in the Pennsylvania regiments, and 
 the roster of the Maryland regiment contained 
 the names of some of the old Catholic families 
 of Maryland. 
 
 The first sail of the British fleet passed Sandy 
 Hook June 29th. War ship and transport came 
 until the lower bay was a forest of masts rising 
 from four hundred transports and thirtj^-seven 
 men-of-war, carrying an army of thirty-three 
 thousand British regulars and their German 
 allies. General Howe landed 15,000 men at 
 Gravesend Bay August 22d. Five days later 
 the disastrous battle of Long Island began. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 351 
 
 The days that followed were busy and trying 
 ones for Quartermaster General Stephen Moy- 
 lan. His orders were " to impress every kind of 
 water craft from Hell Gate on the Sound to 
 Spuyten Duyvil Creek that could be kept afloat, 
 and that had either sails or oars, and have them 
 all in the east harbor of the city by dark." He 
 did his work well, and thus saved the army from 
 capture and annihilation. In the mist and gloom 
 that followed forty-eight hours of August 
 downpour the last of the Americans reached 
 ]VIanhattan island at four o'clock on the morn- 
 ing of August 30th. The British crossed the 
 East River September 15th, and under fire of 
 the sloops of war drove the Americans from the 
 city, meeting but slight resistance. In the Brit- 
 ish army that occupied the city were regiments 
 of German auxiliaries that contained some 
 Catholics. 
 
 A disastrous fire destroyed an extensive sec- 
 tion of the city September 21st. It broke out 
 around Whitehall Street, destroyed houses along 
 parts of Broad, Stone and Beaver Streets and 
 Broadway, extending to the streets on the west 
 side of Broadway as far north as King's Col- 
 lege. Trinity and the Lutheran churches were 
 destroyed and St. Paul's narrowly escaped. On 
 the day following the fire St. Paul's pulpit was oc- 
 cupied by the Reverend Thomas Lewis O'Bierne, 
 Secretary and Chaplain to Admiral Richard 
 Howe. O'Beirne was born in Longford, Ire- 
 land, in 1748, of a Catholic family of that 
 county. He was educated in the Jesuit College 
 of St. Omer's. Later he renounced the Faith 
 and became a minister of the Church of England. 
 
352 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 His many accomplishments, literary ability and 
 eloquence in the pulpit made him a distinguished 
 figure in English society. On his return to 
 Europe he went to Ireland, was later raised to 
 the peerage and made Bishop of Meath. 
 
 A convention to adopt a constitution for the 
 State of New York met in New York city, and 
 subsequently in Fishkill, finally, in February, 
 1777, assembling in Kingston, Ulster County. 
 When the question of religious toleration was 
 introduced for consideration, by the reading of 
 the paragraph declaring " the free toleration 
 of religious profession and worship without 
 discrimination and preference shall forever here- 
 after be allowed within the State to all man- 
 kind," John Jay moved to " except the pro- 
 fessors of the religion of the Church of Rome 
 until they should take oath that they verily 
 believed that no Pope, priest or foreign author- 
 ity hath power to absolve the subjects of the 
 State from allegiance, and unless they renounce 
 the false, wicked and damnable doctrine that 
 the Pope has power to absolve men from sins." 
 After a protracted debate the amendment was 
 rejected by a vote of nineteen to ten, the New 
 York County delegation casting eight votes 
 against the amendment to two votes in its favor. 
 Defeated in this attempt. Jay sought to gain 
 his end by the introduction of several ambiguous 
 amendments, but the watchfulness of Gouver- 
 neur Morris prevented the adoption of any 
 amendment that could be construed against his 
 Catholic fellow-citizens. The discussion of the 
 article relating to naturalization afforded Jay 
 another opportunity for a display of bigotry, 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 353 
 
 and he offered a proviso that all persons should 
 " abjure and renounce all allegiance and sub- 
 jection to all and every foreign king, prince, 
 potentate and state in all matters ecclesiastic as 
 well as civil." The amendment was defeated. 
 
 In the roster of the Anhalt-Zerbst regiment of 
 German auxiliaries, that came to New York in 
 1777 and was stationed on the Bay Ridge shore 
 of Long Island, appears the name of Chaplain 
 Backer, a Catholic priest — an indication that 
 there were Catholics in that regiment. 
 
 In a fight between an English and French 
 frigate in Chesapeake Bay, in February, 1778, 
 the French vessel struck her colors and was 
 taken to New York. The chaplain, the Abbe De 
 la Motte, an Augustinian, was paroled and 
 given liberty within the city's limits. The Cath- 
 olics, learning of his presence, asked him to cele- 
 brate Mass, and he requested permission of the 
 commanding officer, but it was refused. His 
 slight acquaintance with the English language 
 led to his mistaking the refusal for permission. 
 He offered the JNIass and was arrested and 
 closely confined in the Provost prison until ex- 
 changed in 1779. This prison afterwards be- 
 came the Hall of Records, demolished in 1903. 
 Pintard says it was reserved " for the most 
 notorious rebels— civil, naval and military. One 
 of the rooms was appropriated to officers and 
 characters of superior rank, and was called Con- 
 gress Hall. So closely were the prisoners packed 
 that when they lay down at night to rest (when 
 their bones ached) on the hard oak planks, and 
 they wished to turn, it was altogether by word 
 of command — ' right,' ' left ' — being so wedged 
 
354 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 as to form almost a solid mass of human bodies." 
 After the Revolutionary War the Abbe De la 
 Motte ministered for a time to the Catholic In- 
 dians of Maine. 
 
 Among the thousands of patriots who suf- 
 fered for their country in the British prison hulks 
 at the Wallabout was Captain John Walsh. 
 John Walsh was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 
 1743, and came to Philadelphia in 1767. Prior 
 to the Revolutionary War he was a master in the 
 merchant marine, and during the war was com- 
 missioned master of the letter-of -marque brig- 
 antine " Black Prince," six guns, and the Penn- 
 sylvania privateer schooner " Dolphin," six 
 guns. He was twice captured by the British, 
 carried to New York, and confined in the prison 
 ships. 
 
 After the war he was in the lumber business 
 in Philadelphia, and contributed liberally to 
 Catholic churches and charities. His wife was a 
 daughter of the patriot Captain Joshua Huddy, 
 who was hanged while a prisoner of war near 
 Sandy Hook, in 1782. Captain Walsh died in 
 Philadelphia, April 24th, 1828. 
 
 Led by the stately flagship " Le Languedoc," 
 Count D'Estaing took his fleet inside Sandy 
 Hook, July 11th, 1778. His ships were much 
 more powerful than the English vessels in New 
 York harbor at that time, and it was his desire to 
 attack the enemy, but he was dissuaded from it by 
 the assurances of the pilots that his larger ships 
 drew too much water to safely attempt to pass 
 through the channel. Every ship of the fleet 
 had one or more Catholic chaplains, and one of 
 those on " Le Languedoc " was Father Seraphin 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 355 
 
 Bandol, who later, as chaplain to Gerard, the first 
 French minister to the United States, conducted 
 a Te Deum service in St. Mary's Church, Phila- 
 delphia, Sunday, Julj^ 4th, 1779, and delivered 
 an address appropriate to the occasion that was 
 later printed by order of Congress. D'Es- 
 taing's fleet had entered New York Bay the day 
 following that on which, at Chester, Pennsyl- 
 vania, Silas Deane and Gerard had landed from 
 France, and Deane had handed to Gerard " the 
 turf and twig " as a token of mutual amity and 
 assistance between the United States and 
 France. 
 
 Defeated at Monmouth and exhausted by 
 the hurried march through Pennsylvania and 
 New Jersey in the killing heat of early July, 
 1778, Clinton's shattered army entered New 
 York city. One of its battalions was known 
 as the Roman Catholic Volunteers. During its 
 stay in these parts this organization was in camp 
 at Yellow Hook, on the south shore of Gowanus 
 Bay, a section now locally known as South 
 Brooklyn. The Roman Catholic Volunteers 
 was formed in Philadelphia by Lord Howe 
 shortly after he captured that city in 1777. Its 
 officers, in 1778, were Lieutenant Colonel Al- 
 fred Clifton, Major John Lynch, Captains 
 Kenneth McCulloch, Mathias Hanley, Martin 
 JNIcEvoy, Nicholas Wuregan and John McKin- 
 non. 
 
 Lieutenants — Peter Eck, John Connell, Ed- 
 ward Holland, James Hanrahan, Ebenezer 
 Wilson and John O'Neil. 
 
 Ensigns — John Grashune, Arthur Bailie, 
 Thomas Quinn and Edward Gad win. 
 
356 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Quartermaster — John Holland. 
 
 Father "Frederick" (?) Farmer's name ap- 
 pears as chaplain. This was evidently intended 
 for the pioneer missionary Father Ferdinand 
 Farmer, who wrote to a clerical friend in Lon- 
 don, March 2nd, 1778: " Perhaps it will please 
 you to hear that your British General on arriv- 
 ing here upon my waiting" on him, proposed the 
 raising of a regiment of Roman Catholick Vol- 
 unteers. Mr. Clifton, an English gentleman of 
 an Irish mother, is the Lt. Col. and commanding 
 of it. They desire me to be their Chaplain which 
 embarrasseth me on account of my age and sev- 
 eral other reasons." Evidently one of the 
 " several other reasons " that embarrassed Father 
 Farmer was that his sympathies were on the 
 other side, as he took the oath of allegiance to the 
 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania the following 
 year. Arthur Clifton, the lieutenant colonel 
 commanding the Volunteers, was a well-to-do 
 and prominent Catholic of Philadelphia. INIajor 
 John Lynch, an intimate friend of Clifton's, 
 was also a Catholic. Clifton succeeded in en- 
 listing 180 rank and file. His battalion in May 
 formed part of an expedition that went up to 
 White Hill, near Bordentown, on the Delaware, 
 and destroyed " twenty-one or more " American 
 vessels, and on the following day was ordered 
 across the Delaware for guard duty. Philadel- 
 phia was evacuated by the British June 18th, and 
 in the march to the north Clifton's Battalion was 
 probably attached to Knyphausen's 2nd Corps 
 and took part in the battle of INIonmouth. While 
 the Roman Catholic Volunteers were in camp at 
 Yellow Hook the following advertisement ap- 
 
 ^«CMa«iiMai*ttaMaM 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 357 
 
 peared in two issues of the New York Gazette 
 and Weekly Mercury: 
 
 " FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF ALL 
 
 GENTLEMEN VOLUNTEERS 
 
 WHO ARE WILLING TO SERVE HIS MAJESTY^S REGT 
 
 OF 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC VOLUNTEERS 
 
 COMMANDED BY 
 
 LIEUT. COL. COMMANDANT 
 
 ALFRED CLIFTON 
 
 DURING THE PRESENT WANTON AND UNNATURAL 
 
 REBELLION 
 
 AND NO LONGER 
 
 THE SUM OF FOUR POUNDS 
 
 WILL BE GIVEN ABOVE THE USUAL BOUNTY, 
 
 A SUIT OF NEW CLOATHS 
 
 And every other necessary to complete a Gen- 
 tleman Soldier. 
 Those who are willing to show their attachment 
 to their King" and Country by engaging in the 
 above regiment will call at Captain McKin- 
 non, at No. 51, in Cherry — Street, near 
 the Ship Yards, or at Major John 
 Lynch, encamped at Yellow Hook, 
 where they will receive present 
 pay and good quarters. 
 N. B. Any person bringing a well bodied loyal 
 subject to either of the above places shall 
 receive One Guinea for his trouble. 
 God Save the King." 
 
 Two captains of the Volunteers were before 
 the General Court INIartial in New York city. 
 Lieutenant Colonel Ludlow, President, October 
 
358 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 26th. Captain John McKinnon was dismissed 
 from his Majesty's service for " ungentlemanly 
 hke behavior: 1st, plundering in the Jerseys: 
 secondly by suffering himself to be kicked by 
 Captain McAvoy of the same Corps on a 
 parade without properly resenting it." Captain 
 Martin McAvoy was likewise dismissed " for 
 plundering in ye Jerseys in taking horse and 
 cow & behaving indecently on the parade." 
 
 The effort to bring up the numerical strength 
 of the Roman Catholic Volunteers was a failure, 
 as it had dwindled to less than eighty men; dis- 
 cipline was utterly disregarded, and it was 
 merged into Lord Rawdon's Volunteers of Ire- 
 land. This regiment contained about 380 Irish- 
 men, nearly all said to be deserters from the 
 Americans. It did service on the banks of the 
 Chesapeake and in Lord Cornwallis' corps in 
 the South. It was in the battles of Camden and 
 Hobkirk Hill. Through casualties and deser- 
 tions it dwindled until, as the 105th Regiment, 
 it was surrendered at Yorktown. 
 
 The French alliance was used by the British 
 and Tories to rekindle religious hatred to the 
 detriment of the patriot cause. Newspaper and 
 pamphlet were filled with ridicule, abuse, threat 
 and warning against the French " Papists." 
 Doggerel under the title " The American Vicar 
 of Bray," published in Jiivingtons Gazette, 
 June 30th, 1779, was a fair sample: 
 
 " The French Alliance now came forth. 
 The Papists flocked in shoals, Sir; 
 Frizeur Marquises, Valets of birth, 
 And priests to save your souls. Sir. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 359 
 
 Our * good ally ' with tow'ring wing 
 Embraced the flattering hope, Sir, 
 
 That we would own him for our King, 
 And then invite the Pope, Sir." 
 
 The French alliance " came forth " a little too 
 close for the comfort of the Britons and their 
 German and Tory allies, July 22nd, 1781. A 
 sleep}'- picket of dragoons at Kingsbridge saw, 
 at daybreak,' a sight that amazed and con- 
 founded them. On the heights above, as far as 
 the eye could see, were the French and Amer- 
 ican armies drawn up in line of battle; between 
 Kingsbridge and De Lancey's Mills, the Con- 
 necticut regiments and the divisions of JSIajor 
 Generals Lincoln and Howe, the officers clad in 
 the Continental blue and buff, the artillery in 
 blue with red trimmings, the infantry not regu- 
 larly uniformed save some in white-fringed 
 casaques. Next came the brilliantly appareled 
 French army. The first brigade of Bourbonnais 
 in the spotless white of the French infantry with 
 scarlet lapels, pink collars and white buttons. 
 This regiment, formed in 1595, was officered by 
 the INIarquis de Laval, colonel; Vicomte de 
 Rochambeau, second colonel; M. Gilbert de 
 Bressoles, lieutenant colonel, and M. de Gambs, 
 major. The Regiment Soissonnais, their white 
 coats ornamented with red lapels, sky-blue col- 
 lars and yellow buttons. Their considerate colo- 
 nel had, because of the excessive heat, equipped 
 his men with roomy linen breeches in place of the 
 regulation snug-fitting breeches and gaiters. 
 The Soissonnais, organized in 1684, had as its 
 officers Colonel Comte de Saint-Maime, Second 
 
360 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Colonel Vicomte de Noailles, Lieutenant Colo- 
 nel M. d'Anselme, Major M. Despeyron. The 
 Legion of Lauzun, commanded by Armand 
 Louis de Gontaut, Due de Lauzun and Due de 
 Biron. This French army was commanded by 
 the Marquis de Chastellux. 
 
 The British and allies awoke to a realization 
 of the fact that the upper part of JVIanhattan 
 Island was threatened by a considerable force, 
 and volleys of musketry and the guns of fort 
 and blockhouse roared defiance to the com- 
 manders of the Franco-American army, Gen- 
 eral Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte 
 de Rochambeau, and General George Washing- 
 ton, as they rode down the lines from Kings- 
 bridge to De Lancey's INIills. Some accounts of 
 the movement say that the generals crossed the 
 Harlem River, but Washington makes no men- 
 tion of crossing in his official report. The Brit- 
 ish rushed reenforcements to the defenses on the 
 island, and from far and near hurried troops to 
 New York. The feint of Washington and 
 Rochambeau had succeeded. On the morning of 
 August 19th, the armies facing New York faced 
 to the right about and started on that famous 
 march that culminated in the surrender of Corn- 
 wallis at Yorktown. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 361 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 CONCERNING CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICITY IN 
 NEW YORK DURING THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 The preliminary articles of peace between 
 England and the United States of America 
 reached the latter country in March, 1783, and 
 the 25th of that month Congress issued orders 
 that hostilities should cease. H. ]M. ship " Sy- 
 bille," 28 guns, Captain James Vashon, was lying 
 in New York Bay at the time, and one day she 
 was boarded by a stout, jovial- faced man in the 
 garb of a captain of the Continental Navy. The 
 visitor was the distinguished Wexford man, John 
 Barry, known to posterity as the " founder of 
 the American Navy." He had a peculiar inter- 
 est in the " Sybille." In command of the " Alli- 
 ance," which was carrying much-needed specie 
 from Havana and convoying the " Due de Lau- 
 zun," he fell in with the " Sybille," March 10th, 
 and a sharp engagement ensued, until the " Sy- 
 bille " drew oif in a shattered condition. A 
 French vessel in sight of the action gave Barry 
 no assistance. The entrance to Delaware Bay 
 was patrolled by British warships, and Barry 
 sailed for Newport. The confirmation of peace 
 arrived, and Barry had the distinction of having 
 fought the last battle of the Revolutionary War. 
 
362 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 The call on Captain Vashon was not John 
 Barry's first appearance in New York. He was in 
 the j)ort in command of a merchantman in early 
 September, 1771. The ship " Black Prince " ar- 
 rived in Philadelphia, from London, October 
 13th, 1775, and its master, John Barry, heard 
 that Congress had that day resolved to war with 
 England on sea as well as on land. As a begin- 
 ning two armed cruisers were to be fitted out, and 
 Congress assigned to the enthusiastic young 
 patriot the command of the " Lexington," 14 
 guns, the first armed vessel commissioned by the 
 Continental Congress. On the southern coast of 
 Ireland, in the County Wexford, are the Baronies 
 of Forth and Bargy, inhabited by a race of 
 sturdy people who, until within two centuries, 
 spoke a dialect of mixed Celtic and Saxon, and 
 who had lived separate and apart from the people 
 surrounding them. They were a thrifty race, and 
 none more prosperous in the country. In the 
 townland of Ballysampson, parish of Tacum- 
 shin, in the Barony of Forth, John Barry was 
 born, in 1745. At fifteen years of age he voy- 
 aged to Philadelphia. At twenty-one he was 
 master of a vessel, and for nine years he com- 
 manded craft sailing to and from the West In- 
 dies, Liverpool and London. When a man of 
 thirty, full of enthusiasm and zeal, he accepted 
 a commission from the Continental Congress, 
 he became in heart and soul an American patriot, 
 ready to rise or fall with his adopted country. 
 
 Shortly after the opening of hostilities. Con- 
 gress was flooded with the requests of selfish mer- 
 cenaries for commissions, but Barry was as pure, 
 unselfish and disinterested a patriot as any native 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 363 
 
 American who unsheathed his sword in his coun- 
 try's service. In April, 1776, he captured the 
 " Edward," the first prize taken into the port of 
 Philadelphia. A month later, in the " Lexing- 
 ton," he cruised in the lower Delaware, seeking 
 and capturing several of the enemy's ships that 
 were intercepting vessels from France and the 
 West Indies, loaded with supplies for the Amer- 
 ican forces. He assumed command of the "Ef- 
 fingham," 28 guns, October 18th. The land 
 operations demanding brave and intelligent men, 
 Barry organized a company of volunteers for the 
 operations around Trenton. He was appointed 
 an aide-de-camp by Washingon and assisted in 
 trans23orting Washington's army across the Dela- 
 ware River on that eventful Christmas night of 
 1776. He served as an aide to General Cad- 
 wallader, and was appointed Senior Commander 
 of the port of Philadelphia. In October, 1777, 
 he was again in command of the " Effingham," 
 which formed one of a squadron that prevented 
 the British from ascending the Delaware to co- 
 operate with Donop, the Hessian general, in his 
 attack on Red Bank. The British fleet was too 
 powerful to be long opposed, and Barry took 
 his squadron to above Burlington. The instruc- 
 tions of Washington and the Naval Board to 
 Barry to sink his vessels, to prevent their capture 
 by the British, was so bitterly opposed by the 
 fighting Wexford man that he was reported to 
 Congress for " disrespect and ill treatment "of 
 Hopkinson, one of the Board. Summoned be- 
 fore Congress, then in session at York, he was 
 ordered to purge himself of his disrespect. 
 
 In the beginning of 1778, Barry made contin- 
 
364 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 nous war on the British in the Delaware River. 
 He was the originator of the plan of floating bar- 
 rels of exj)losives down the river with the design 
 of destrojang the British fleet at Philadelphia. 
 His activity from January to April in capturing 
 and destroying the enemy's ships in the Delaware 
 and forwarding captured stores for the use of 
 Washington's famished army at Valley Forge 
 drew from the Commander-in-Chief a letter, in 
 which he congratulated Barry " on the success 
 which has crowned your gallantry and address in 
 the late attack upon the enemy's ships. There is 
 ample consolation in the degree of glory you have 
 acquired; accept my thanks with my best wishes 
 that a suitable recompense may always attend 
 your bravery." 
 
 Barry, cruising off Penobscot Bay, September 
 26th, in the " Raleigh," was attacked by two 
 British frigates of greatly superior armament, 
 and, after a gallant defence, was forced to run 
 his ship ashore to prevent its falling into the 
 hands of the enemy. While in command of the 
 letter-of-marque brig " Delaware," of 12 guns, 
 February, 1779, he captured the British war ship 
 " Harlem " and several merchantmen. A month 
 later he was in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 
 superintending the construction of the " Amer- 
 ica," and in October, 1780, was assigned to the 
 command of the " Alliance," the largest and best 
 ship in the Continental Navy, and continued in 
 that command until the close of the war, which 
 found him a commodore, in command of the 
 United States Navy, which had been reduced to 
 a fighting force of two ships. 
 
 In the " Alliance " he performed several very 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 365 
 
 important commissions and, incidentally, cap- 
 tured the " Mars," " Minerva," " Atlanta " and 
 " Trepassy," ending the naval history of the war 
 by his action with the " Sybille." 
 
 His adopted country not needing his services, 
 after peace was proclaimed, he returned to the 
 merchant service and voyaged to China. The 
 Algerines were troublesome in 1794, and Barry 
 offered his services to President Washington, 
 and the following year was appointed cap- 
 tain number one of the new naval armament. 
 He superintended the building of the frigate 
 " United States," 44 guns, and in June, 1798, 
 served with distinction in the West Indies in 
 command of an American fleet in the short war 
 with France. 
 
 When the organization of the navy was under 
 consideration, Barry suggested the establishment 
 of navy yards and the organization of the Navy 
 Department. He died, senior officer of the Navy, 
 September 13th, 1803, and was interred in St. 
 Mary's Churchyard, Philadelphia. 
 
 New York Bay was crowded with war ships 
 and transports in the fall of 1783, gathered to 
 carry home the defeated British and their Ger- 
 man allies. Through these a stately French mer- 
 chantman made her way up the harbor, Novem- 
 ber 19th. She was the " Coureur I'Europe," the 
 first of a line of first-class packets to sail between 
 the ports of L'Orient, France, and New York. 
 In addition to this ship, the fleet consisted of the 
 " Coureur de I'Amerique," " Coureur de New 
 York," Coureur de I'Orient " and " L'AlKgator." 
 The Chevalier d'Abouville, a relative of the com- 
 mander of Rochambeau's artillery, was the cap- 
 
366 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 tain of the " Coureur de I'Amerique." The of- 
 fice of the line was at No. 215 Water Street. 
 Jean Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Consul 
 General of France for New York, Connecticut 
 and New Jersey, and destined to take a conspicu- 
 ous part in the establishment of the first Catholic 
 church in the city, was its agent, and William 
 Seton, related by marriage to one who has made 
 the name world famous in Church annals, was 
 deputy agent. Four days after the arrival of 
 the first French liner, the British flag was torn 
 from the flagstaff at the Battery and the last 
 boatload of redcoats rowed down the bay. 
 
 After the departure of the British, the men 
 made illustrious by the war flocked to New York, 
 and, notwithstanding the poverty-stricken condi- 
 tion of the people after the long and costly strug- 
 gle, the social side of life was not entirely 
 neglected. Cape's, or the City Tavern, a big 
 frame building on the west side of Broadway, be- 
 tween Thames and Cedar streets, was crowded 
 with distinguished soldiers and civilians, Decem- 
 ber 1st, assembled by invitation of Governor 
 George Clinton, at a dinner in honor of the 
 French minister, M. de la Luzerne. M. Barbe 
 Marbois, the French Charge d' Affaires, and 
 Father Seraphin Bandol, the chaplain of the 
 French legation, were doubtless present. M. La 
 Luzerne could converse with his host and the 
 guests in their mother tongue, and for this he 
 was indebted to the Jesuit Father INlolyneux, who 
 had taught him English in Philadelphia. Wash- 
 ington was at the table, and, during the dinner, a 
 letter from Sir Henry Clinton, then on board the 
 " Ceres," off Staten Island, was handed him, in 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 367 
 
 which the British commander announced the ar- 
 rival of the frigate " Asted," with twenty trans- 
 ports, in which he hoped to embark the troops and 
 sail from the bay three days later. 
 
 M. Fran9ois de Barbe ]\Iarbois, afterwards 
 Marquis de ]Marbois, born in Metz, in 1745, 
 came to America with Luzerne in 1779 as Secre- 
 tary of Legation. When Luzerne returned to 
 France IMarbois became Charge d' Affaires, and 
 held that post for six years, leaving New York 
 in 1785 to become Intendant of Hispaniola. 
 While stationed in Philadelphia he married Miss 
 Moore, the daughter of a distinguished citizen of 
 the Quaker city, the Abbe Bandol officiating 
 in the Legation chapel in the morning, and Par- 
 son White performing a like service in the home 
 of the bride's parents in the evening. During 
 the summer of 1785 the couple occupied a sum- 
 mer home on Long Island. Marbois held many 
 important offices under Bonaparte. A daughter, 
 born in New York, was married to the Duke of 
 Plaisance, son of Le Brun, one of Bonaparte's 
 colleagues in the Consulate. Marbois wrote a 
 " History of Louisiana " and the " Treason of 
 Benedict Arnold." 
 
 Father Farmer was in the city in 1783, and it 
 must have rejoiced his heart to walk its streets 
 without concealment of his sacred office. The 
 following year, 1784, the infamous law of 1700 
 against " Popish priests and Jesuits " was re- 
 pealed by express act of the State Legislature. 
 Father Farmer had extended his ministrations 
 as far as Peekskill-on-the-Hudson. Mass was 
 said by him, when in the city, in 1784, in a house 
 in Water Street and in the Vauxhall Gardens, 
 
368 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 on Greenwich Street, between Warren and 
 Chambers streets. He had eighteen communi- 
 cants. The patriot, Father John Carroll, was 
 appointed Vicar Apostolic, or Superior of the 
 American Missions, June 9th, and ten days later 
 Cardinal Antonelli notified Bishop James Tal- 
 bot, Vicar Apostolic of the London district, that 
 his jurisdiction over the American-English colo- 
 nies had been abolished. 
 
 The French packet " Coureur de New York," 
 which arrived in the port August 4th, had as a 
 passenger the illustrious patriot. General JNIarie, 
 Jean, Paul, Roch, Yves, Gilbert Motier, Mar- 
 quis de Lafayette. The freedom of the city was 
 conferred on the distinguished visitor September 
 14th. Congress removed to New York city De- 
 cember 23rd, 1784, and the city became the cap- 
 ital of the new-born nation. 
 
 The Reverend Charles Whelan, an Irish Ca- 
 puchin, who was said to have served as chaplain 
 of a vessel in the fleet of Admiral De Grasse, 
 arrived in the city, in October, from Ireland. 
 He acted as chaplain to a Catholic Portuguese 
 merchant, Jose Roiz Silva, until the little band 
 of Catholics invited him to minister to them. 
 Father Whelan had in his possession proper ec- 
 clesiastical recommendations, but no approbation 
 from the Congregation of the Propaganda, with- 
 out which the Superior of the INIissions could not 
 grant him faculties. He was authorized to offer 
 Masses, but had no power to hear confessions or 
 celebrate marriages. Relying on his Irish facul- 
 ties, he both heard confessions and performed 
 marriage ceremonies, despite the protests of 
 Father Farmer, acting as the Superior's vicar. 
 
MOST REVEREND JOHN CARROLL 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 369 
 
 The following" year a rescript from Rome 
 enabled the Superior to regulate Father Whe- 
 lan's standing. Father Whelan was a good, 
 zealous priest, but a poor preacher, and the few 
 Catholics of New York, through communica- 
 tion with the sects, had adopted their preaching 
 test as proper to apply to the judgment of a 
 priest's fitness. Father Farmer tells Father Car- 
 roll of this difficulty in a letter, February 21st, 
 1785. " Scarce had I arrived there " (in New 
 York) , he wrote, " when an Irish Merchant paid 
 me a visit and asked me if ]Mr. Whelan was set- 
 tled over them. My answer, as far as I can re- 
 member, was that he had only power to perform 
 parochial duties ; but if the congregation did not 
 like him, and could better themselves, they were 
 not obliged to keep him. Some days after, 
 another, seeing Mr. Whelan's endeavors to settle 
 himself there, as it were, in spite of them, de- 
 clared to me he had a mind to apply to the Legis- 
 lature for a law that no clergyman should be 
 forced upon them, which he thought he could eas- 
 ily obtain. I endeavored to reconcile them by 
 telling ]Mr. Whelan to make himself agreeable 
 to his countrymen, and by telling these to be con- 
 tented with what they had at present for fear of 
 worse." In a letter of Father Valiniere's to 
 Father .Carroll, written December 27th, 1785, he 
 refers to a Father McReady as associated with 
 Father Whelan at that time. 
 
 The French Embassy was transferred to New 
 York and located in the JNIcComb JNIansion, on 
 Broadway, near Bowling Green. A chapel was 
 fitted up, and the chaplain, probably Father 
 Seraphin Bandol, officiated, for a time, in both 
 
370 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 the French and Spanish embassies, but there is 
 no record of his having ministered elsewhere in 
 the city. 
 
 Don Diego de Gardoqui had been appointed 
 Encargado de Negocias, practically minister to 
 the United States, by Spain, and his official resi- 
 dence was in the, at that day, imposing Kennedy 
 mansion, No. 1 Broadway. The special object 
 of his mission to the United States was to carry 
 on negotiations with the American government 
 concerning the rights of both nations on the Mis- 
 sissippi River. Don Diego became " exceedingly 
 popular " during his four years' stay in New 
 York. 
 
 The founder of a family famous in the annals 
 of New York, Dominick Lynch, with his wife 
 and three children, arrived in the city this year. 
 He was of the firm of Lynch and Stoughton, 
 whose place of business was at 41 and 42 Little 
 Dock Street, now Water Street, between White- 
 hall Street and Old Slip. 
 
 Despite his sixty-five years, most of them years 
 of unremitting toil and hardship, the saintly 
 Father Farmer, fit subject at that time for a sick 
 bed, was in the city in May. He baptized, while 
 in New York, Catherine, the child of William 
 and Wilhelmina Byron. Without consulting the 
 ecclesiastical authorities. Hector St. John de 
 Crevecoeur, Jose Roiz Silva, James Stewart and 
 Henry Duttin were incorporated by an act of 
 the Legislature, June 10th, under the title " The 
 Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church in the 
 City of New York." Crevecoeur, who, it will be 
 recalled, was the French Consul General, was 
 born in Caen, Normandy, of a noble family, in 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 371 
 
 1731. He was educated in England, and came to 
 America in his twenty-third j^ear, and served for 
 a time as an engineer officer in the French army 
 in Canada. He bought a tract of land near New 
 York and married an American. During the 
 Revolutionary War his property was ravaged by 
 both armies. In 1780 his affairs necessitated his 
 presence in Europe, and he obtained permission 
 to enter the British lines to embark in New York 
 city, but the appearance of a French fleet off the 
 coast led to the suspicion that he was a spy, and 
 for three months he was a prisoner in one of the 
 loathsome British prisons in New York. Two 
 prominent merchants became security for him, 
 and, sailing for Dublin, he reached France in 
 1782. He was appointed French Consul Gen- 
 eral for New York, New Jersey and Connecti- 
 cut, and on reaching New York city, in Novem- 
 ber, 1783, learned that his house had been burned 
 and his property ravaged by savages. His wife 
 had died several weeks before this misfortune, 
 and Crevecoeur could learn nothing, for some 
 time, of the fate of his children. They had been 
 rescued by an English merchant at great risk 
 and, to the joy of Crevecoeur, were restored to 
 him unharmed. Crevecoeur wrote " Letters 
 d'un Cultivateur Americain," published in 1784; 
 " La Culture des pommes de terre " and " Voy- 
 age dans la haute Pennsylvanie et dans I'etat de 
 New York," published in Paris in 1801. Creve- 
 coeur, although instrumental in establishing the 
 first Catholic church in New York, was not re- 
 garded as an exemplary Catholic. He was, 
 probably, tainted with that atheism so prevalent 
 in France at that day which made so many 
 
372 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Frenchmen Catholics in name only. Crevecoeur 
 died in Sarcelle, near Paris, in his eighty-second 
 year. 
 
 Jose Doiz Silva, a Portuguese, was one of the 
 wealthiest and most prominent merchants in the 
 city. His places of business were No. 1 Beek- 
 man Street and at Cruger's Wharf, corner of 
 Old Slip. He dealt in cotton, wines, hides, in- 
 digo, salt and Mediterranean produce. He was 
 the owner of a schooner named the " George 
 Washington," and was consignee of a famous 
 Portuguese ship, the " Notre Senora de Patro- 
 simo," in the New York trade. He was married 
 to Anna Dumont, a widow, living at No. 12 
 Dock Street, in 1795, by Father O'Brien, in 
 St. Peter's Church, the bride having become a 
 Catholic prior to the wedding. They occupied a 
 fine home, No. 9 Beaver Street, and later moved 
 to No. 28 William Street. He removed his busi- 
 ness from No. 1 Beekman Street to No. 79 Front 
 Street. Scoville says, in his " Old Merchants of 
 New York," concerning Silva, " he would have 
 become one of the richest merchants in any coun- 
 try," but died during the yellow fever scourge of 
 1798. Despite the promising business future 
 predicted for him, so little was realized when the 
 estate was liquidated that his widow, who had 
 children by both unions, was forced, for support, 
 to open a boarding house at No. 132 Greenwich 
 Street. 
 
 Crevecoeur applied to the city authorities for 
 permission to hold Catholic services in the Ex- 
 change, an ancient building across the foot of 
 Broad Street, in a line with Water Street, occu- 
 pied as a court house, but consent was refused. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 373 
 
 Its arches were a favorite stand for itinerant 
 preachers. During the summer Father Whelan, 
 acting on INIr. Silva's advice, bought a lease of 
 five lots, owned by the Trinity corporation, at 
 Barclay and Church streets. A carpenter shop 
 on the plot was fitted up for divine service. The 
 collection of funds for the erection of the church 
 was carried on during the summer, and, Septem- 
 ber 20th, a letter was written by Dominick Lynch 
 to the Very Reverend Warden Augustine Kir- 
 wan, of Galway, Ireland, enclosing a petition to 
 " all Worthy & Pious Christians of the Town 
 and County of Galway," asking for contribu- 
 tions towards the erection of a church edifice. 
 The petition was signed by " Dom Lynch, Jose 
 Roiz Silva, Dennis INIcKeady, Henry Duttin, 
 Andw. JNIorris and Gibben Bourk." 
 
 Wednesday, October 5th, 1785, between the 
 hours of eleven o'clock and midday, at the corner 
 of Barclay and Church streets, in the presence of 
 a crowd of spectators, Don Diego de Gardoqui 
 laid the corner stone of the first Catholic church 
 in New York city — St. Peter's. The building 
 was to be of brick, forty-eight feet front by 
 eighty-one feet in depth. Specimens of the coin- 
 age of Spain were deposited in the corner stone. 
 Petitions, asking for aid, were sent to the Kings 
 of Spain and France, and in the following year 
 King Charles IV of Spain sent a contribution 
 of $1,000. Work was suspended until funds had 
 been collected, and not until INIay and June, 1786, 
 were advertisements inserted in the newspapers 
 calling for bjds from masons and carpenters. 
 
 The French and Canadians in the city were 
 ministered to by Father Pierre Huet de la Valin- 
 
374 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 iere, a zealous priest, but a man of erratic char- 
 acter. He had prepared a French and Enghsh 
 catechism for his charges, and urged on Fran- 
 9ois de Barbe Marbois, acting French minister, 
 the project of securing aid from the French gov- 
 ernment to enable him to purchase a disused 
 Protestant church for his congregation, but 
 Barbe Marbois, knowing something about his ec- 
 centricities, discouraged the project. Governor 
 Haldimand, of Canada, had written to Lord 
 North in 1783: " The Jesuits are the only order 
 of regular priests who have shown an attachment 
 to the rebels during the course of the war," but 
 the same writer called the Sulpitian Father Pierre 
 Huet de la Valiniere " a perfect rebel in his 
 heart." Father Valiniere was born in Varade, 
 France, January 10th, 1732, and educated at the 
 College of Nantes, the Grand Seminary and 
 Seminary of St. Sulpice. He asked for the Can- 
 adian mission, and arrived in Montreal in Sep- 
 tember, 1754, and was ordained a Sulpitian priest 
 the following year in that city by Bishop Pont- 
 briand. From the time of his ordination until 
 1779 he seems to have been stationed in many 
 Canadian parishes. Although he protested his 
 innocence of any friendly relations with the in- 
 vading Americans, in 1775, he was seriously com- 
 promised in the opinions of Bishop Briand, Vicar 
 General JNIontgolfier and General Guy Carleton. 
 The Vicar-General regarded Father Valiniere 
 " as the most guilty and the least converted " of 
 the Canadian priests in their relations with the 
 invaders, and said of him: " He is thoroughly 
 self-willed, and although of good morals, he 
 would infallibly cause us some trouble." At the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 375 
 
 time of the Franco-American alliance French 
 Canadian sympathies veered towards the Amer- 
 icans, and such men as Father Valiniere were 
 deemed too dangerous to be at large. Governor 
 Haldimand had him arrested and deported. 
 Held a prisoner for a year on shipboard, he was 
 reported to have died of fever on board the 
 " Lenox," at Cork, Ireland, in 1780. The re- 
 ported death was incorrect. He was liberated, 
 and, sailing for France, was shipwrecked, losing 
 the little means he possessed. The Sulpitians, his 
 erratic character having preceded him, received 
 him coldly, but gave him shelter in their house at 
 Nantes. He sailed for Martinique, and voyaged 
 from there to Newburyport, Massachusetts, pro- 
 ceeding by foot to Montreal, where he arrived in 
 June, 1785. He was not wanted in Canada, and 
 the Bishop of Quebec gave him a " favorable 
 letter " to the Superior of Missions, Father Car- 
 roll. He presented his letter to Father Carroll 
 in Philadelphia, but his request for faculties to 
 minister to the French and Canadians was re- 
 fused because of the rule of the Propaganda. 
 While in New York, he petitioned Congress for 
 recompense for some losses he had sustained, and 
 asked employment in the western territory. In 
 the fall of 1785 he visited Newburgh, and later 
 was in New York, preaching to the French, 
 whom he assembled in his house. Father Carroll, 
 in a letter to the trustees of St. Peter's Church, 
 January 25th, 1786, in reference to him, wrote: 
 "... I must add for M. La Valiniere's credit, 
 that when I declined granting him leave to ad- 
 minister the Sacraments to the Canadian ref- 
 ugees, it was for the reason, because I had no 
 
376 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 power to do it. Otherwise I have such a convic- 
 tion of his many quahties that I should gladly 
 have indulged the wishes of those good people 
 who solicited, and of this I beg to inform him." 
 Louis G. Otto, the French Charge d' Affaires, 
 wrote to Count Vergennes about the same time: 
 " M. de la Valiniere assembles the French who 
 are in his house. He preaches regularly to them 
 every Sunday, and he assures me he is persuaded 
 that if there were a French church here, it would, 
 without doubt, attract a great number of his 
 countrymen." In February, Father Farmer 
 transmitted to Father Valiniere " powers to per- 
 form parochialia, without restrictions to the 
 French." 
 
 Disappointed in his efforts to secure permis- 
 sion and assistance to purchase the disused Prot- 
 estant church, Father Valiniere left New York 
 in the spring of 1786, and after a brief rest in 
 Philadelphia, walked to Pittsburgh and, descend- 
 ing the Ohio River in a batteau, made his way to 
 Kaskaskia, where he became pastor and Vicar 
 General. He served at various missions in the 
 western wilderness, but his eccentricities and his 
 propensity to wander prevented his remaining 
 long in one place. In an autobiographical sketch 
 he wTote: "I go wandering throughout all 
 America, through New York and Boston, I 
 travel by every dangerous route, I visit nearly 
 every district. I start again from Pennsylvania 
 and arrive at Fort Pitt. I sail all the way down 
 the Ohio, the Kentucky and the IMississippi, with- 
 out any sleep, traveling on foot or in a canoe. 
 Five times I cross the Gulf of Mexico and try to 
 return to Canada. Havana, Spanish Florida, 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 377 
 
 Charlestown [Charleston, S. C], Stonington and 
 New York offer me nothing new." He ob- 
 tained, in 1798, the long desired permission to 
 retm'n to Canada, and passed the closing days of 
 his life in the parish of St. Sulpice, subsisting on 
 a pension of =£25, granted him by the Seminary. 
 He was injured by falling from a carriage on a 
 stone, and died at St. Sulpice, June 29th, 1806, 
 in his seventy- fourth year. 
 
 In a letter to the Reverend Charles Plowden, 
 written by Father Carroll, December 15th, 1785, 
 he said of the Church and pastor in New York: 
 " The congregation in New York, begun by the 
 venerable Mr. Farmer, of Philadelphia, he has 
 now ceded to an Irish Capuchin resident there. 
 The prospect at that j)lace is pleasing on the 
 whole. The Capuchin is a zealous, pious, and, I 
 think, humble man. He is not, indeed, so learned 
 or so good a preacher as I could wish, which mor- 
 tifies his congregation ; as at New York and most 
 other places in America the different sectaries 
 have scarce any other test to judge of a clergy- 
 man than his talents for preaching, and our Irish 
 congregation, such as New York, follow the same 
 rule." 
 
 It was not long after this letter was written 
 that the prospect in New York ceased to be 
 " pleasing." In their desire for a good preacher, 
 the New Yorkers negotiated with Father Jones, 
 a Franciscan, at Cork, Ireland, but he declined 
 their invitation. Another Franciscan, Father 
 Andrew Nugent, arrived in New York in the lat- 
 ter part of 1785, and the congregation, learning 
 that he was a better preacher than Father 
 Whelan, immediately began an agitation for the 
 
378 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 removal of that zealous pastor. In a letter to 
 Father Carroll, JNIarch 6th, 1786, Father Farmer 
 said: " What to me is the greatest difficulty in 
 the appointment of Father Nugent, is the arbi- 
 trary and ungenerous manner in which he forced 
 Father Whelan to depart, who, though he was 
 not very learned, yet he was ready to ask and 
 take advice, which I believe is not the quality of 
 the former. The second is they who took upon 
 them to be trustees (at least some of them) have 
 the principle that they can choose for themselves 
 whom they please, whether approved by the Su- 
 perior or not, as I formerly heard they said, and 
 now the fact proves. The princij)le is of the most 
 pernicious consequences, and must be contra- 
 dicted." 
 
 Despite the disapproval of the spiritual au- 
 thorities, the negotiations between Father Nu- 
 gent and the trustees continued, and, April 13th, 
 Father Farmer wrote to the Superior: " The 
 Trustees at New York offered Mr. Nugent, for 
 his yearly salary, three hundred dollars, the Sun- 
 day collections included; but he demanded four 
 hundred, upon which they declared to him if he 
 was not satisfied he had liberty to depart and 
 welcome." 
 
 Father Nugent, at this time, lived at No. 1 
 Hunter's Quay. Father John O'Connell, Vicar 
 of the Hospital of Irish Dominicans, at Bilbao, 
 Spain, arrived in New York, May 17th. He had 
 been selected to be chaplain of the Spanish Em- 
 bassy. The Bishop of Corinth, Papal Nuncio to 
 the Court of Spain, granted him ordinary facul- 
 ties of a missionary on the King's request. 
 Father O'Connell, the first of the Irish Domin- 
 
ST. PETER S OLD CHURCH 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 379 
 
 icans to serve in New York, remained in the 
 city until late in 1789. He did some missionary 
 work among the people. 
 
 Notwithstanding the unj)leasant relations ex- 
 isting between Superior, pastor and people, No- 
 vember 4th, 1786, was a joyous day for the two 
 hundred Catholics in New York city. On that 
 day, the Feast of St. Charles Borromeo, the 
 church edifice was sufficiently far advanced to 
 hold divine service therein. High Mass was sol- 
 emnized by Father Andrew Nugent, assisted by 
 the chaplains of the French and Spanish embas- 
 sies, followed by a sermon. After the services 
 the Spanish minister, Don Diego Gardoqui, en- 
 tertained, at a dinner in the Embassy, all the men 
 of note in the city. 
 
 Louis Stephen Le Couteulx De Caumont and 
 his wife, a niece of General Toussard, a French 
 officer who had served under Lafayette in the 
 Revolutionary War, arrived in the city Decem- 
 ber 15th. De Caumont went to Pennsylvania the 
 following year, and settled on a tract of two hun- 
 dred acres he had purchased in Buck's County, 
 in that state. In 1798 he went to Albany, N. Y., 
 and was one of the founders of St. Mary's 
 Church. Removing to Buffalo in 1804, he re- 
 mained in that city, and died there in 1839. He 
 deeded to Bishop Dubois, in 1828, the site of the 
 first Catholic church in Buffalo. 
 
 After twenty-eight years of unremitting labor 
 and hardship in America, the Apostle of Cath- 
 olicity in New Jersey and New York, Father 
 Farmer, died, in Philadelphia, August 17th, 
 1786, in his sixty-sixth year. 
 
 Father Charles Whelan, the first pastor of St. 
 
380 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Peter's, " a priest of irreproachable life and de- 
 voted to his calling," disheartened by his treat- 
 ment, left New York and retired to his brother's 
 home in Johnstown, N. Y. Later he found a 
 home with the Jesuits in New Town, Maryland. 
 While there he received a call, in 1787, from 
 Father Carroll, to proceed to Kentucky, then a 
 wilderness. He traveled with a party of Cath- 
 olic colonizers through a savage-infested region 
 to the scene of his labors. Of him Archbishop 
 Martin J. Spalding wrote: "He laboured day 
 and night, preaching, catechizing, administering 
 the sacraments, and making himself ' all to all in 
 order to gain all ' to Christ. He was assiduous 
 in the discharge of his duties. He was never 
 known to miss an appointment, no matter how 
 inclement the season or how greatly he had been 
 exhausted by previous labours. Often was he 
 known to swim rivers, even in the dead of winter, 
 in order to reach a distant station on the ap- 
 pointed day. On these occasions the vestments. 
 Missal and ornaments of the altar, which he was 
 compelled to carry with him, were immersed in 
 the water; and he was under the necessitj^ of de- 
 laying divine service until they could be dried at 
 the fire." " He preached," wrote Archbishop 
 Spalding, " with a warmth and eloquence not un- 
 common to his countrymen." His parish was the 
 region west of the Allegheny Mountains and 
 south of the French missions on the Wabash and 
 Mississippi. At the time of his going to Ken- 
 tucky six of the well-to-do Catholics had bound 
 themselves to pay him, annually, $280 for his 
 support. Shortly after his arrival, two of these 
 men sought to have this written contract set aside 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 381 
 
 by the court as illegal, but failed. Father 
 Whelan expressed his opinion of their conduct, 
 and, as a consequence, they sued him for slander. 
 The jury brought in a verdict of £500 fine and 
 imprisonment until paid. As he was about to be 
 incarcerated one of his prosecutors offered bail, 
 and it was accepted. Discouraged by this ex- 
 perience, Father Whelan left Kentucky in the 
 spring of 1790, and returned to Maryland, by 
 way of New Orleans. He was stationed on the 
 eastern shore, where he labored zealously in St. 
 INIary's and its outljang stations until his death, 
 March 21st, 1806. 
 
 The congregation of St. Peter's, in April, 
 1787, for the first time, elected its board of trus- 
 tees, and these trustees were incorporated as 
 " The Trustees for the Roman Catholic Congre- 
 gation of St. Peter's Church in the City of New 
 York in America." 
 
 St. Peter's trustees and congregation were not 
 long in discovering that in Father Andrew Nu- 
 gent thej^ had a " wolf in sheep's clothing." They 
 appealed to the Very Reverend Prefect Carroll 
 to deliver them from the priest they had forced 
 him to accept. Doctor Carroll had learned that 
 Father Nugent had been suspended in Dublin, 
 and the serious charges made against him by the 
 New Yorkers brought the prefect to New York 
 in October, 1787. The serious condition of af- 
 fairs there detained him in the city for two 
 months. Father Carroll withdrew Father Nu- 
 gent's faculties and appointed as pastor the Rev- 
 erend William O'Brien, a Dominican, who had 
 labored for sixteen years in the Dublin Archdio- 
 cese, and had come to America with a letter of 
 
382 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 commendation from the Archbishop of that See. 
 Prior to his apj)ointment to St. Peter's, he had 
 done parochial work in Philadelphia and New 
 Jersey. The appointment of Father O'Brien 
 brought matters to a crisis and precipitated a de- 
 plorable scandal. Father Nugent refused to 
 surrender his pastorate. The Very Reverend 
 Prefect had entered the sanctuary to begin Mass 
 in St. Peter's, on Sunday, before a large congre- 
 gation, when Father Nugent interfered, asserted 
 his right to say the parochial Mass, and posi- 
 tively refused to permit Doctor Carroll to of- 
 ficiate until he had promised to make no personal 
 allusion to him in addressing the people. Doctor 
 Carroll refused to make any such agreement and 
 expressed his intention to warn the people of 
 whom they should beware and to whom they 
 should resort for spiritual assistance. Father 
 Nugent, turning to the congregation, gave utter- 
 ance to a " violent tirade," which produced a most 
 unseemly uproar and confusion. 
 
 When he had finished, the Very Reverend Pre- 
 fect announced that Father Nugent, to whom he 
 had granted only temporary faculties, was sus- 
 pended from every exercise of the priesthood, 
 and he warned the people against attending any 
 JNIass that the silenced priest might attempt to 
 say. Most of the congregation retired quietly 
 from the church, and Doctor Carroll said mass in 
 the private chapel of the Spanish Embassy, No. 
 1 Broadway. A few remained, and Father Nu- 
 gent said Mass. Doctor Carroll published an ad- 
 dress, the following week, in reply to the declara- 
 tion of Father Nugent's adherents that the 
 Prefect Apostolic had no authority to suspend 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 383 
 
 Father Nugent. The trustees, hoping to bar out 
 the suspended priest and his friends, changed the 
 locks on the church doors, and it was arranged 
 that Doctor Carroll should, on the following 
 Sunday, instruct the people on the " nature and 
 source of spiritual authority." The malcontents 
 forced the doors and filled the church with a rab- 
 ble that raised such an uproar that the Prefect 
 could not be heard, and was forced to withdraw. 
 The chapel of the Spanish Embassy again ac- 
 commodated the worshipers, the Prefect advis- 
 ing against the desire of the trustees to clear the 
 church of the rabble. The law was then invoked. 
 In treating of the administration of church prop- 
 erty, the law provided it was not intended to af- 
 fect in any way the rights of conscience, or of 
 private judgment, or to make any change what- 
 soever in the religious constitution or government 
 of any church, congregation or society, in so far 
 as it related to their doctrine, discipline or wor- 
 ship. Father Nugent had not only resisted au- 
 thority, but had taught in opposition to Catholic 
 doctrine. In the proceedings instituted against 
 him under the foregoing law he was convicted 
 and ousted from St. Peter's. He hired a house, 
 and for a time sacrilegiously said mass for his 
 misguided followers. In 1790 he appealed to the 
 trustees of St. Peter's for aid, and they sub- 
 scribed an amount sufficient to pay his passage 
 to France on the ship " La Telemaque." 
 
 A short time after his appointment. Father 
 William O'Brien, impelled by the pressing need 
 of funds with which to complete St. Peter's, vis- 
 ited JNIexico, and his appeal to the Mexican 
 brethren met with a response that should never 
 
384 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 be forgotten by New York Catholics. Father 
 O'Brien had been a fellow student of Don 
 Alonzo Nunez de Haro, Archbishop of Mexico, 
 at Bologna. In this Archdiocese Father O'Brien 
 collected $4,920, and received a further donation 
 of $1,000 from the bishop and chapter of Puebla 
 de Los Angeles. He was also presented with 
 several valuable paintings for the adornment of 
 the church. 
 
 The Reverend Manasseh Cutler, a Revolution- 
 ary patriot, scientist and noted New England 
 divine, records having met at dinner, at General 
 Knox's, Michael Eustace Gaspard, Marquis de 
 Lotbiniere. Of him Mr. Cutler wrote: "No 
 person at the table attracted my attention more 
 than the jNIarquis Lotbiniere — not on account of 
 his good sense, for if it had not been for his title 
 I should have thought him two-thirds a fool." 
 Mr. Cutler undoubtedly allowed a New England 
 Congregationalist's prejudice against a French 
 Canadian Catholic to warp his judgment. It 
 was not Lotbiniere's title, but his brain, that 
 saved him from being " two-thirds a fool." The 
 Marquis was one of the most distinguished and 
 able military engineers of New France. Born in 
 Canada, in 1723, he embraced the military pro- 
 fession, and at thirty years of age was appointed 
 Engineer of New France. He built Fort Caril- 
 lon (Ticonderoga) as a barrier to English in- 
 vasion, and, in 1758, contributed more to the 
 famous victory over the English at Carillon than 
 any other officer. For this and other services he 
 was made a Chevalier of St. Louis and a INIar- 
 quis. He was a great landowner and one of the 
 few of the Canadian " noblesse " who favored 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 385 
 
 America in her struggle for independence. He 
 went to France and labored zealously for the col- 
 onists, and, in the summer of 1776, was sent by 
 the French government on a secret mission to 
 America. His son, Captain Chartier de Lotbini- 
 ere, it will be recalled, a British loyalist, had been 
 captured by the Americans at Chambly, and was 
 a prisoner at Bristol, Pennsylvania. During the 
 war the JNIarquis wrote letters to Franklin and 
 others, advising them concerning the conduct of 
 military operations. The British government de- 
 prived him of some of his domains, and he spent 
 some time in London endeavoring to have his 
 property restored. He died in New York, in 
 1799, during a yellow fever epidemic. 
 
 The State Legislature, in 1787, amended the 
 Charter of 1754, granted to King's College, 
 changed the name to Columbia College, made it 
 non-sectarian, and appointed a board of trustees. 
 What a shock it would be to its anti-Catholic 
 founders to learn that a sufficient number of 
 Catholic students are on its roll at the present 
 day to operate successfully a Catholic student's 
 club. 
 
 A young German priest, Father Laurence 
 Graessel, landed in New York from a ship, in 
 October, and proceeded to Philadelphia. He 
 labored with the zeal of an Apostle, covering 
 much of the region traversed by his countryman. 
 Father Farmer. To his dismay, he was selected 
 as first Coadjutor Bishop of Baltimore, in 1793, 
 but the hardship of missionary life in the new 
 world had been too severe for his constitution, and 
 he died before his consecration. The Abbe Sera- 
 phin Bandol, after a stay of ten years in Amer- 
 
386 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 ica, during most of which he had been chaplain 
 to the French Embassy, sailed for France in 
 1788. 
 
 In January, Eleonore Fran9ois Elie, Mar- 
 quis de Moustier, Lieutenant-General, and re- 
 cently appointed French INIinister to the United 
 States, arrived at New York in His Most Christ- 
 ian Majesty's forty-gun ship " D'Aigrette." He 
 was accompanied by his sister, the Marquise de 
 Brehon, her son and several other members of his 
 family. In September the Marquis and Mar- 
 quise traveled up the Hudson and across country 
 to Fort Stanwix to attend a treaty making be- 
 tween the Indian tribes and a State Commission, 
 headed by Governor Clinton, for a cession of 
 territory by the Indians, extending from Fort 
 Stanwix to the Great Lakes. Of the Marquise, 
 Elkanah Watson says: " This enterprising and 
 courageous lady had exposed herself to the great- 
 est fatigues and privations, to gratify her un- 
 bounded curiosity, by coming all the way from 
 the City of New York, to witness the great and 
 unusual assemblage of savage tribes." De Mous- 
 tier and his sister were the guests of General 
 Washington at INIount Vernon in November, and 
 while there the Marquise painted a miniature of 
 Washington that was engraved in France. That 
 the Moustiers were not at all popular in New 
 York is manifest from the correspondence of the 
 day. ]Mrs. William A. Smith, a daughter of 
 John Adams, met the French Minister and his 
 sister. Of De IMoustier she wrote: " The French 
 Minister is a handsome and apparently polite 
 man; the Marchioness, his sister, the oddest fig- 
 ure eyes ever beheld; in short, there is so much 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 387 
 
 said of and about her, and so little of truth 
 can be known, that I cannot pretend to form any 
 judgment. . . . She speaks English a little, is 
 very much out of health, and was taken ill at 
 Mrs. Jay's before we went to dinner, and obliged 
 to go home." John Armstrong wrote concern- 
 ing her: " We have a French minister now with 
 us, and if France had wished to destroy the little 
 remembrance that is left of her and of her exer- 
 tions in our behalf, she would have sent just such 
 a minister; distant, haughty, penurious and en- 
 tirely governed by the caprices of a singular, 
 whimsical, hysterical old woman, whose delight 
 is j)laying with a negro child and caressing a 
 monkey." 
 
 De ^loustier w^as possessed of a considerable 
 fortune, and, if " penurious," was fond of dis- 
 play. None of the foreign ministers entertained 
 more frequently or lavishly. Brissot de War- 
 ville, who was in New York at the time, said that 
 he had heard De Moustier boast that he had told 
 President Griffin, of Congress, that " he was but 
 a tavern-keeper, and the Americans had the com- 
 placency not to demand his recall." The con- 
 tempt of De Moustier for Americans was fully 
 equaled by their contempt for him. He was 
 born in Paris thirty-seven years before his ar- 
 rival in New York. Carefully educated in things 
 military and scientific, he was appointed Min- 
 ister Plenipotentiary to England in 1783, re- 
 turning to France in 1789. He served as 
 Ambassador to Prussia and Minister to Con- 
 stantinople. During the French revolution he 
 labored in France for the Bourbons, and some of 
 his letters, falling into the hands of the Jacobins, 
 
388 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 were used in the accusations against Louis XVI. 
 After a sojourn in England he returned to Paris, 
 and in 1806 was driven from France by Bona- 
 parte. He shared the fortunes of Louis XVIII 
 in England, and, returning to France, died in his 
 country house, near Versailles, in 1817. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 389 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 CONCERNING CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICITY IN 
 THE CITY FROM THE DAWN OF THE NINE- 
 TEENTH CENTURY UNTIL THE ERECTION OF 
 THE CITY INTO AN EPISCOPAL SEE 
 
 The roar of thirteen guns, fired in the fort at 
 the Battery, at sunset, March 3rd, 1789, an- 
 nounced to all within hearing that the old Con- 
 federation of States was at an end, and next 
 morning eleven guns, in honor of the States that 
 adopted the Constitution, ushered in the new era. 
 The following day there were more salutes, and 
 at intervals the city's bells rang out glad peals, 
 for on that day the Congress was to convene in 
 the remodeled Federal Hall. A^^ien noon, the 
 hour for opening the session, arrived, there were 
 but eight Senators and thirteen Representatives 
 present. Not until April 1st was there a quorum 
 of the House present. 
 
 The Capital of the United States had over- 
 come the effects of the great fires of 1776 and 
 1778 and the ravages of seven years' British mil- 
 itary occupation. The population was estimated 
 to be about 29,000, and there were 4,200 houses. 
 Land was not scarce on Manhattan Island in 
 those days, and many of the dwellings were de- 
 tached and surrounded by gardens. West of 
 Broadway to the river and north to Reade Street 
 
390 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 was thickly populated, but beyond Reade Street 
 the only important structures were the hospital 
 and the Congregational meeting-house on Broad- 
 way below the line of what is now Leonard Street. 
 On the east side Bayard's Lane, now Broome 
 Street, was the line that separated city from 
 country. There were still many of the lofty 
 peaked-roof Dutch houses, gable ends to the 
 street, but the houses were mostty of the English 
 style of architecture, either all brick with tiled 
 roof or brick fronts with frame sides and rear. 
 New streets had been laid out and old ones wid- 
 ened and improved. Abraham Van Gelder re- 
 ceived £33 a month for lighting and cleaning the 
 streiet lamps, but there were frequent complaints 
 of faulty illumination. The Park, triangular in 
 shape and enclosed with a wooden fence, was 
 bounded by Great George Street, as Broadway 
 north of St. Paul's Chapel was called. Park 
 Row, Vesey, and about on a line with Murray 
 Street. At its northern end stood the Bridewell 
 Almshouse and Jail, facing south, and north of 
 these the Upper Barracks. Broadway was paved 
 from Bowling Green to Vesey Street, but was 
 badly graded. Its principal buildings were Trin- 
 ity Church, St. Paul's Chapel, the City Tavern, 
 the town's principal hostelry, the Kennedy Man- 
 sion, No. 1 Broadway, occupied by the Spanish 
 Minister, Don Diego de Gardoqui. Opposite 
 was the French Legation, in the ^IcComb Man- 
 sion. Bowling Green had been enclosed as a park 
 in 1733, and near its lower end stood the founda- 
 tion of the statue of George III, demolished in 
 1776. Further south were the dilapidated fort 
 and the Battery. East of Broadway, north to 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 391 
 
 Wall Street, had been swept by the fire of 1776, 
 and the cheap frame structures erected after- 
 wards were now giving way to a fine class of 
 buildings. Such was the city at the time of the 
 inauguration of President Washington. 
 
 The Catholics had been increasing steadily in 
 numbers, and the session of Congress and inau- 
 guration had called many notable Catholics from 
 various parts of the country to the capital. 
 
 Dominick Lynch, a native of Galway, was 
 thirty-one years of age when he arrived in New 
 York, in the summer of 1785. His ancestors 
 w^ere popular men in their native town, eighty- 
 four of them having served as INIayors. He re- 
 ceived an excellent education. Five years before 
 coming to America, Dominick Lynch had mar- 
 ried his cousin, Jane Lynch, in Dublin. Shortly 
 after his marriage he opened .a branch of his 
 father's business in Bruges, Flanders, and in the 
 purchase and shipment of flax seed to Ireland 
 and the opportunities for trade afforded by the 
 w^ars between England and France, Spain and 
 the American colonies, amassed a fortune. He 
 met in Bruges Don Thomas Stoughton, a mer- 
 chant with important business connections in 
 France and Spain, and they entered into a part- 
 nership agreement to open a commercial house 
 in New York, under the management of Don 
 Thomas, he putting in .£2,500 and Mr. Lynch 
 £5,000. Don Thomas, on his arrival in New 
 York, in 1783, launched the firm of Lynch & 
 Stoughton. Two years later Mr. Lynch fol- 
 loM^ed him to the city, and both occupied the 
 upper part of No. 41-42 Little Dock Street as a 
 dwelling. There was mutual dissatisfaction, and 
 
392 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 the firm dissolved in 1795. Suits resulted that, 
 after pending for twenty years, were decided ad- 
 versely to Mr. Lynch, who had to pay his former 
 partner $25,076, with costs and expenses. From 
 the time of his arrival in New York, JMr. Lynch 
 had manifested activity and zeal in the welfare of 
 Catholicity in the city and country. He was one 
 of the incorporators and trustees when the orig- 
 inal charter of St. Peter's was amended in 1787. 
 He was designated by the Very Reverend Pre- 
 fect Carroll to receive the subscriptions of New 
 Yorkers towards the establishment of the Acad- 
 emy at Georgetown, that has since become 
 Georgetown University, and he was one of the 
 illustrious Catholic citizens to sign the address 
 of congratulation of the Catholics to President 
 Washington in 1790. Mr. Lynch invested cap- 
 ital in the China trade, in bank stocks and other 
 securities and in real estate. He refused an of- 
 fer of a farm of twenty acres not far from the 
 City Hall, and invested the amount asked, 
 .£2,250, in a tract of 697 acres adjoining Fort 
 Stanwix, on the Mohawk River, in 1786. He 
 afterwards increased this into a domain of 2,000 
 acres, had it surveyed and divided into lots in 
 1796, and named it Lynchville, but prior to 1800 
 changed it to its present name — Rome. He 
 built a country residence for his occupancy when 
 business or pleasure called him to his estate. 
 Mr. Lynch died, in June, 1825, in a spacious 
 stone mansion, in Westchester County, on the 
 shores of Long Island Sound, that he had erected 
 on an estate purchased by him in 1797. His 
 town residence, after 1799, had been No. 16 
 Broadway. His family consisted of thirteen 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 393 
 
 children, who were carefully reared in the Cath- 
 olic faith, but, through intermarriage with non- 
 Catholics, most of their descendants were lost to 
 the Catholic fold. Mrs. Lynch, who lived until 
 1849, was very prominent in the city's social 
 circles, and was among the first to pay her 
 respects to the wife of President Washington on 
 the arrival, in New York, of the first lady of the 
 land. 
 
 Don Thomas Stoughton, Mr. Lynch's one- 
 time partner, was appointed Spanish Consul for 
 New York in 1794, his father, Don Juan 
 Stoughton, holding a like office for New Eng- 
 land. After the dissolution of his partnership) 
 with Mr. Lynch, he occupied No. 24 Greenwich 
 Street for his business, consulate and home. His 
 son James, who was unmarried, w^as Spanish 
 Vice-Consul, and lived with his father. He was 
 a native of New York, had been educated in the 
 city, and had his law office at No. 19 Wall Street. 
 The untimely death of this very promising and 
 l^opular young man cast a shadow over his 
 father's declining years. As Spanish Vice- Con- 
 sul, James Stoughton had caused the arrest and 
 imprisonment of Robert ]M. Gooding, the mas- 
 ter of a privateer, on a charge of piracy, for cap- 
 turing neutral Spanish vessels and selling them. 
 Stoughton and Gooding met on Broadway, De- 
 cember 21st, 1819, and during an altercation 
 Gooding stabbed Stoughton mortally. The mur- 
 dered man was in his twenty-third j^ear at the 
 time of his death. The trial of Gooding, one of 
 the most celebrated murder trials in the annals 
 of New York criminal practice, resulted in the 
 acquittal of the accused. Don Thomas never re- 
 
394 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 covered from the blow, and died in 1826. His 
 second son, Francisco, succeeded him as Spanish 
 Consul. Of Don Thomas the Truth Teller, of 
 March 25th, 1826, said: " Died— On Monday 
 evening last, in the 78th year of his age, Hon. 
 Thomas Stoughton, his Catholic Majesty's Con- 
 sul for the State of New York. The deceased 
 was one of our most ancient and respected inhab- 
 itants; few men have been more universally es- 
 teemed, and the numerous friends he has left to 
 lament his loss bear ample testimony of the sin- 
 gular obligingness of his character and to the 
 generous and noble qualities of his heart. He 
 received the rights of the Church with sentiments 
 of piety, and manifested during his illness the 
 most exemjslary resignation to the divine will." 
 A Catholic neighbor of Lj^nch & Stoughton, 
 living in No. 56 Little Dock Street, was Thomas 
 Lloyd, a soldier of the Revolutionary War, and, 
 in 1789, the official reporter of the House of 
 Representatives. He published in that year, in 
 Philadelphia, a reprint from the London edition 
 of " The Unerring Authority of the Catholic 
 Church in JNlatters of Faith." Lloj'^d was born 
 in London, England, August 14th, 1756. He 
 was educated in the Jesuit College of St. Omer's, 
 in Flanders, and two of its professors, during 
 his student days, were afterwards Archbishops 
 of Baltimore — John Carroll and Leonard Neale. 
 He remained in St. Omer's for seven years and 
 learned there a system of shorthand. Acting on 
 Father Neale's advice, Lloyd came to America 
 and settled in St. ^Mary's Countj^ ^laryland. 
 In later years he said of his education in St. 
 Omer's, that he had " been trained not only in 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 395 
 
 religious and secular knowledge, but in repub- 
 lican principles." At the outbreak of the Revo- 
 lutionary War, Lloyd, then nineteen, enlisted in 
 the Independent Company of St. INIary's County, 
 was chosen Third-Lieutenant, and served until 
 the company was disbanded in New Jersey, De- 
 cember 1st, 1776. He then joined the Third 
 Maryland Regiment as ensign and, September 
 11th, 1777, was shot, bayonetted and taken pris- 
 oner at the battle of the Brandywine. The 
 wounded prisoners were exchanged, and Lloyd 
 was sent to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. On recov- 
 ering from his wounds he was assigned to the 
 Quartermaster's Department, with the rank of 
 captain, and later went to England, by way of 
 France, on a secret mission, it is supposed. He 
 had met INlary Carson, a Presbyterian, in Lan- 
 caster, and on his return they were married, at 
 Lancaster, October 2nd, 1780. When Congress 
 established the Finance Department, Lloyd was 
 appointed secretary to Michael Hillegas, Treas- 
 urer of the United States, and retained that posi- 
 tion until after peace w^as declared. The year 
 before he came to New York, he reported the 
 proceedings of the Pennsylvania House of As- 
 sembly for the Pennsylvania Packet, the first 
 stenographic newspaper reporting in Philadel- 
 phia. He published " The Congressional Reg- 
 ister, or History of the Proceedings and Debates 
 of the First House of Representatives in the 
 United States of America," in four volumes, and 
 " The Acts Passed at a Congress of the United 
 States Begun and Held at the City of New York 
 on Wednesday, the 4tli of March, in the Year 
 1789," and also the acts of the sessions of 1790. 
 
396 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Wlien Congress removed the capital to Philadel- 
 phia, Lloyd reported the proceedings of the 
 House until 1791, when he and his wife went to 
 England to look after the landed interests he had 
 there. While in London he was arrested for 
 debt and imprisoned in the Fleet. Captain Pat- 
 rick Duffin, a fellow prisoner, vented his repub- 
 licanism in a placard posted in the prison. Lloyd 
 was accused as an accessory. Both were charged 
 with sedition, found guilty, and Lloyd's sen- 
 tence was one hour in the pillory, three years in 
 Newgate jail, and $500 bonds for good behavior 
 for five years. He served his sentence, and, re- 
 turning to Philadelphia, obtained his old place 
 as reporter to Congress. Later he was employed 
 as secretary to a commission and as reporter to 
 the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. 
 Mrs. Lloyd had become a Catholic, and all their 
 children were reared, lived and died in the Cath- 
 olic faith. Thomas Lloyd, " the Father of 
 American Shorthand," died in Philadelphia, Jan- 
 uary 19th, 1827, and his dust rests in St. Augus- 
 tine's burial ground in that city. 
 
 At No. 23 Nassau Street lived WilHam 
 Mooney, an upholsterer, an active member of St. 
 Peter's Church from its inception, and the 
 founder and first Grand Sachem of the Tam- 
 many Society, or Columbian Order, which he 
 organized this year. Other prominent bene- 
 factors of St. Peter's at this date were: Jose 
 Roiz Silva, merchant. No. 1 Beekman Street; 
 James Stewart; Andrew Morris, chandler, No. 
 48 Great Dock Street; Gibbon Burke, grocer, 
 No. 161 Water Street; Charles Naylor, mer- 
 chant. No. 48 William Street; George Barnwell, 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 397 
 
 merchant, No. 205 Water Street, and John 
 Sulhvan, grocer, Moore Street. 
 
 The grandest building in New York, and, it 
 was asserted, in the country, was Federal Hall, 
 northeast corner of Wall and Nassau streets, 
 transformed from the City Hall, in which, it will 
 be recalled, were held the trials of the negroes 
 implicated in the so-called negro plot, into a Cap- 
 itol to house the two bodies of the Congress of 
 the United States. The Continental Congress 
 had held some sessions therein in 1785, but the 
 building, after eighty-five years of service, was 
 dilapidated, and it was resolved to reconstruct it 
 within and without. The Common Council en- 
 trusted the work of remodeling the building to 
 JNIajor Pierre Charles L'Enfant, a French officer 
 and a Catholic, who had come to the assistance of 
 the struggling colonies with Lafayette in 1777. 
 When his work was finished, at an outlay of 
 $65,000, the Common Council conferred on him 
 the freedom of the city and offered him ten acres 
 of the common lands located on what is now the 
 east side of Third Avenue, between Sixty-eighth 
 and Sixty-ninth streets. He declined to accept 
 the land, and, in 1801, petitioned for a sum of 
 money, but refused with scorn the $750 offered 
 him. L'Enfant was a genius, but eccentric and 
 irascible. He was born in France, in 1755, and 
 was but twenty-two when he came to America 
 and was commissioned a captain. He was dan- 
 gerously wounded at Savannah in 1779, and was 
 promoted Major in 1783. Secretary of State 
 Thomas Jefferson, January 29th, 1791, asked 
 Major L'Enfant to make such drafts of the 
 ground in the survey for the Federal City 
 
398 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 (Washington) as would enable President Wash- 
 ington " to fix the spot " for the various public 
 buildings and determine the location of reserva- 
 tions. L'Enfant drew elaborate plans for the 
 capital, but about a month later was dismissed 
 from the public employ for refusing to obey the 
 orders issued by the Commissioners. He was 
 succeeded by James Reed Dermott, whose adap- 
 tations of L'Enfant's plans were adopted. 
 L'Enfant was the designer of the medal of the 
 Order of the Cincinnati, and received a vote of 
 thanks of the Trinity Corporation for his design 
 of a symbolical scene on Mount Sinai that was 
 placed over the altar in St. Paul's Chapel. He 
 was the architect of a magnificent residence for 
 Robert JMorris in Philadelphia, in which, before 
 it was finished, Morris sunk a fortune. L'En- 
 fant died, in Prince George's County, Maryland, 
 June 14th, 1825. 
 
 Among the Congressmen who assembled in 
 the city were the following Catholics; Senator 
 Charles Carroll, of INIaryland, who made his 
 home in No. 52 Smith Street, as William Street 
 below Maiden Lane was called; Representatives 
 Thomas Fitz Simons, of Pennsylvania, at Mr. 
 Anderson's, in Pearl Street; Daniel Carroll, of 
 Maryland, with his cousin, Charles Carroll, in 
 No. 52 Smith Street, and Judge Aedanus Burke, 
 of South Carolina, in Mr. Hick's, Wall Street, 
 corner of William Street. 
 
 Daniel Carroll was a native of Maryland, a 
 member of the Continental Congress and a dele- 
 gate to the convention that framed the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States. He served as a repre- 
 sentative in Congress in 1789-91, and was one of 
 
DANIEL CARROLL 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 399 
 
 the commissioners appointed by Congress to sur- 
 vey tlie District of Columbia. His farm covered 
 considerable of the ground now included in the 
 city of Washington. He died, in Washington, 
 in 1829, at an advanced age. 
 
 Of the founders of the Republic, Thomas Fitz 
 Simons is one of the least known to posterity, yet 
 few played a more important part in forming the 
 economic policies of the infant Republic. A 
 native of Ireland, he came to Philadelphia with 
 his father prior to 1758. He married Catherine, 
 sister of George Meade, a merchant of Philadel- 
 phia, and a Catholic, in 1763. 
 
 The patriots of Philadelphia met at the City 
 Tavern, May 20th, 1774, to consider the state 
 of affairs resulting from Parliament's oppres- 
 sive enactments, and Thomas Fitz Simons was 
 one of a Committee of Correspondence to call a 
 general meeting of citizens. He was a convener 
 of the Continental Congress that assembled in 
 Philadelphia, September 4th, 1774. When the 
 news from Lexington fired the blood of the 
 Pennsylvanians, an association of patriots, known 
 as the Associators, became an armed militia. 
 Fitz Simons organized a company, which was as- 
 signed to the Third Battalion under Colonel Cad- 
 walader. During the fall and winter of the 
 trying year 1776-7 he and his company did duty 
 in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Fitz Simons, 
 who was a member of the extensive ship-owning 
 firm of George Meade & Co., and, therefore, well- 
 equipped for the work, was appointed a member 
 of the Naval Board by the Supreme Executive 
 Council, in March, 1777. Fitz Simons and 
 Meade were the owners of nine privateers that, 
 
400 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 later in the war, preyed on the British. He was 
 at one time owner of the ship " Hyder Alley," 
 that captured H. JNI. ship " General JNIonk " in 
 sight of a British frigate. " This action has been 
 deemed," wrote James Fenimore Cooper, " one 
 of the most brilliant that ever occurred under the 
 American flag." 
 
 In 1779, Fitz Simons became a member of the 
 Republican Society, an organization formed for 
 the purpose of securing the adoption of certain 
 amendments to the Constitution of 1776. In 
 1780, during the darkest days of the war, the 
 Bank of Pennsylvania was organized to supply 
 the patriot army with provisions for two months. 
 " Each subscriber gave bond to the Directors," 
 says Martin I. J. Griffin, " to pay their subscrip- 
 tion in specie in case it was demanded to meet 
 the bank's engagements. The subscriptions 
 amounted to £315,000 in notes on interest. 
 Directors to borrow money on credit of Bank 
 for 6 months or less at 6 per cent, and to receive 
 from Congress sums appropriated. All money 
 to be used to purchase provisions and expenses 
 of transportation." George JNIeade & Co. sub- 
 scribed .£2,000. The subscription was timely be- 
 cause needed, patriotic because of the critical 
 period at which it was tendered, but, withal, a 
 business venture. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton has left testimony of the 
 valuable assistance given him by Thomas Fitz 
 Simons in establishing the financial policy of the 
 United States government. He was elected to 
 the Congress of the Confederacy, November 
 12th, 1782. His home became the social gather- 
 ing place of his fellow Congressmen, and here he 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 401 
 
 discussed with Hamilton, Madison, Carroll and 
 others the laws proposed for the government of 
 the Confederacy. With Hamilton and Madison 
 he was placed on a committee of the Congress to 
 reply to a letter from Rhode Island, assigning 
 reasons for not complying with the laws of Con- 
 gress relative to import duties and prize goods. 
 An outcome of that committee's labors was the 
 policy of protection for infant American indus- 
 tries. The Constitution of Pennsylvania pro- 
 vided that " in order to keep inviolate forever the 
 freedom of the Commonwealth, Censors should 
 be annually chosen." At the general election of 
 1783, Fitz Simons was chosen a member of the 
 Council of Censors. An ardent advocate of the 
 election of General Arthur St. Clair ta the Gov- 
 ernorship of Pennsylvania, it was suggested to 
 him that he might damage his ovi^n political pros- 
 pects by promoting the fortunes of one who 
 might be defeated. His answer was an indica- 
 tion of the man's character: " I conceive it to be 
 a duty to contend for what is right, be the issue 
 as it may." 
 
 With Charles and Daniel Carroll and Dom- 
 inick Lynch, Mr. Fitz Simons signed the address 
 of the American Catholics to Washington after 
 his election to the Presidency. George Meade 
 and Thomas Fitz Simons dissolved partnership 
 in 1784, and Mr. Fitz Simons opened a place of 
 business on Walnut Street Wharf. He was 
 elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1785 
 and 1786, and was a delegate to the Constitu- 
 tional Convention that assembled May 25th, 
 1787. In that convention Fitz Simons, an ardent 
 Federalist, voted against universal suffrage and 
 
402 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 favored limiting the suffrage to freeholders. He 
 advocated giving Congress the power to tax hoth 
 exports and imports, and voted to make the ac- 
 tion of both branches of Congress necessary to 
 ratify treaties. With the adoption of the Consti- 
 tution Fitz Simons was elected a member of the 
 first Congress, and was re-elected to the second 
 and third. His abilities demanded recognition 
 and received it, as indicated by his appointment 
 to the most important conmiittees. In the first 
 Congress he was on the Committee of Ways and 
 JNIeans, on a committee to draft an act " for 
 regulating the collecting imports and tonnage," 
 on a conmiittee to fix the compensation of the 
 President, Vice-President, Senators and mem- 
 bers of the House of Representatives, and was 
 chairman of a conmiittee to prepare an act pro- 
 viding a government for the northwest territory. 
 In later sessions he was chairman of a committee 
 to provide for a settlement of accounts between 
 the Federal government and the States, chair- 
 man of a conmiittee to ascertain " how far the 
 owners of ships shall be liable to freighters of 
 goods shipped on board," and chairman of a com- 
 mittee to prepare a bill empowering the collector 
 of the port of Philadelphia to permit the landing 
 of merchandise at other places than that city 
 when navigation Avas obstructed by ice. He was 
 a member of a conmiittee to which was referred a 
 message from President Washington treating of 
 points of reciprocal commercial advantages be- 
 tween the United States and Great Britain, and 
 one of another committee of three to draft an 
 act supplementary to the act re-establishing a 
 Treasury Department. 
 
7.Y OLD NETV YORK 403 
 
 ]Madison and Webster " regarded it as im- 
 portant historical evidence that Thomas Fitz 
 Simons was the first to suggest as the clear duty 
 of Congress and so laying of imports as to en- 
 courage manufacturers." 
 
 The foregoing list of important committees on 
 which ]\Ir. Fitz Simons served warrants the as- 
 sertion that no man was more closely identified 
 with framing the laws regulating the revenue, 
 commerce and finances of the young nation. The 
 business relations between Thomas Fitz Simons 
 and Robert ]\Iorris were very intimate. As an 
 accommodation to ]Mr. ^Morris, Fitz Simons had 
 signed notes for many thousands of dollars. 
 When ]\lorris failed Fitz Simons, in 1805, went 
 down in the financial crash. He made a state- 
 ment that for notes of half a million dollars for 
 which he had received no value, he had paid out 
 $150,000. 
 
 Five years later ]\Irs. Fitz Simons died. The 
 following year, August 26th, 1811, Thomas Fitz 
 Simons died in his home, Xo. 220 ]\lulberry, or 
 Arch Street, Philadelphia, in his seventieth year. 
 The place of his interment is unkno^^-n. 
 
 Judge Aedanus Burke is a very interesting fig- 
 ure in the history of that day. He was born in 
 Galway, Ireland, June 16th, 1743, and was edu- 
 cated for the priesthood at St. Omer's. He went 
 to the West Indies, and from there to South 
 Carolina on the eve of the Revolutionary War. 
 He was a major in the patriot army until chosen a 
 State Supreme Court Justice in 1778, leaving the 
 bench during a British invasion of the State to 
 again take the sword. When the courts were 
 reorganized, he resumed his judicial position and 
 
404 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 was one of a commission of three to form a digest 
 of the State's laws. He was an ardent anti- 
 FederaHst in the State convention that ratified 
 the United States Constitution, because he feared 
 centraHzation of power. After the adoption of 
 the Constitution he was elected a Representative 
 to the first Congress. He served from 1789 
 until the passage of a law in the South Carolina 
 Legislature, 1791, which prohibited State Judges 
 from leaving the State, whereupon he resigned 
 from Congress. He served several times in the 
 State Assembly, and just prior to his death, in 
 Charleston, in 1802, became State Chancellor. 
 He was an ardent, uncompromising republican, 
 and published a pamphlet attacking the Order of 
 the Cincinnati that caused the Order to revise its 
 Constitution and eradicate some of its aristocratic 
 provisions. The pamphlet was translated into 
 French by Mirabeau. Thomas Burke, a near 
 relative of Judge Burke, was Governor of North 
 Carolina, had been a member of the Continental 
 Congress from 1776 until 1781, and served as a 
 volunteer in the army. 
 
 The Burkes, according to JNIartin I. J. Griffin, 
 were, as most men in their time, of convivial 
 habits, and about them he attributes the old 
 saying in its corrected form, "It is a long time 
 between drinks, as the Governor of North Caro- 
 lina said to the Chief Justice of South Carolina." 
 Judge Burke was in New York in 1799, as he 
 acted as Aaron Burr's second in a duel with John 
 B. Church, at Hoboken. 
 
 A New York newspaper of the day pub- 
 lished the advertisement of Robert Hodge, a 
 pubhsher, of No. 37 King (Pine) Street, in 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 405 
 
 which he offered for sale, at two shillings, a 
 pamphlet entitled " The Resurrection of Laurent 
 Ricci, or a True and Exact History of the Jes- 
 uits." This pamphlet, printed in Philadelphia, 
 was a virulent attack on the Very Reverend Pre- 
 fect John Carroll, and likened him to Father 
 Laurent Ricci, a deceased General of the Society 
 of Jesus. Its dedication read: "To the new 
 Laurent Ricci in America, the Reverend Father 
 John Carroll, Superior of the Jesuits (footing) 
 in the United States; also to the Friar Monk- 
 Inquisitor William O'Brien (one of his many 
 contrivers to set his engines at work without 
 interfering visibly himself). Tliis Treatise is 
 Humbly Dedicated.'''' 
 
 The author said that the publication was " a 
 well meant caution to the United States of Amer- 
 ica, on the Danger of admitting that turbulent 
 Body of JNIen called Jesuits among them." . . . 
 " They have given some Instances of their Art 
 and Ambition. Those that follow, are striking 
 ones: In erecting the Chapels opened at New 
 York and Boston by foreign Ecclesiastics, they 
 have occasioned and been guilty of the most 
 shocking offences, in Order to remove them, un- 
 der various pretences, and appoint others in their 
 Room. At New York, their Chief came and tore 
 off the Sacerdotal Ornaments from the Priest at 
 the Altar, beat and struck him with his Fists, be- 
 fore the Assembly of the Faithful." A note on 
 page 28 of the pamphlet read: " The inquisitor 
 ^lonk, William O'Brien, has himself verified this 
 charge; for in New York and Boston he has said 
 and written everything possible, false, wicked 
 and absurd, to the injury of the first Roman 
 
406 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Catholic Priests in those Cities, with design 
 to prejudice their congregations against them 
 and remove them therefrom greatly to the dis- 
 grace of the Roman Catholic Religion. These 
 are two instances among many that might be 
 cited of his bad heart and JNIachiavellian con- 
 duct." The authorship of this pamphlet has 
 never been positively fixed, but a certain French 
 priest, who had for a time been stationed in New 
 England and was stigmatized by an eminent 
 non- Catholic divine of New England as a 
 " speckled bird," is supposed to have been its 
 author. 
 
 April 23rd was one of New York's glorious 
 days. General Washington was rowed from 
 Elizabethport to New York in a barge manned 
 by thirteen New York pilots dressed in white 
 uniforms. His Most Catholic Majesty's sloop 
 of war " Galveston " was lying below the Bat- 
 tery, and many were the unfavorable comments 
 on her undecorated appearance, when everything 
 afloat was gay with bunting. Just as the barge 
 came abreast of the Spanish warship she was, with 
 magical rapidity, covered with flags from stem to 
 stern, her yards manned, and from her sides 
 burst the flash and smoke of a thirteen-gun 
 salute. Among the members of the Congres- 
 sional committee that accompanied the President-, 
 elect from Elizabethport to New York was 
 Senator Charles Carroll. Two days later Repre- 
 sentative Daniel Carroll was appointed a mem- 
 ber of the joint committee of Congress to 
 discuss the title, place and manner in which, and 
 by whom, the oath of office should be adminis- 
 tered to Washington. 3Iajor L'Enfant was 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 407 
 
 apj)ointed on a committee to act as assistants at 
 the inauguration ceremonies, but he dechned to 
 serve. The French and Spanish Ministers and 
 their suites were conspicuous figures in the pro- 
 cession from Murray's Wharf to the Frankhn 
 House. Washington was inaugurated on the 
 balcony of Federal Hall at noon, April 30th, 
 1789. The city was gay with bunting, and the 
 people wild with enthusiasm. Tradition says 
 that during the ceremonies Thomas Lloyd, the 
 official reporter of the House, stood near Wash- 
 ington, and in the assemblage at the rear of the 
 balcony were Senator Carroll, Representatives 
 Daniel Carroll, Thomas Fitz Simons and Aeda- 
 nus Burke, Don Diego de Gardoqui, the Span- 
 ish Minister, Count Moustier, the French Min- 
 ister, and the man who had so much to do with 
 the stage setting of the occasion, Major L'En- 
 fant. A goodly representation of Catholics at 
 this placing of the capstone on the national arch. 
 In the evening there was a great display of fire- 
 works at the Battery, and the whole city was 
 illuminated, but no houses more brilliantly than 
 the French and Spanish Embassies. On the 
 Spanish Embassy, transparencies, moving pic- 
 tures, lanterns and candles represented wisdom, 
 justice, fortitude, the sun, moon and stars and 
 the Spanish royal arms. 
 
 A ball was held in the City Assembly Rooms, 
 on Broadway, May 7th, attended by every dis- 
 tinguished person in the city. Count de Mous- 
 tier, in his red-heeled shoes and earrings, was 
 present, with his eccentric sister, and Catholic 
 social New York was represented by Mrs. Dom- 
 inick Lynch. A week later Count de JNIoustier's 
 
408 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 fete in honor of Washington drew together New 
 York society. The McComb Mansion, in which 
 the Minister made his home, has been described 
 as it appeared on the night of the fete: " People 
 wandered about gaining peeps of fairyland till 
 the quadrilles were danced, and then began a 
 scene bewildering in its beauty, where the red, 
 red rose of France and the bluebells, symbolizing 
 the color of Columbia, were blended with scarlet 
 regimentals and uniforms of buff and blue, ceru- 
 lean gauzes and floating scarfs of rosy tulle. 
 Eight gentlemen, in French and American uni- 
 forms, danced with eight ladies typifying the 
 countries of Washington and Lafayette." It is 
 rather amusing to read, as a pendant to this open- 
 ing revelry, that the supper, served from a long 
 table running from end to end of the room, and 
 displayed upon shelves covering the inner wall, 
 consisted of " cakes, oranges, apples, wine of all 
 sorts, ice creams, etc., and highly lighted up." 
 And also that the " height of jollity " was " at 
 10 o'clock." 
 
 The Spanish Minister gave a ball in the Em- 
 bassy, May 22nd. In September he presented 
 to the President, Jose Viar, the Spanish Charge 
 d' Affaires, who occupied the post until 1794, and 
 again for a time in 1796. Don Diego, to the 
 great regret of New Yorkers, returned to Spain, 
 October 10th. 
 
 Matthew Carey, the Catholic publisher of 
 Philadelphia, issued the first edition of the Douay 
 Bible in 1790, and the list of New York sub- 
 scribers consists of the following names : George 
 Barnwell, Francis Childs, John Downing, Jo- 
 seph Idelle (or Idley), WilKam Lalor. Domin- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 409 
 
 ick Lynch, Andrew Morris, William Mooney, 
 Reverend William O'Brien, Jose Roiz Silva, 
 George Speth, Thomas Stoughton, John Sulli- 
 van, William Tinney and C. Naylon (Naylor). 
 The necessity for a Bishop to rule the increasing 
 number of shepherds and growing flocks had be- 
 come imperative, and the Holy See had, on the 
 recommendation of the American clergy, named 
 Father John Carroll. He was consecrated in 
 Lulworth Castle, England, on the Feast of the 
 Assumption, 1790, and returned to America in 
 December on the ship " Samson," Captain 
 Thomas JNIoore. He had, as a companion on the 
 voyage, the Right Reverend James JNIadison, 
 Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Virginia. 
 
 During this year the city had as visitors the 
 Chevalier de Pontgibaud and the Marquis de 
 JNIore, French volunteer officers in the war for 
 American independence. An extract from an old 
 letter aff'ords a glimpse of the quaint social life 
 of that day: " I remember going one night with 
 Sir John Temple (the British Consul) and 
 Henry Remsen to a party at their (the Misses 
 Whites', in Wall Street, near Broadway) house. 
 I was dressed in a light French blue coat. Nan- 
 keen colored cassimere breetches, with white silk 
 stockings, shining pumps and full ruffles on 
 my breast and at my wrists, together with a 
 ponderous white cravat with a pudding in it, as 
 we then called it; and I was considered the best 
 dressed gentleman in the room. I remember to 
 have walked a minuet with much grace, with my 
 friend Mrs. Verplanck, who was dressed in hoop 
 and petticoats ; and, singularly enough, I caught 
 cold that night from drinking hot port wine 
 
410 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 negus, and riding home in a sedan chair, with one 
 of the glasses broken." 
 
 The French Revolution was driving the Roy- 
 alists into exile. Among the distinguished ref- 
 ugees who came to America was Fran9ois Au- 
 guste. Viscount de Chateaubriand, statesman and 
 author, who arrived in Philadelphia in 1791, 
 where he dined with Washington. His ostensible 
 mission to America was to search for the north- 
 west passage. He visited New York, Boston 
 and Albany, dwelt for some time with Indian 
 tribes in the West, and explored the territory 
 bordering on the great lakes of the valley of the 
 Mississippi. 
 
 Chateaubriand was a native of St. Malo, and 
 was twenty-three when he arrived in America. 
 He was destined for the priesthood, but, pre- 
 ferring the army, was commissioned a Second- 
 Lieutenant when he was fifteen. Hearing of the 
 arrest of Louis XVI while in America, he hur- 
 ried back to Europe, and, enlisting in a company 
 of Frenchmen who followed the Prussian Army 
 that invaded France, was wounded and left for 
 dead on the field near Thionville. He was taken 
 to Jersey, and on his recovery went to England. 
 He lived there from 179S to 1800, reduced to ex- 
 treme poverty. His political creed was that he 
 was " a Bourbon from the point of honor, a roy- 
 alist by reason, a republican by taste and dispo- 
 sition." He filled for a time a diplomatic post 
 under Bonaparte. After the Restoration he be- 
 came Minister of State and a peer of France. 
 Losing and regaining the royal favor, he served 
 as ^linister to Brazil in 1821, to London in 1822, 
 and as ^Minister of Foreign Affairs until, having 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 411 
 
 been dismissed from office, he became a Liberal. 
 He retired from politics in 1830 and engaged in 
 literary pursuits. Like many eminent French- 
 men of his time, Chateaubriand had drifted into 
 materialism, until he was recalled to his faith by 
 the dying appeal of his mother. In 1798 he be- 
 gan to compose his great Christian work, " The 
 Genius of Christianity." He died in Paris, July 
 4th, 1848. In his last moments he was ministered 
 to by Father de Ravignan. He tore from his 
 works every page that his conscience rejected, 
 and at his dictation his nephew wrote: "I de- 
 clare before God that I retract every passage in 
 my writings opposed to the Faith, to good morals, 
 or to sound principles in general." 
 
 The City Directory for 1792 records the name 
 " Rev. Nicholas Burke, pastor of St. Peter's 
 Church, apostolic priest, 41 Partition Street " 
 (Fulton Street from Broadway to the North 
 River). Doctor John Gilmary Shea says that 
 the Reverend " JNIichael " Burke was Father 
 William O'Brien's substitute during the latter's 
 absence on his collecting tour in Mexico. During 
 1792 the front portico and sacristy of St. Peter's 
 were finished and the pews installed. 
 
 The Revolution in France and the negro up- 
 rising in San Domingo had driven so many of 
 the French to the United States, and particu- 
 larly to New York, as to give a distinct Galilean 
 tone to the community. The De Courcy-Shea 
 " History of the Catholic Church in the United 
 States " says " that one thousand whites and five 
 hundred colored people, driven from San Do- 
 mingo by the revolution, arrived in Baltimore in 
 1793, and that so large a part of the inhabitants 
 
412 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 came to America and settled that this French 
 Cathohc immigration exceeded in numbers the 
 French Protestant immigration of the previous 
 century," and further the same historians wrote: 
 " English fanaticism (in Acadia) and the dis- 
 asters of the revolution (in San Domingo) peo- 
 pled the territory of the United States with more 
 French Catholics than the revocation of the edict 
 of Nantes ever sent Protestants." These people 
 were of all grades of society, but the revolutions 
 had proved great levelers. Many of the nobility 
 had lost all their possessions and reached New 
 York almost penniless. Many of them found 
 a means of livelihood by teaching languages, 
 music, or those among them who had some means 
 engaged in business. Brissot de Warville, the 
 French Revolutionist and author, who had been 
 in the United States in 1789, did not approve 
 of the attitude of some of his countrymen 
 towards America and Americans. He wrote 
 that the Frenchmen whom he met in this country 
 spent their time in boasting of the services which 
 France had rendered to the Americans and in 
 sneering at the tastes and customs of the Amer- 
 icans. 
 
 Among those who suffered the direst priva- 
 tions in New York in 1793 was Mederic Louis 
 Elie Moreau de Saint Merv. He was a native of 
 the Island of JVIartinique, and at twenty had 
 gone to France and entered the royal police. He 
 applied himself to the mastery of law, mathe- 
 matics and the code. He was admitted to the 
 bar, and, returning to INIartinique, practiced law. 
 He was called to the Superior Council of San 
 Domingo in 1780, and employed his leisure hours 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 413 
 
 in collecting data relating to the history, geog- 
 raphy and laws of the French West Indies. He 
 discovered the tomb of Christopher Columbus in 
 1783, and restored it at his own expense. San 
 Domingo sent him as its representative to the 
 French Parliament, and he was instrumental in 
 effecting the election of Lafayette as Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the National Guard. Dur- 
 ing one of the party upheavals of the Revolution 
 he was imprisoned, but was permitted by his 
 guards to escape, and sailed for the United 
 States. From New York he went to Philadel- 
 phia, where he became a printer and bookseller, 
 and published several works dealing with the 
 French West Indies. Returning to France in 
 1800, he was appointed a Councilor of State and 
 sent to Parma, but, probably owing to his being 
 related to Josephine, was deposed by Bonaparte 
 in 1806. He suffered from poverty until Louis 
 XVIII gave him a pension of 15,000 francs. 
 He died in Paris, January 13th, 1819. 
 
 John Berard and his wife, fleeing from the 
 San Dominican revolution, came to New York. 
 With them was Berard's confidential servant, 
 Peter Toussaint, a negro slave born on the plan- 
 tation of Latibonite, parish of St. INIark, San 
 Domingo, in 1766. The Berards' departure 
 from the island had been hurried, and, having 
 established his wife in New York, ]\Ir. Berard 
 returned to San Domingo to collect the remnants 
 of his fortune, but his death on the voyage left 
 her penniless. Toussaint was her sole support. 
 He was an expert hairdresser, and his intelligence 
 and politeness made him very popular with the 
 wealthy society people of the city. His earnings 
 
414 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 were all handed to his mistress, but INIadanie 
 Berard married a JNIr. Nicholas, who, from 
 being a wealthy planter in San Domingo, had 
 been reduced to playing the violin in orchestras 
 in New York. Toussaint did not consider him- 
 self relieved from the duty of accounting to his 
 mistress for his earnings by the change in her 
 condition. He lived the life of a saint, and dur- 
 ing the disastrous yellow fever epidemic his con- 
 duct was heroic. Madam Berard Nicolas, on her 
 deathbed, in 1810, emancipated her faithful slave. 
 The greater part of his income was expended 
 in relieving the poor, in assisting the infant 
 church, and in soliciting alms for his various 
 good works. His old non-Catholic patrons were 
 among his most liberal contributors. The prin- 
 cipal part of his property, his wife and children 
 having died, was left to one of his kindest 
 patrons, who had been reduced to penury by an 
 unfortunate marriage. Toussaint died in his 
 eighty-seventh year, June 30th, 1853, and Father 
 Quinn, in his remarks after the solemn ]Mass of 
 requiem over his remains, said: " There were left 
 few among the clergy superior to him in devotion 
 and zeal for the Church and for the glory of 
 God; among laymen, none." 
 
 With the arrival and wildly enthusiastic recep- 
 tion of " Citizen " Edmond Charles Genet, or 
 Genest, the French Minister, in 1794, the French 
 craze reached a climax in New York. During 
 the same year the French warship " L' Ambus- 
 cade," Citizen Bompard master, entered the bay. 
 Challenged by the captain of a British warship, 
 Bompard took his vessel outside Sandy Hook, 
 fought and defeated the Englishman. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 415 
 
 The Frenchman who was chiefly instru- 
 mental in inducing King" Louis XVI to sign the 
 treaty of afliance through which the United col- 
 onies became a nation, arrived in New York in 
 1794. He was Francois Alexandre Frederic, 
 Due de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt D'Estissac. 
 In his youth he was known as Count de la Roche- 
 foucauld, and in 1767 took the title of Due de 
 Liancourt. He became a Lieutenant-General in 
 1790. He introduced agricultural improvements 
 on his estate, and in 1780 founded and endowed 
 a school of mechanical arts, out of which grew 
 the school of " Arts et Metiers." 
 
 A deputy to the Assembly of Notables in 
 1788, and to the States-General in 1789, he pre- 
 sided over the session of the Constituent Assem- 
 bly in 1789, in which titles of nobility were abol- 
 ished. He was military commander in Rouen in 
 1792, and used every endeavor to save the life of 
 King Louis. Dismissed from the French serv- 
 ice the same year, he passed over to England, 
 and two years later came to the United States. 
 He traveled extensively in America, studying 
 the agricultural methods of the country, and 
 bought a farm in Pennsylvania, on which he car- 
 ried on his agricultural experiments. After a 
 stay of six years in the United States, he visited 
 Holland and Denmark, and in 1799 returned to 
 France and lived on his estate of Liancourt, 
 which had been restored to him by Bonaparte. 
 Although he served as a member of the Corps 
 Legislatif, he refused to accept any office from 
 Napoleon. 
 
 Louis XVIII created him a peer, but philan- 
 thropy appealed to him more than politics. The 
 
416 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 first savings bank in Paris was established by 
 him, and mainly through his influence vaccina- 
 tion was introduced in that country. He had 
 lived under a royal, imperial and republican gov- 
 ernment, and, as a result of his experiences, in 
 the closing years of his life, became an earnest 
 opponent of royalty and a strong advocate of 
 American principles and institutions. His op- 
 position to the Royalists, his philanthropy, 
 benevolence and popularitj^ gained for him from 
 his political enemies the nickname " the Saint 
 Vincent de Paul of the Liberal Party." He died 
 in Paris, March 28th, 1827. 
 
 One day in 1794, two men were promenading 
 the sea wall of the Battery. One of them was 
 very tall and had long light hair tied in a cue. 
 His complexion was sallow, his eyes blue, his 
 mouth large and coarse. His big body was in- 
 clined to stoutness. Singularly short legs ended 
 in deformed feet that caused him to walk with a 
 limp. The two lived in the Kenned}^ house. No. 
 1 Broadway, that had been opened as a fashion- 
 able boarding house after it was vacated bj^ the 
 Sj^anish Minister. The man who has been de- 
 scribed and his companion had invested their lit- 
 tle capital in freighting a ship in which they 
 purposed trying their fortunes in India. All that 
 was required for the sailing was a favorable 
 wind. One day, while the tall man was seated at 
 a desk in his room, writing, his companion. Mon- 
 sieur Beaumet, entered hurriedly, in a great state 
 of excitement, and said: 
 
 " Why do you lose time in ^ATiting those let- 
 ters? They will never reach their destination; 
 come with me and let us make the round of the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 417 
 
 Battery; the wind may become favorable; per- 
 haps we are nearer to our departure than we 
 think." 
 
 Towards the close of one of the most eventful 
 lives in history, the tall man often told the fol- 
 lowing tale: "The day was magnificent, al- 
 though the wind was high; I allowed myself to 
 be persuaded. Beaumet, as I afterwards recol- 
 lected, showed extraordinary alacrity in closing 
 my desk, arranging my papers, and offering my 
 hat and cane, which I attributed to the need of 
 incessant activity with which he had appeared 
 overwhelmed ever since our enforced departure. 
 We threaded the well-peopled streets and reached 
 the Battery. He had offered me his arm, and 
 hurried on as if he were in haste to reach it. 
 When w^e were on the grand esplanade, he has- 
 tened still more, until we reached the edge. He 
 spoke loudly and rapidly, and admired, in ener- 
 getic terms, the beauties of the scene. Suddenly 
 he stopped, in the midst of his disordered con- 
 versation. I had disengaged my arm from his, 
 and stood firmly before him. I fixed my eye 
 upon him, and he moved aside, as if intimidated 
 and ashamed. 
 
 " ' Beaumet,' cried I, ' your intention is to mur- 
 der me; you mean to throw me from this height 
 into the sea. Deny it, monster, if you dare!' 
 The insane man looked at me intently with his 
 haggard eyes for a moment; but I was careful 
 not to remove my gaze from him, and they fell. 
 He muttered some incoherent words, and en- 
 deavored to pass me, but I spread my arms and 
 prevented him. Casting a wild look around, he 
 threw himself on my neck and burst into tears. 
 
418 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 " ' It is true, it is true, my friend. The thought 
 has haunted me day and night hke an infernal 
 flame. It was for that I brought you here; see, 
 you are not a foot from the precipice! Another 
 instant, the deed would have been done ! ' The 
 demon had abandoned him; his eyes were void 
 of expression; a white foam covered his parched 
 lips ; the crisis had passed. I conducted him home. 
 Some days of rest, bleeding and dieting entirely 
 cured him, and what is the most singular circum- 
 stance of all, w^e never recurred to the occur- 
 rence." 
 
 The relator was convinced that " an extraor- 
 dinary and inexplicable prescience " had saved 
 his life. Had the deranged Beaumet accom- 
 plished his purpose, many pages of the history 
 of Europe in the early years of the nineteenth 
 century would have read differently. Beaumet's 
 companion was Charles Maurice Talleyi'and de 
 Perigord, formerly Bishop of Autun, subse- 
 quently Prince de Benevento. 
 
 Ordered to leave England under the provisions 
 of the Alien Act, in January, 1794, he sailed for 
 Philadelphia. Although his brilliancy of intel- 
 lect drew around him a certain circle of admirers 
 in the Quaker city, his manner of life, more par- 
 ticularly because of the general knowledge that 
 he was an ecclesiastic, disgusted and repelled the 
 Philadelphians. Although armed with a letter 
 from Lord Lansdowne, Pontgibaud says, Gen- 
 eral Washington refused to receive Talleyrand. 
 " In spite of all his wit and amiability," wrote the 
 Chevalier de Pontgibaud, " he was looked upon 
 somewhat coolly by the best society of Philadel- 
 phia, with whom his light, careless manners did 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 419 
 
 not meet with the welcome they deserved. In 
 fact, the Anglo-Americans are simple and 
 straightforward in their manners, and the cyni- 
 cal, irreverent contempt of their guest for all 
 things Americans respected greatly scandalized 
 them. JNI. de Talleyrand had the right, if it 
 pleased him, to pull off his clerical gown and trail 
 it in the mud, but he had also, at that time, a posi- 
 tion as a French emigre, and though he might 
 resign for himself the welcome bestowed upon 
 unfortunate people in that position, he also in- 
 directly injured others." 
 
 He left Philadelphia and came to New York, 
 becoming during his stay a citizen of the United 
 States. As he is said to have sworn allegiance to 
 a dozen constitutions during his career, his Amer- 
 ican citizenship probably impressed him but 
 lightly. He removed from New York to Brook- 
 lyn, and lived for a time in a house on Fulton 
 Street, near Hicks Street. A favorite amuse- 
 ment of this future Prince of the French 
 Empire was to climb to the seat of a farm 
 wagon and, with its Dutch American farm- 
 hand for a companion, ride along the tree- 
 embowered highways of Flatbush and New 
 Utrecht. 
 
 The excommunicated Bishop of Autun re- 
 turned to France in 1795 and, from being a close 
 friend of Louis XVI, became a supporter of the 
 Directory. Two years later he was appointed 
 Foreign INIinister. From the beginning to the 
 close of his public career, he was always at the 
 beck of the highest bidder, and amassed great 
 wealth by gambling. His corruption caused him 
 to lose the portfolio of Foreign Minister, but 
 
420 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 during the Consulate Napoleon reappointed him 
 to the position. 
 
 In 1809 he became estranged from Bonaparte, 
 but his office of Vice-Grand Elector saved him 
 from the Emperor's vengeance. It was Talley- 
 rand who placed Louis XVIII on the throne and 
 reintroduced the voice of France into the delib- 
 erations of Europe. During the Hundred Days 
 he remained in retirement at Carlsbad, and after 
 Waterloo became Prime Minister. Resigning 
 his office, he passed fifteen years in private life, 
 but served under Charles X and Louis Philippe, 
 ending his public career in 1834. 
 
 The sentence of excommunication against him 
 was recalled in 1801. On the day of his death, 
 May 17th, 1838, " he signed a solemn acknowl- 
 edgement of repentance for those errors of his 
 life which had brought upon him the censure of 
 the Church." 
 
 The closing paragraph of his " retractation " 
 read: " I deplore, afresh, those acts of my life 
 which have offended the Church, and my last 
 prayers will be for her and for her supreme 
 leader." 
 
 In the multitude of expatriated Frenchmen 
 who did so much to build up and enrich the west- 
 ern metropolis was Joseph Thebaud, who came 
 to the United States in 1793. He was the agent 
 of the French East India Company, and the 
 American representative of several French cap- 
 italists and companies. On his arrival he located 
 in Boston for a time, removing to New Haven, 
 where he married a Miss Le JBreton, formerly 
 of JNIartinique. Locating permanently in New 
 York, he opened a counting room at No. 11 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 421 
 
 Beekman Street, and made his home in No. 12, 
 opposite. His country residence was a fine brick 
 mansion, located in spacious grounds, on the hne 
 of the present Orchard Street. He was an en- 
 thusiastic botanist, and his large greenliouses 
 were his especial pride. He was the originator 
 of the French Benevolent Society, and a leading 
 director of the Mechanics' Bank. He was re- 
 garded as one of the prominent merchants of the 
 city. Mr. Thebaud died in 1811. 
 
 An epidemic of yellow fever, in 1795, carried 
 off 732 people, many of them Catholic immi- 
 grants lately arrived in the city. There was con- 
 sternation in the city, business was at a standstill, 
 and services were held frequently in the churches 
 to imj)lore Divine aid. 
 
 The vestry of Trinity Church, in this year, re- 
 ceived " a Petition from the Trustees of the 
 Roman Catholic Church of St. Peter's in this 
 City praying the Board to relinquish a Part of 
 the Arrears now due, and an abatement of their 
 Rent." The vestry resolved, June 8th, " that the 
 Board will dispose of to the Trustees of Saint 
 Peter's Church in fee simple all those Lots under 
 Lease to them for the sum of one thousand 
 pounds to be paid in two months, and will remit 
 and discharge them from all Back Rents due to 
 this Corporation if such takes effect." Notwith- 
 standing the great influx of French during these 
 years, the income of St. Peter's was evidently in- 
 sufficient for the support of the church. Accus- 
 tomed to a State-endowed church, many gave 
 little, if any, pecuniary assistance, and others, 
 particularly the West Indies, were affiliated with 
 the IMasonic fraternity. 
 
422 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 The records of Trinity parish for 1796 show 
 a donation of money from " the Minister of the 
 Roman Cathohc Congregation " towards the 
 support of Trinity Parish Charity School. This 
 school was established in 1709, during the rec- 
 torate of the Reverend William Vesey, D.D. 
 
 The name of the Reverend John Baptist 
 Joseph Le Maire, evidently a visiting priest, ap- 
 pears on the baptismal register of St. Peter's 
 this year. The trustees of St. Peter's petitioned 
 Bishop Carroll to appoint the New England con- 
 vert, Father John Thayer, to the assistant pas- 
 torate of that church, but, owing to some re- 
 luctance to receive him on the part of Father 
 William O'Brien, the appointment was not 
 made. 
 
 Louis Philippe, Due d'Orleans, traveled in 
 the United States in 1796-7. He was joined, 
 while in this country, by his two brothers, the 
 Due de Montponsier and the Comte de Beaujo- 
 lais. During their stay in New York they lodged 
 in Bloomingdale. Gouverneur Morris furnished 
 the money to the future King to enable him to 
 reach America and travel while here. He for- 
 got the debt when fortune favored him, and it 
 became necessary to remind him of it. JNIorris 
 received the exact amount of the loan, but with- 
 out a word of thanks. As the French monarch 
 indicated thereby that he regarded the loan as a 
 strictly business matter, Morris put it on that 
 basis, and had his attorney demand twenty years' 
 interest, which the King paid. The money re- 
 funded amounted to seventy thousand francs. 
 Louis Philippe was, like his father, a revolution- 
 ist, but, becoming suspected, fled to Switzerland. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 423 
 
 After his American visit, he returned to Europe, 
 and, failing in an attempt to stir up a revolution 
 in Spain, in 1800, retired to England, where he 
 remained until permitted to return to France in 
 1817. He was a leader of the revolution in 
 France in 1830, and was elected King of the 
 French. In 1848 he was compelled to resign in 
 favor of his grandson, the Count of Paris. He 
 died, in England, in 1850. 
 
 The Reverend Jean Ambrose Souge, Canon 
 and Theologal of Dol, a refugee from France, 
 arrived in the city from England in 1797. The 
 Revolution had forced him to flee from France in 
 1792, and for five years he had labored in the jur- 
 isdiction of the Bishop of London, in Dorchester, 
 and had come armed with credentials from 
 Bishop John Douglass to Bishop Carroll. After 
 a short stay in New York, he proceeded to Hart- 
 ford, Connecticut, to be chaplain in the family 
 of the Vicomte De Sibert Cornillon, an emigre, 
 who had settled near that place. With faculties 
 from Bishop Carroll, he discharged the duties of 
 his priestly office, and was associated in Hart- 
 ford for a brief period with the Abbe J. S. Tis- 
 serant, the friend and director of the saintly 
 Mother Seton. The Abbe Souge was at St. Jo- 
 seph's, Talbot County, Maryland, in 1801. He 
 ministered to a little colony of Maryland Cath- 
 olics in Locust Grove, Georgia, at a later date, 
 and after seventeen months' missionary work at 
 that place, returned to France. 
 
 The Reverend Fathers Louis Sibourd and 
 James Charles Halbout were in the city in 1797. 
 The former had labored as a pioneer missionary 
 in Pennsylvania as early as 1794. He seems to 
 
424 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 have been on a short visit to the city at this time, 
 but was attached to St. Peters in 1807-8. He 
 served, subsequently, as a IVIissionary Apostohc 
 in San Domingo. Father Halbout was in the 
 city about seven montlis, and his name appears 
 on St. Peter's baptismal register. 
 
 A yellow fever epidemic raged in the city from 
 July 29th to November 29th, and the mortality 
 rose to 2,086. One of the victims was Jose Roiz 
 Silva. Among the contributors for the aid of 
 the sufferers was Dominick Lynch, who gave an 
 ox, 2 pigs, 2 lambs, 80 chickens and 16 bushels of 
 potatoes. 
 
 Among the noted Irish immigrants who came 
 to New York, as a result of political activity in 
 the Rebellion of 1798, was WiUiam O'Brien. He 
 established a banking house in the city in 1800, 
 and, it is said, refused the New York agency of 
 the Bank of England. He died, at the age of 
 seventy-eight years, August 31st, 1846. He was 
 an ancestor of the deeply lamented Father Will- 
 iam O'Brien Pardow, the eminent Jesuit. 
 
 A Frenchman who found fortune in New 
 York was Stephen Jumel, who arrived from 
 France in 1798. He became an importer, and 
 opened a store at No. 39 Stone Street, removing 
 fifteen years later to No. 69 Liberty Street, near 
 Broadway, and finally locating at the corner of 
 Pearl and Whitehall streets. His first wife dy- 
 ing, he married, in 1801, Eliza Bowen Croix, 
 born at sea, of French parents, and the widow 
 of Colonel Peter Croix, of the British Army. 
 Jumel, who had amassed a great fortune, bought 
 from the INIorris estate the mansion and grounds 
 bounded by the present Edgecombe Road, Jumel 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 425 
 
 Terrace, and 160th and 161st streets. Jumel 
 imported from France the finest hangings, plate 
 and furniture for the old mansion. Prince 
 Jerome Bonaparte, General Moreau and all the 
 distinguished -Frenchmen who came to the city 
 were entertained within its hospitable walls. 
 Jumel died in 1832, and was interred in the 
 Eleventh Street Cemetery. His widow married 
 Aaron Burr shortly after his death, but the union 
 was unhappy and short-lived. Madam Jumel 
 died in 1865. The Jumel Mansion was recently 
 purchased by the Daughters of the Revolution, 
 and is maintained as a museum. 
 
 About 1797, and for years after, on patriotic 
 holidays, a short, stout figure, clad in a worn and 
 faded Continental naval uniform, attracted at- 
 tention as it promenaded down Broadway to 
 Bowling Green. It was the unhappy, unfor- 
 tunate, and, many thought, deranged, " Ad- 
 miral " Pierre Landais. He was of a noble and 
 wealthy French family, and entered the French 
 navy in 1762. He saw active service in 1763, 
 circumnavigated the globe with Bougainville in 
 1766-67-68, and commanded a line-of -battle ship 
 in 1773. 
 
 When the American colonies rose against Eng- 
 lish misrule, Landais sacrificed a promising 
 career in the French service to assist the Amer- 
 icans. Baron Steuben recommended him, and 
 the American commissioner in France, Silas 
 Deane, gave him command of the ship " Flam- 
 mand," loaded with military stores for the Amer- 
 icans. He eluded the British cruisers sent out to 
 intercept him, and landed his much-needed cargo 
 in a friendly port. The JNIarine Committee of 
 
426 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Congress praised his skill in executing his task, 
 and Congress gave him a commission as captain 
 in the navy and voted him 12,000 livres for his 
 services. The Marine Committee gave him su- 
 perintendence over the building of the warships 
 at Portsmouth and Salisbury, calling him in their 
 report " an excellent sea officer and skilled in the 
 construction of ships-of-war." In the summer 
 of 1778 Landais was placed in command of the 
 newly-launched frigate " Alliance," 36 guns, and 
 carried General Lafayette and his staff to 
 France, quelling a mutiny on the voyage. 
 
 In Brest, August, 1779, Landais met John 
 Paul Jones, a man with almost as ill-balanced a 
 mind as his own, and an enmity grew and in- 
 creased between them. A little squadron of four 
 vessels had been gathered at the port, and to these 
 the " Alliance " was joined. There was serious 
 friction as to who should command. After this 
 question had been settled by the selection of 
 Jones, the ships sailed, August 14th. The squad- 
 ron fell in with the Baltic fleet of merchantmen 
 convoyed by the warships " Seraj)is " and 
 " Countess of Scarborough," September 23rd. 
 In the action that followed Landais was accused 
 of cowardice and treachery. Of the former in 
 holding aloof in the early part of the engage- 
 ment, and of the latter in pouring several broad- 
 sides into the " Bon Homme Richard," Jones' 
 ship, while she was lashed to the " Serapis." 
 Landais' enemies accused him of a design to sink 
 Jones' ship that the glory of capturing the " Ser- 
 apis " might be his. His friends asserted that 
 he M^as an officer educated in the naval warfare 
 of an earlier day, when tactics prescribed every 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 427 
 
 movement in an action, and that Jones was a 
 daredevil who ignored tactics entirely, and that 
 the firing on the " Bon Homme Richard " was 
 due to the fact that Landais was confused bj'' 
 Jones' maneuvers, which were so greatly at vari- 
 ance with those prescribed by the authorities. On 
 arriving in France, Jones and some of the of- 
 ficers of the squadron reported the affair to 
 Franklin, reflecting severely on Landais. Lan- 
 dais promptly called out Captain Cottineau, of 
 the " Pallas," and ran him through. He chal- 
 lenged Jones, but the " canny Scot " did not un- 
 derstand the duello and eluded him. Landais 
 demanded a trial without delay. Franklin or- 
 dered him to Paris to answer the charges. He 
 hurried there, prepared to meet his accusers, but 
 failed to secure a hearing. His old ship, the "Al- 
 liance," was in the port of L'Orient in March, 
 1780, and Landais petitioned Franklin to rein- 
 state him in command. Fourteen officers of the 
 ship signed a testimonial declaring Landais to be 
 a brave and capable commander, and the crew 
 declared that unless arrears of prize money were 
 paid and Landais reinstated in command, they 
 would not man the vessel. Franklin was in- 
 censed at this action, but Arthur Lee, the Amer- 
 ican agent at Paris, ruled that Landais' commis- 
 sion from Congress had never been revoked, and 
 that he was responsible to Congress for the " Al- 
 liance " until relieved. Landais promptly took 
 command and sailed for Boston. 
 
 The Chevalier de Pontgibaud, a passenger on 
 the " Alliance," says in his journal that on the 
 voyage Landais " went out of his mind." " We 
 had previously noticed some peculiarities in his 
 
428 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 manner, and we were soon to acquire the cer- 
 tainty that he was insane." At dinner one day, 
 while Landais was carving a turkey, Commis- 
 sioner Lee helped himself to the liver and was 
 about to eat it, when Landais rose in a fury and 
 threatened to kill him with the carving knife. 
 " He was raving- mad." Some of the crew, sum- 
 moned to the cabin on the order of the commis- 
 sioner, seized and bound Landais. The command 
 for the remainder of the voyage was given to the 
 first officer. 
 
 Landais found in Boston the Court of Inquiry 
 awaiting him. He was declared guilty on Jones' 
 charges, and was summarily dismissed from the 
 American Navy. Returning to France, he en- 
 tered the navy of the French Republic, and 
 was assigned to the command of the frigate 
 " Patriot," 74 guns. Burning with the desire to 
 clear his name in the new world, he resigned his 
 commission and returned to New York. For 
 twenty-three j^ears he haunted the halls of Con- 
 gress, urging his claims for arrears of pay and 
 prize money, but his demands were never heeded. 
 He became poorer and poorer, eking out a mis- 
 erable existence by the aid of an annuity pur- 
 chased by his arrears of prize money. In a 
 memorial to Congress, he said that for seven 
 years he had been compelled to subsist on one 
 dollar a week, and " when at home to do the mean- 
 est drudgery of my lodgings in order to keep my 
 honor and integrity unsoiled and to prolong my 
 life." His closing years were passed in a house 
 on Fulton Street, Brooktyn. In his last illness 
 he was carried, at his request, to Bellevue Hos- 
 pital, and died there, September 17th, 1820. Two 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 429 
 
 years before his death he ordered a tombstone 
 erected over his prospective grave in St. Pat- 
 rick's Churchyard, in INIulberry Street, that bore 
 the following inscription: 
 
 A La Memoire 
 
 de 
 
 PIERRE DE LANDAIS, 
 
 Ancien Contre- Admiral 
 
 au service 
 
 DES ETATS UNIS 
 
 Qui Disparut 
 
 Juin 1818 
 Age 87 ans. 
 
 An infant was born of non-Catholic parents 
 in the city, in 1799, who was destined to become 
 one of the most distinguished Catholic laymen in 
 the history of the community — Henry James An- 
 derson. He was graduated with the highest hon- 
 ors from Columbia College in 1818, and took his 
 degree in medicine at the College of Physicians 
 and Surgeons five years later, but did not prac- 
 tice, devoting his time to mathematical investiga- 
 tion. He accepted a call to the chair of mathe- 
 matics and astronomy at Columbia College in 
 1825, and held that professorship for a quar- 
 ter of a century. He was an accomplished 
 linguist. 
 
 In 1848 he was geologist to the United States 
 Dead Sea Exploring Expedition, under com- 
 mand of Lieutenant W. F. Lynch, U.S.N., 
 and the government published results of his 
 labors in two volumes. He had been for years 
 a zealous seeker after the Truth, and, in 1849, 
 
430 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 while a guest of the astronomer, Arago, he be- 
 came a CathoHc. During the remainder of his 
 days his faith was distinguished by its simphcity 
 and unquestioning loyalty. He was elected a 
 trustee of Columbia College in 1851, and, re- 
 signing his active professorship, was named 
 Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and As- 
 tronomy. He was a member of the first Amer- 
 ican pilgrimage to Rome and Lourdes, in 1874, 
 and when it disbanded he went, at his own ex- 
 pense, to Australia to observe the transit of 
 Venus. Returning by way of India, he was 
 stricken with cholera that ended his life, at La- 
 hore, October 19th, 1875. His large bequests to 
 the Church and to charitable institutions resulted 
 in the Pope conferring on him the decoration of 
 a Knight of St. Gregory the Great. Doctor An- 
 derson became a member of the Society of St. 
 Vincent de Paul shortly after his conversion, and 
 was President of St. Francis Xavier's Confer- 
 ence for two years. He was elected President of 
 the Particular Council of the Society at its or- 
 ganization in 1856, and held a like position in the 
 Superior Council from 1860 until his death. He 
 was also President of the Catholic Union. To 
 his zeal and energy are due in great measure the 
 existence of that world-famous institution, the 
 New York Catholic Protectory. 
 
 John Baptist Alexis Mary de Seze was one 
 of the French nobility ruined and driven from 
 home by the French Revolution to eke out an 
 existence among strangers. He located at No. 12 
 Reade Street, and supported his family by teach- 
 ing music. His daughter, Ellen Eugenia Ade- 
 laide, whose name is on the baptismal register of 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 431 
 
 St. Peter's, married John B. Flandrin, a Broad- 
 way merchant prince of his day. 
 
 Bishop Carroll, in September, 1799, wrote 
 the Reverend Doctor Matthew O'Brien, O.S.D., 
 pastor at Albany, N. Y., offering to appoint him 
 pastor at Natchez, Mississippi, but in September, 
 1800, the trustees of St. Peter's, Thomas 
 Stoughton, Charles Naylor, John Sullivan, John 
 Hogan, Thomas Cavenagh, Dominick Lynch, 
 Andrew Morris and George Barnwall, wrote to 
 the Bishop asking the appointment of an as- 
 sistant clergyman to that congregation, and in- 
 forming him that they had applied to the Rev- 
 erend Doctor Matthew O'Brien, " who intended 
 embarking for Natchez." The Bishop complied 
 with the trustees' request. 
 
 Another Dominican, the Reverend Anthony 
 McMahon, died in New York, in July, 1800. 
 
 I 
 
432 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 CONCERNING CATHOLICITY IN THE CITY AT THE 
 BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 UNTIL THE ERECTION OF THE CITY INTO AN 
 EPISCOPAL SEE, CONCLUDED 
 
 The debt on St. Peter's Church in 1800 was 
 about $6,500, the annual income about $1,500, 
 and the yearly expenses about $1,400. Father 
 Matthew O'Brien, wTiting from No. 54 Robin- 
 son Street, Januaiy 5th, 1801, said: " An organ, 
 organist and choir are on foot and a singing 
 Master attends to form and direct the children, 
 many of whom would surprise you by their per- 
 formance. All is conducted on the plan of Phil- 
 adelphia and Baltimore, and our church is 
 crowded. We have catechism twice a week 
 previous to the singing, are in trim for prepar- 
 ing a first Communion. The organ is more than 
 paid for, 500 dollars, and answers very well, and 
 we have got a Crimson damask Curtain for the 
 altar, to correspond in colour with that which 
 fronts the choir and organ. The next object is 
 a charity school. The trustees promise to meet 
 next week." 
 
 Doctor O'Brien wrote to Bishop Carroll, No- 
 vember 16th: " The Church of New York you 
 have heard about. You will hear also that its 
 congregation has vastly increased, and even now 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 433 
 
 would fill two churches. We will finish our 
 steeple in the ensuing spring and purchase a Bell, 
 our church yard is nearly paid for : We will put 
 a new iron railing to the steps of the Church and 
 open another door. Could we effect a chapel of 
 ease in the extremity of this city, where most of 
 the poor Catholics are thronged it would make 
 us hapj)y." 
 
 The churchyard, or cemetery, referred to in 
 Doctor O'Brien's letter was a plot of nine lots, 
 251x100 feet, on the northwestern corner of 
 Prince and Mott streets, purchased by St. Peter's 
 trustees, INIay 23rd, 1801. Two years later ten 
 more lots in the rear of these were added. Some 
 of the tombstones, dated 1801, indicate that in- 
 terments began soon after the property was ac- 
 quired. From 1796 until 1801 Catholics were 
 buried in what remained of the plot, 100x125 
 feet, around St. Peter's after the church edifice, 
 48x81 feet, had been erected. Only members of 
 the congregation who contributed four dollars 
 yearly had the right of burial in this ground. 
 Prior to 1796, Catholics were interred in Trinity, 
 St. Paul's, or one of the many non-Catholic 
 churchyards in the citj^ 
 
 The green-clad hills of Staten Island, in the 
 vicinity of the quarantine, in the summer of 1801, 
 were studded with white tents and shelters, oc- 
 cupied by the great advance guard of the Cath- 
 olic Irish hosts who, with their descendants, were 
 destined to make the city up the baj^ the greatest 
 Catholic community in the world. Ship fever 
 had broken out in some of the emigrant ships, 
 and Doctor Richard Bayley, the health officer of 
 the port, to protect the city's dwellers, had caused 
 
434 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 the immigrants to disembark at quarantine. 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Seton, Doctor Bayley's daughter, 
 who was not a Cathohc at the time, wrote, June 
 14th, 1801 : " The scenes of misery here are past 
 all description. There are ten large tents, and 
 other shelters fitting up as fast as half-a-dozen 
 carpenters, boatmen and all hands can work. The 
 first thing these poor people did when they got 
 their tents was to assemble on the grass and, all 
 kneeling, adore our Maker for his mercy, and 
 every morning's sun finds them repeating his 
 praise." 
 
 The Reverend Father O'lNIahony arrived in 
 New York from Ireland in the fall of 1801, and 
 Doctor O'Brien recommended him to Bishop 
 Carroll as a suitable appointment to the pas- 
 torate in Albany. 
 
 Another arrival from Ireland, in the same 
 year, was Thomas O'Connor, a native of Dublin, 
 Ireland. He became associated with William 
 Kernan, father of the late Francis Kernan, 
 United States Senator from New York, in 
 founding a settlement on a tract of 40,000 acres 
 in Steuben County, N. Y. The enterprise not 
 meeting his expectations, he returned to New 
 York city and devoted himself to literary pur- 
 suits. He published the first newspaper in the 
 United States devoted to Catholic and Irish in- 
 terests, The Shamrock, or Hihernian Chroni- 
 cle, issued from December 15th, 1810, to June 
 5th, 1813. Under the name The Shamrock, it 
 reappeared, June 18th, 1814, and ceased to 
 exist v/ith the issue of August 16th, 1817. In 
 January, 1819, it was revived as The Globe, a 
 monthly magazine, that lasted about one year. 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 435 
 
 In 1812 he edited the Military Monitor and 
 The War for a short time. In 1815 he wrote 
 " An Impartial and Correct History of the War 
 Between the United States of America and 
 Great Britain " (1812-1815) , and, in 1825, " The 
 Inquisition Examined by an Impartial Re- 
 viewer," which was issued in parts. His son 
 Charles, one of the most eminent members of the 
 American bar, and honored by nominations for 
 Lieutenant-Governor of New York and Pres- 
 ident of the United States, was born in the city 
 January 22nd, 1804. One of his most note- 
 worthy achievements was his service against the 
 notorious Tweed ring. This labor was under- 
 taken solely through devotion to civic purity, and 
 for his services he declined any compensation. 
 Thomas O'Connor, whose pen " was ever directed 
 in vindicating the fame of Ireland, the honor of 
 our United American States, or the truth and 
 purity of his cherished Mother, the Apostolic 
 Church," died February 9th, 1855, and his dis- 
 tinguished son died May 12th, 1884. 
 
 An important body of business men, the Amer- 
 ican publishers, held their first social gathering 
 in the old City Hotel, on Broadway, one day in 
 1802. They had been called together by Matthew 
 Carey, a Philadelphia publisher, and an ardent 
 Catholic. In his address on that occasion Mr. 
 Carey urged " renewed meetings of a like nature 
 as the most effective means for the promotion 
 and diffusion of knowledge." Matthew Carey 
 was born in Ireland in 1760. He received a good 
 education, and when, in his fifteenth year, his 
 father placed a list of twenty-five trades before 
 him and bade him make his choice, he selected the 
 
436 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 trade of printer and bookseller, much to his 
 father's disgust. Two years later he published a 
 treatise on duelling, followed by an address to 
 his fellow Catholics that was so revolutionary in 
 tone as to draw down on its writer the wrath of 
 the British government, and he was forced to fly 
 to Paris. There he met Benjamin Franklin, then 
 representing the United States at Versailles, and 
 Franklin employed him for about a year. Re- 
 turning to Ireland, young Carey published TJie 
 Freemen s Journal, and afterwards The Vol- 
 unteers' Journal. The latter paper became a 
 power in Irish politics, and to its efforts was at- 
 tributed, in great measure, the legislative inde- 
 pendence of Ireland. Accused of libel, because 
 of an attack on Parliament and the ministry, he 
 was arraigned before the House of Commons, in 
 1784, and imj)risoned until Parliament was dis- 
 solved. 
 
 When liberated, he sailed for America, land- 
 ing in Philadelphia ISTovember 15th, 1784. He 
 began the publication of the Pennsylvania Her- 
 ald in 1785. Because of a journalistic diffi- 
 culty with Colonel Oswald, he met him in a duel, 
 January 1st, 1786, and Carey was shot through 
 the thigh bone. Among his achievements w^ere 
 his heroic services as a member of the Philadel- 
 phia Committee of Health during the yellow 
 fever epidemic in 1793. The same year he 
 founded the Hibernian Society to care for the 
 Irish immigrants. He met William Cobbett in 
 controversy and vanquished him. He published, 
 for six years, a magazine called The American 
 Museum. INIatthew Carey married JMiss B. Fla- 
 haven in 1791, and shortly afterwards opened 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 437 
 
 a small bookshop. No citizen of his day was 
 more deeply interested in every public question 
 and movement. Like Fitz Simons, he was an 
 ardent Protectionist, and between 1819 and 1833 
 published fifty-nine pamphlets on the tariff. 
 Numbers of pamphlets and newspapers attest his 
 interest in the questions affecting the United 
 States bank. His political books, " The Olive 
 Branch," " New Olive Branch," and " Essays on 
 Political Economy," are regarded as authorities 
 on the political history of that period. His " Vin- 
 diciae Hibernicae " is a vindication of his coun- 
 trymen from the charges of butcheries alleged 
 to have been committed by them in 1641. 
 
 In 1790 he published the first edition of the 
 Douay Bible issued in the United States. He 
 died in Philadelphia, September 16th, 1839. 
 
 On the " arc de triomphe " in Paris, among the 
 names of the generals of the Revolution is that 
 of Miranda. A soldier of fortune, Francisco 
 Miranda came to New York, in 1803, with a 
 scheme to liberate Venezuela from Spain. His 
 magnetism and charm and his promises of wealth 
 persuaded some of New York's merchant princes 
 to advance the necessary funds, and, with two 
 armed vessels and two hundred volunteers, in- 
 cluding some New York Catholics, he set sail for 
 South America. His force was attacked by the 
 Spaniards at Ocumare, jMarch 25th, 1806, and 
 he lost a number of men. He captured the town 
 of Coro in August, but the apathy of the people 
 caused him to leave for Europe to seek assistance. 
 He returned with Simon Bolivar, in 1810, and 
 went to Caracas, that city having fallen into the 
 hands of revolutionists. Miranda organized 
 
438 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 the government and became Vice-President of 
 Congress. Valencia surrendered to him as Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the revolutionary forces, 
 August 13th, 1811, and he entered Caracas in 
 triumph, April 26th, 1812. He lost the battle 
 of Valencia, fought May 14th, 1812, through 
 treachery, and reverses and discontent caused 
 him to be accused of treachery, and lie was taken 
 prisoner by the revolutionary authorities. He 
 subsequently fell into the hands of the Span- 
 iards, and died in prison, in Cadiz, July 14th, 
 1816, in his sixtieth year. Miranda was a Ven- 
 ezuelan by birth, and at seventeen was a cadet in 
 the Spanish military service, attaining the rank 
 of Captain. He served in the United States in 
 1779 and 1781. Returning to Cuba, he was de- 
 tected trading illegally and was forced to fly to 
 Europe. At the outbreak of the French Revo- 
 lution he entered the revolutionary army, and 
 rose to the rank of Major-General. Condemned 
 by the Directory, in 1797, he fled to England 
 and urged William Pitt to aid him in his designs 
 on Venezuela. Failing in England, he found 
 the needed help in New York. 
 
 Yew New Yorkers know that the librettist of 
 Mozart's famous operas, " Don Giovanni," " La 
 Nozze di Figaro," and " Cosi Fan Tutti," was, 
 for a time, a New York dealer in tea, tobacco 
 and drugs. Lorenzo Da Ponte was born in 
 Ceneda, Italy, March 10th, 1749. His father, 
 Jeremiah Conegliano, was a Jewish leather 
 dealer, and the son's name was Emanuel Con- 
 egliano. When young Conegliano was in his 
 fourteenth year, he, with his father's family, 
 was baptized a Catholic. The Bishoj) of Caneta 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 439 
 
 became interested in the lad, gave him his 
 name, and sent him to the diocesan seminary, 
 where he remained for five years. Father Finotti 
 says that Da Ponte was ordained a priest. Poht- 
 ical troubles caused him to seek asylum in Vienna, 
 and here he met Mozart and wrote the librettos 
 of his operas. He lived for a time in London as 
 secretary to the Italian opera, and arrived in New 
 York June 4th, 1805. In addition to his store- 
 keeping, he taught Italian. In his eightieth year 
 he was appointed Professor of Italian literature 
 in Columbia College. Nine years later he died, 
 and was interred in the Eleventh Street ceme- 
 tery. Father Finotti says he was reconciled to 
 the Church on his deathbed. He wrote many 
 dramas and sonnets, translated into Italian By- 
 ron's " Prophecy of Dante " and Dodsley's 
 " Economy of Human Life," and wrote his 
 " Life " and the " History of the Florentine Re- 
 public and the JNIedici." 
 
 The famous Irish poet, Thomas Moore, ar- 
 rived in New York, a passenger on H. B. JNIajes- 
 ty's frigate " Boston," in 1804. He traveled ex- 
 tensively in the United States. The same year 
 the city was visited by the dashing j^oung French 
 naval officer. Captain Jerome Bonaparte, and his 
 lovely bride, formerly Elizabeth Patterson, of 
 Baltimore, Maryland. The bride's age was nine- 
 teen years, the groom was twenty. William 
 Patterson, the bride's father, had come to Amer- 
 ica from Ireland, a poor emigrant, and had pros- 
 pered until he became the second wealthiest man 
 in Maryland. Among the guests at a ball at the 
 house of Samuel Chase, one of the signers of 
 the Declaration of Independence, was Captain 
 
440 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Jerome Bonaparte, the brother of the First Con- 
 sul of France. He met EHzabeth Patterson, 
 and mutual admiration became love. Worldly- 
 wise William Patterson, aware of the brilliant 
 future that awaited young Jerome, and con- 
 scious that the First Consul would never consent 
 to the union of his young brother with the 
 daughter of an American merchant, endeavored 
 to end the infatuation by sending Elizabeth to 
 Virginia. The lovers corresponded, became en- 
 gaged, and Jerome procured a marriage license. 
 He was persuaded to defer the nuptials until 
 after his nineteenth birthday. William Patter- 
 son, determined that if there was to be a marriage 
 it would be a contract that could not be broken 
 because of flaws, complied carefully with every 
 legal formality. Alexander Dallas, Vice-Consul 
 of France, afterwards Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury, drew the marriage contract, and Archbishop 
 Carroll made the couple man and wife in the 
 presence of the Mayor of Baltimore and other 
 dignitaries. The First Consul sent a message 
 to Jerome that his " youthful indiscretion " would 
 be forgiven if he would leave the " young per- 
 son " in America, but that she would not be per- 
 mitted to set foot on French soil. The young 
 couple sailed for Lisbon in one of ]Mr. Patter- 
 son's ships, and found there a French warship to 
 prevent her landing. Jerome hurried to Paris to 
 plead his cause with his famous brother, and the 
 ship, mth his bride, proceeded to Amsterdam, 
 but its progress was stopped at the mouth of the 
 Texel by two more French men-of-war. Eliza- 
 beth Bonaparte was forced to seek an asylum in 
 England, where her son, Jerome Napoleon 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 441 
 
 Bonaparte, was born, July 5th, 1805. Pope 
 Pius VII was aj^pealed to by Napoleon Bona- 
 parte to annul the marriage, but he refused abso- 
 lutely. The Imx:)erial Council of State passed 
 a decree of divorce, and granted JNIadam Bona- 
 parte a life pension of 60,000 francs annually, if 
 she would return to America and renounce the 
 family name of the Corsican. She consented 
 to return to America, hoping thereby to concili- 
 ate her brother-in-law. Jerome was well rewarded 
 for his desertion. He was created a Prince of 
 the Empire and appointed an admiral, subse- 
 quently a general, and successor to the Imperial 
 throne, in the event of his brother leaving no 
 heir. He was placed on the throne of West- 
 phalia, July, 1807, and the following month was 
 " married " to the Princess Catherine of Wur- 
 temberg. 
 
 After the fall of Bonaparte, Jerome lived in 
 exile. Returning to France, in 1847, he was 
 made a Field Marshal, three years later, and died 
 near Paris in 1860. 
 
 Elizabeth Bonaparte employed every means 
 to maintain the legality of her marriage. When 
 the third Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor 
 of the French she was granted a formal trial. 
 Jerome, the deserter, appealed to the Council of 
 State to forbid his son to use the name of Bona- 
 parte. The council decreed that, while he might 
 use his father's name, he could not be recognized 
 as a member of the Imperial family. When 
 Jerome, senior, died, his widow brought suit for 
 a share of his estate, and, notwithstanding the 
 unimpeachable proof of the validity of her mar- 
 riage, the Court bowed to the will of Napoleon 
 
442 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 and decided against her. Her son was, however, 
 recognized as a legitimate son of France. Many 
 years of EHzabeth Bonaparte's unhappy hfe 
 were spent in Europe. She died in Baltimore, 
 April 4th, 1879. Her grandson, Charles Joseph 
 Bonaparte, a representative American Catholic, 
 is the present Attorney- General of the United 
 States. 
 
 On the morning of Ash Wednesday, March 
 14th, 1805, a woman of thirtj'' years, fatigued by 
 a long walk from her home in the suburbs, en- 
 tered St. Peter's Church. In a letter to a friend 
 she wrote : " A day of days for me, Amabilia. 
 I have been where ? To the church of St. Peter, 
 which has a cross on the top instead of a weather- 
 cock — to what is called here among so many 
 churches the Catholic Church. 
 
 " When I turned the corner of the street it is 
 in — ' Here, my God, I go,' said I, ' my heart all 
 to You.' Entering it, how that heart died away, 
 as it were, in silence before that little tabernacle 
 and the great crucifixion above it. ' Ah ! my 
 God, here let me rest,' I said, as I went down on 
 my knees, and my head sunk on my bosom. If 
 I could have thought of any thing but of God, 
 there was enough, I suppose, to have astonished 
 a stranger in the hurry and bustle of this con- 
 gregation; but as I came to visit His INIajesty 
 only, I knew not what it meant until afterwards. 
 It was a day they receive ashes — the begin- 
 ning of Lent — and the most venerable Irish 
 priest, who seems just come there, talked of death 
 so familiarly that he delighted and revived me. 
 After all had departed, I was called to the little 
 room next to the sanctuary, and made my pro- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 443 
 
 fession of faith as the Cathohc Church prescrihes, 
 and then came away hght of heart, and with a 
 clearer head than I have had these many months, 
 but not without begging our Lord to bury deep 
 my heart, in that wounded side so well depicted 
 in the beautiful crucifixion, or lock it up in His 
 little tabernacle where I shall now rest forever." 
 
 The saintly Elizabeth Ann Seton, after years 
 of spiritual wandering and tribulations, had 
 found peace. Her father, Doctor Richard Bay- 
 ley, born in Fairfield, Connecticut, an eminent 
 physician, who was a surgeon in Howe's army 
 in the Revolution, had endeared himself to Amer- 
 icans by his tender care of the wretched and 
 wounded American prisoners in the hands of the 
 British after the battle of Long Island, and to 
 New Yorkers by his services in securing the nec- 
 essary legislation, and, while health officer, en- 
 forcing proper quarantine regulations for the 
 protection of the port. Elizabeth Seton's mother 
 was Catherine Charlton, daughter of an Epis- 
 copalian clergyman, rector of St. Ann's Church, 
 Richmond, Staten Island. Elizabeth was born 
 in New York, August 28th, 1774<. She married 
 William JMagee Seton in her twentieth year. 
 Bishop Samuel Provost performing the cere- 
 mony in her father's home in John Street. Her 
 father-in-law, William Seton, an old and re- 
 spected merchant of the cit}^ welcomed the 
 young couple to his home. No. 65 Stone Street. 
 
 In the fall of 1794, they moved to No. 8 State 
 Street, facing the Battery, the most fashionable 
 promenade in the city, and in this home Eliza- 
 beth Seton passed several happy years. Her 
 summers were spent in Staten Island, or, if epi- 
 
444 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 (lemic threatened the people of the city, at 
 Bloomiiigdale. Her husband's faiUng health 
 necessitated, in 1803, a European trip. He died 
 in Pisa, December 27th, 1803. In her bereave- 
 ment she experienced the greatest kindness from 
 Philij) and Anthony Filicchi, two patricians of 
 Pisa. Philip, the elder brother, had traveled in 
 the United States in 1785-6 and had met Will- 
 iam Seton in New York. He had married an 
 American woman, a Miss Cowley, and, having 
 made a thorough study of American policies, re- 
 sources and trade interests, he was appointed 
 United States Consul General at Leghorn. Sev- 
 eral years before his marriage. William Magee 
 Seton made a tour of Italy, and at Pisa became 
 the guest of his father's friend. Mrs. Seton and 
 her children returned to New York in June, 
 1804, and Anthony Filicchi accompanied them; 
 " to be a protection to us," wrote ]\Irs. Seton, 
 " he leaves his dear wife and children. He says 
 this is due to all my dear Seton's love and friend- 
 ship for him." For some time Mrs. Seton had 
 been in a state of spiritual unrest and her friends, 
 the Filicchis on the one hand and the Reverend 
 Henry Hobart, of Trinity Church, on the other, 
 labored zealously to restore her to spiritual peace. 
 The outcome was her reception into the Catholic 
 Church. Her family and her friends were hor- 
 rified, and she was ostracized. The Filicchi 
 brothers proved friends indeed. In the most 
 delicate way they assisted her to support her five 
 children. In May, 1805, she engaged with an 
 Englishman and his wife to assist them in an 
 English seminary they had established in the city. 
 Only twelve pupils entered, and the seminary 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 445 
 
 ceased to exist. Archbishop Seton, in his 
 " Memoir " of Mrs. Seton, says there was " con- 
 siderable prejudice against a Cathohc teacher, 
 and many cried out that she was a masked mis- 
 sionary, a disturber of the peace of famihes, a 
 female Jesuit, and it required a vast deal of 
 prudence and Christian forbearance to live at all 
 among such people as those jaundiced Prot- 
 estants. One of the most respectable among 
 them told her plainly that a person might fre- 
 quent the house of a professed Deist, but to con- 
 sort with Catholics was perfectly horrifying." 
 
 Catholic friends came to take the place of 
 those who had abandoned her. Among them 
 were Bishop Carroll and his intimate friends, 
 James Barry, his wife and their daughter Ann, 
 Father John Cheverus, pastor, and afterwards 
 Bishoj), of Boston, who died Cardinal Arch- 
 bishop of Bordeaux, his assistant. Father Ma- 
 tignon, the Abbe J. S. Tisserant, the Reverend 
 Matthew O'Brien, the Reverend Doctor Michael 
 Hurley, O.S.A., and the Very Reverend Louis 
 William Valentine Dubourg, the President of 
 St. Mary's College, Baltimore. These friends 
 were divided in opinion as to the best course 
 for Mrs. Seton. Some advised her to re- 
 move to Montreal, others, among them Doctor 
 Dubourg, urged her to make her home in Balti- 
 more. She decided on Baltimore. For some 
 time her desire had been to found a congregation 
 of women to care for children and orphans, and 
 after her arrival she was admitted to the three 
 simple vows of religion by Bishop Carroll. At 
 that time she adopted a semi-religious habit. 
 With the money oiFering of a young convert a 
 
446 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 farm was bought at Emmetsburg, Maryland, 
 and in June, 1806, Mrs. Seton, her two sisters- 
 in-law and one of the pious women who had 
 joined the community, journeyed, partly by 
 foot, partly in a great canvas-covered wain, to 
 their new home on a spur of the Blue Ridge 
 Mountains. 
 
 The community prospered and pupils flocked 
 to their school. Mother Seton, in 1811, adopted 
 the rules and constitution of St. Vincent de Paul, 
 and in the years that followed sent to various 
 cities little bands of religious women to form 
 communities therein. The sainted woman diqd 
 in Emmetsburg, January 4th, 1821. The pro- 
 cess of her beatification is being promoted by 
 the Vincentian Fathers, who are collecting the 
 data to place before the Ecclesiastical Court in 
 Rome. 
 
 The famous French General Jean Victor 
 Moreau and his wife arrived in New York in 
 December, 1804, and were enthusiastically re- 
 ceived. He made his home No. 225 Broadway, 
 but subsequently removed to No. 129 Pearl 
 Street, Hanover Square. The house, built for 
 Isaac Gouverneur in 1798, was regarded as one 
 of the finest in the city, and was handsomely fur- 
 nished for General Moreau's occupancy. " Here 
 Moreau lived in grand style, entertaining like a 
 Prince." During his stay in the city he was 
 a busy man. In addition to his social duties he 
 found time to dictate " The Life and Campaigns 
 of Victor Moreau, Comprehending his Trial, 
 Justification and Other Events, till the period 
 of his Embarkation to the United States, by an 
 Officer of the Staff." General JMoreau and an- 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 447 
 
 other distinguished Frenchman, Jean Guillaume, 
 Baron Hyde de Neuville, who lived at No. 61 
 Dey Street, founded a school for French chil- 
 dren, which was known as " L'Ecole Econom- 
 ique." It is said that Father Cheverus, of Boston, 
 was one of those who assisted the institution. De 
 Witt Clinton was its president, Hyde de Neu- 
 ville its secretary, and the Irish patriot, Doctor 
 James McNevin, one of its board of managers. 
 The school was located on Chapel Street (West 
 Broadway), between Duane and Reade streets, 
 and afterwards occupied a commodious building, 
 surmounted by a belfry, with spacious grounds, 
 on Anthony (Worth) Street. The institution 
 had its own printing office, managed by Joseph 
 Desnoues, an intimate friend of Thomas O'Con- 
 nor's, and a printer of several Catholic works. 
 It is related that every morning, when they were 
 in the city, Moreau and Hyde de Neuville went 
 to the school and lectured or examined the schol- 
 ars. With the fall of Napoleon and the return 
 of the emigres to France, the Economical School 
 declined until Victor Bancel secured its " good 
 will." Moreau was in the United States from 
 1804 until 1813. Born in Morlaix, France, 
 August 11th, 1763, he was intended for the law 
 and, graduating, had applied for admission to 
 the bar, when the course of his career was 
 changed by his election to the rank of Chief of 
 the Rennois Volunteers in 1791. His rise was 
 rapid. He was made Lieutenant-General in 
 1794, and led an army through a brilliant cam- 
 paign in Flanders. Two years later he com- 
 manded the Army of the Rhine and Moselle, and 
 won a great victory at Heydenheim, but, his sup- 
 
448 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 plies having been cut off, he conducted a mas- 
 terly retreat between three hostile armies, with- 
 out losing- a gun or any of his 7,000 prisoners. 
 
 The brilliant victories at Huningen and Ho- 
 henlinden, and his successful campaigns in Italy 
 and Germany, aroused the jealousy of Bona- 
 parte, who had him accused of complicity with 
 the Royalists. He was tried and, in 1804, sen- 
 tenced to exile. He traveled extensively in Amer- 
 ica, and lived for some time in a villa near Tren- 
 ton, on the DelaAvare River. 
 
 When hostilities began between the United 
 States and Great Britain, in 1812, President 
 Madison, it is said, offered General JNIoreau the 
 command of the United States Army, but events 
 in Europe determined him to ally himself with 
 Russia and Prussia against Bonaparte. During 
 the battle of Dresden, August 27th, 1813, he was 
 mortally wounded. His remains are entombed in 
 the Catholic Chapel in St. Petersburg. The dust 
 of one of his children lies in St. Patrick's Church- 
 yard, in Mulberry Street. Hyde de Neuville, 
 Moreau's friend and companion in exile, came to 
 America in 1806, and returned to France in 1814, 
 returning to this country two years later as JVIin- 
 ister and Consul General, and remaining in 
 Washington until 1822. He was a very import- 
 ant factor in the secret negotiations between the 
 rivals for the French throne. When Bonaparte 
 ruled as Consul, and in the early days of the Em- 
 pire, De Neuville, under the name of Doctor Ro- 
 land, practiced medicine in Lyons, and won a 
 gold medal for his success in the propagation of 
 vaccine. Among his other meritorious public 
 services were his improvements in the French 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 449 
 
 colonial system and his prohibition of slave trade 
 in the French American possessions. 
 
 In the summer of 1805, two hundred and two 
 deaths were the result of a yellow fever epidemic. 
 The local clergy, worn out with ministering to the 
 stricken, were reinforced by the Reverend Doctor 
 Michael Hurley, O.S.A., of St. Augustine's 
 Church, Philadelphia. The Abbe Sibourd was 
 an assistant at St. Peter's at this time. 
 
 Among the exiles of Erin who sought and 
 found fame, fortune and happiness in the young 
 Republic, in 1805, was Doctor William James 
 MacNevin, a native of Galway, who had accumu- 
 lated much experience in his forty-two years. At 
 twelve he had "been sent to his uncle, Baron 
 O'Kelly MacNevin, physician to the Empress 
 JNIaria Theresa of Austria. Baron IMacNevin 
 entered him as a student at Prague, and he took 
 his degree in medicine in the University of Vi- 
 enna in 1784. Ireland called him, he returned to 
 his native land, became one of the leaders of the 
 United Irishmen, and, as a result, spent four of 
 the best j^ears of his life in British dungeons. 
 Released in 1802, he hurried to France and en- 
 listed in the Irish Legion, but, convinced that 
 Bonaparte had no intention of sending an invad- 
 ing army to Ireland, he sailed for the United 
 States, and arrived in New York July 4th. He 
 attained great distinction in the practice of his 
 profession, and, in 1808, was appointed Profes- 
 sor of Obstetrics in the College of Physicians and 
 Surgeons, and three years later to the chair of 
 chemistry and materia medica. He established 
 the first chemical laboratory in the city. In 1826, 
 in conjunction with other distinguished phy- 
 
450 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 sicians, he founded a new medical school, and was 
 on its staff until 1830. Doctor MacNevin's ar- 
 dent love for his native land never grew cold. He 
 was President of the " Friends of Ireland," and 
 his name was on the roll of every Irish society. 
 He was a man of great learning, rare accom- 
 plishments, and a linguist. Despite his profes- 
 sional duties, he was a writer on medical, scien- 
 tific and political subjects. Doctor iVIacNevin 
 died in New York, July 12th, 1841. 
 
 Francis Cooper, a Catholic of high standing 
 in the community, was elected Member of As- 
 sembly in 1806, but found his admission to that 
 body barred by John Jay's naturalization oath, 
 which, though annuled in 1801, was still required, 
 and which no Catholic could conscientiously take. 
 The trustees of St. Peter's prepared a petition 
 to the Legislature, which was numerously signed. 
 The obnoxious law was finally abrogated, and 
 Mr. Cooper took his seat during the twenty-ninth 
 session. He served in the Assembly in 1806-7-8 
 and in 1809. 
 
 A free school had been opened by Father 
 William V. O'Brien some time prior to 1800, and 
 in this year an act was passed appropriating pub- 
 lic money for the maintenance of St. Peter's 
 free school. It was in this year that two persons 
 met for the first time, in St. Peter's Church, and 
 that meeting resulted in innumerable blessings 
 to millions of the suffering and helpless. Mrs. 
 Seton met the Very Reverend Louis Valentine 
 Dubourg, and under his inspired guidance grew 
 the resolve that resulted in the organization of 
 the American Sisters of Charity. 
 
 Father Dubourg was born in San Domingo, in 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 451 
 
 1766. He was a seminarian of St. Sulpice when 
 the Revolution began, and embarked at a Span- 
 ish port for the United States in 1794. The fol- 
 lowing year, having completed his studies in Bal- 
 timore, he was ordained. Two years later he was 
 President of Georgetown College. After three 
 years' service in that institution, he went to Cuba, 
 and on his return opened St. Mary's College in 
 Baltimore. He went to New Orleans, in 1812, 
 as Administrator Apostolic of the diocese, and 
 his efforts to arouse the patriotism of Louisian- 
 ians against the invading British was warmly 
 commended by General Andrew Jackson. 
 Father Dubourg traveled to Rome, in 1815, to 
 acquaint the authorities with the condition of the 
 diocese, arid while there was consecrated Bishop. 
 On his homeward journey he visited France and 
 obtained clerical recruits for the American mis- 
 sion. He took a prominent part in the organiza- 
 tion of the Association for the Propagation of 
 the Faith. On his return to America, he made 
 St. Louis his episcopal residence. For nine years 
 he labored unremittingly in founding colleges, 
 missions and convents, not forgetting the spir- 
 itual and material interests of the Indians. In 
 1824 he removed to New Orleans, and, two years 
 later, to the great loss of the American mission, 
 sailed for France and was transferred to the dio- 
 cese of INIontauban, leaving it in 1833 for the 
 Archbishopric of Besan9on. He died within the 
 year. 
 
 The trustees of St. Peter's Church in this year 
 were : Thomas Stoughton, Andrew Morris, Cor- 
 nelius Heeney, Michael Roth, John Hoes, John 
 Hinton and John Byrne. 
 
452 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 Three congenial spirits kept " batchelor's 
 hall," in the opening year of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, over the fur store, No. 82 Water Street. 
 They were Cornelius Heeney, an Irishman, the 
 proprietor of the store, Francis Cooper, a Penn- 
 sylvanian, and John George Gottsberger, an 
 Austrian. The three were deeply interested in 
 the concerns of St. Peter's Church, serving for 
 some years as members of the Board of Trustees, 
 Mr. Heeney as treasurer. He was the donor 
 of the pews and gallery fittings. Both Messrs. 
 Heeney and Cooper were interested in politics, 
 and both served several terms in the Assembly. 
 A native of Kings County, Ireland, Cornelius 
 Heeney's mother died in his boyhood, and his 
 father marrying again, Heeney decided to seek 
 his fortune. He was given a home and employ- 
 ment by a family named Fullard, not far from 
 his native place, and, as he grew older, developed 
 great business capabilities. Parting with his 
 benefactors, he sailed for Philadelphia, and was 
 shipwrecked in the Delaware. He landed in Phil- 
 adelphia, thirty years of age and penniless. A 
 Quaker named INIeade gave him emploj^ment, but 
 after three months he journeyed to New York 
 and found a position as bookkeeper in the store 
 of another Quaker, William Backhous, an Eng- 
 lish furrier, at No. 40 Little Dock Street. In 
 Heeney's native county. Kings, were a number 
 of Quaker residents, and the most cordial rela- 
 tions existed between them and their Catholic 
 neighbors, hence Heeney was no stranger to the 
 manners and customs of the people of that 
 sect. 
 
 There were two commercial geniuses in the 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 453 
 
 employ of ]Mr. Backhous — Heeney, the book- 
 keeper, and John Jacob Astor, the porter. Will- 
 iam Backhous, determining to retire and return 
 to England, gave his business to Heeney and 
 Astor, and they conducted it prosperously for 
 several years. When they separated, Astor con- 
 tinued in the Little Dock Street store and Heeney 
 located at No. 82 Water Street. Wealth flowed 
 in upon him, and his disposition of it entitles him 
 to be described as New York and Brooklyn's 
 greatest Catholic philanthropist. It is estimated 
 that his benefactions to church and charitable 
 institutions in the early days of the New York 
 diocese amounted to more than $60,000, regarded 
 as a great fortune in those daj^s. St. Peter's 
 Church was a special object of his generosity, 
 and his love for the old church prompted him, 
 some years after, when he gave the ground for a 
 site for St. Paul's Church, Brooklyn, to stipulate 
 that it should architecturally conform to St. 
 Peter's. For the establishment of the Prince 
 Street orphanage he gave $18,000 and some prop- 
 erty, and journeyed to Emmetsburg to appeal to 
 his friend, Mother Seton, to send a band of her 
 sisters to undertake the care of the little orphans. 
 He and Andrew INIorris took title to the site on 
 Fifth Avenue now occupied by St. Patrick's 
 Cathedral, which was purchased for a cemetery, 
 November 5th, 1828, at a cost of $5,500. Mr. 
 Heeney retired from business about 1835. He 
 made his home in Brooklyn, in a large, double 
 frame mansion, surrounded by seventeen acres 
 of ground, for which he paid $7,500, in 1806, 
 bounded by the present Congress, Amity and 
 Court streets and the East River, From its win- 
 
454 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 dows he could see the lower part of the city across 
 the river that had been the scene of his commer- 
 cial success. On the east side of the house was a 
 great flower and vegetable garden, its plot sur- 
 rounded by a carefully-kept box-hedge, and the 
 lane that led to Henry Street was bordered with 
 rows of Irish hawthorn that Mr. Heeney had 
 imported from Ireland. The Fullards, who had 
 given him a home in his boyhood, had been re- 
 duced to poverty by domestic troubles and busi- 
 ness reverses, and JNIr. Heeney brought three sis- 
 ters of the family, then advanced in years, to 
 America, and installed one of them as his house- 
 keeper. 
 
 When the seminary at Nyack was destroyed 
 by fire, in 1833, Mr. Heeney offered Bishop Du- 
 bois a tract of land on the present Congress, Clin- 
 ton Court and Warren streets for the institution. 
 The excavation was made and stone gathered for 
 the structure, but INIr. Heeney had strong con- 
 victions in the matter of the rights of lay trustees, 
 and the Bishop's convictions were equally as 
 strong in opposition. They could not agree, and 
 jNIr. Heeney refused to give the Bishop clear 
 title. The site was subsequently donated for a 
 new church, and in time St. Paul's Church was 
 erected. Mr. Heeney was a great lover of chil- 
 dren, and house and grounds were enlivened by 
 the prattle and play of the little ones. There 
 was one ceremonial which all youthful visitors 
 were compelled to observe. At the beginning 
 and end of every visit each child was expected to 
 enter the sitting-room and curtsey or bow to the 
 quaint-looking little man seated in the large arm- 
 chair. One small boy, John McCloskey, was 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 455 
 
 JNIr. Heeney's ward. Long years after he be- 
 came America's first Prince of the Church. 
 
 The bulk of JNIr. Heeney's income had been 
 devoted to charity, and he determined that his 
 fortune should be given to the poor, but, with his 
 usual business sagacity, he arranged all the de- 
 tails during his lifetime. The Legislature, at his 
 request, passed an act. May 10th, 1845, incorpo- 
 rating " The Trustees and Associates of the 
 Brooklyn Benevolent Society." The act pro- 
 vided that the corporation could take and hold by 
 deed of gift from Cornelius Heeney parcels of 
 land lying between Hicks, Columbia, Congress 
 and Amity streets, and further real or personal 
 estate conveyed to them, one-fifth of the income 
 from the estate to be expended in supplying poor 
 families, gratuitously, with fuel during the win- 
 ter ; one-tenth to be used in the purchase of shoes, 
 stockings and other articles of clothing for 
 poor school children, and $250 a year as the 
 salary of a teacher of spelling, writing, reading 
 and aritlmietic for poor children, the whole clear 
 surplus to be applied solely to the support and 
 education of poor orphan children between the 
 ages of four and fourteen years. The income of 
 the estate amounts to about $25,000 annually, 
 and the expense of administering it is about five 
 per cent. Since the Society's organization, more 
 than $1,000,000 has been disbursed as Mr. 
 Heeney directed. He personally interested him- 
 self in the operations of the charity, attending a 
 meeting for the last time JNIarch 27th, 1848. He 
 died IVIay 3rd following, and his remains were 
 placed in a vault he had prepared in the rear of 
 St. Paul's Church. 
 
456 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 In the early days of St. Peter's, it was evi- 
 dently the custom to usher in the Feast of Our 
 Lord's Nativity with midnight Mass, but, no 
 doubt owing to the disorderly characters who pro- 
 faned the solemnity, the midnight service was 
 discontinued in 1806. On Christmas Eve the 
 church was surrounded by a crowd of sight- 
 seers and roughs, which became riotous when 
 informed that the edifice would not be opened. 
 The disorder was quelled by some members 
 of the congregation. The next day the same 
 element, known at that time as " High-Bind- 
 ers," invaded Augusta Street (City Hall 
 Place), chiefly populated by Catholic Irish, 
 and assaulted several persons. A riot resulted, 
 in which Christopher Neurwauger, a watchman, 
 was killed, and several others injured. Mayor 
 De Witt Clinton issued a proclamation offering 
 a reward for information that would lead to the 
 apprehension of the ringleaders of the disturb- 
 ances and for the person or persons w^ho killed 
 Neurwauger. 
 
 Among the early prominent Catholic laymen 
 of the city were Benjamin Desobrey, a French 
 emigre, whose business was at No. 261 William 
 Street and No. 28 Pearl Street. He returned to 
 France after the restoration of the Monarchy. 
 Peter Burtsell, who lived for many years at 
 No. 10 Wall Street, was an ancestor of the 
 eminent Monsignor Burtsell and uncle of the 
 Reverend James A. Neill, the first native son 
 of New York to be admitted to the priesthood; 
 M. Delonguemare, No. 32 William Street; Jo- 
 seph Icard, a French merchant and an eminent 
 architect. M. Icard's place of business was at 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 457 
 
 No. 14 Rector Street, and his home at No. 93 
 Greenwich Street, afterwards at No. 308 Broad- 
 way. In the dark days of the War of 1812 he 
 subscribed $20,000 to a government loan. After 
 the fall of Bonaparte he returned to France and 
 amassed a fortune in public works; John R. 
 Skiddy, a shipmaster, lived at No. 141 Front 
 Street. Hugh McGinnis came from the north of 
 Ireland to New York about 1798. He made and 
 lost several fortunes, and at one time held the 
 office of Tobacco Inspector. He served as a 
 trustee of St. Peter's; Matthew Carroll, No. 78 
 Vesey Street; Thomas Fleming, with an office at 
 No. 25 Broad Street; Garret Byrne, No. 23 Bed- 
 loe Street; Dennis Doyle, who once owned the 
 site of St. Patrick's Cathedral; Lawrence Gou- 
 dain, of No. 30 Pearl Street; Robert Fox, No. 76 
 Water Street; Hugh O'Hara, No. 28 Bedloe 
 Street; I. B. Durand, No. 114 Pearl Street; 
 Dennis McCarty, No. 57 East George Street; 
 John Corgan, No. 81 Catherine Street; Thomas 
 Glover, No. 246 Pearl Street; Louis Laroue, 
 No. 10 Roosevelt Street; Michael Roth, No. 
 23 Partition Street; James Walsh, No. 14 
 Skinner Street; INIiles F. Clossey, No. 163 
 Broadway; Anthony Trapani, a native of Meta, 
 near Naples, was a pioneer of the great host 
 of Italians who have since made the city their 
 home. He was, it is said, the first foreigner 
 to be naturalized after the ratification of the 
 Constitution. He was an importer of fruit 
 and cigars, at No. 139 Fly JNIarket; Francis 
 Varet came to the city from San Domingo about 
 1797, and lived at *No. 26 Reade Street. In 
 1804 his store was at No. 112 Chatham Street. 
 
458 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 He was at one time the largest importer of silk in 
 New York. 
 
 Griffith's in his " Annals of Baltimore," says 
 that the Catholic population of New York city, 
 in 1807, was estimated at 14,000, " a large part 
 of whom are refugees from St. Domingo and 
 other islands." In this year Bernard Dornin, 
 New York's first Catholic publisher, opened a 
 book store and publishing business in No. 136 
 Pearl Street. He issued, in 1807, an edition of 
 Pastorini's " History of the Church." The New 
 York city subscribers numbered 318. Two years 
 later 144 New Yorkers subscribed for an edition 
 of Fletcher on " Religion Controversy." Dor- 
 nin subsequently carried on the Catholic publish- 
 ing business in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and 
 died in the latter city, in 1823. 
 
 Father William V. O'Brien, in his sixty-eighth 
 year, and broken in health because of his heroic 
 and tireless ministrations to the sick and dying 
 during the yellow fever epidemics of 1795 and 
 1798, was unable to cope with the great pressing 
 problems that grew with the growth of Catholic- 
 ity in the city. Father Matthew O'Brien, his de- 
 voted brother and assistant, hourly occupied with 
 ministering to his immense charge, had not the 
 time to solve problems. St. Peter's held the 
 faithful in the downtown district, but the con- 
 stantly growing Catholic population in the sub- 
 urbs was in urgent need of spiritual guidance. 
 Priests and laity were filled with joy, therefore, 
 when, in the summer of 1808, the great news 
 reached the United States that Pope Pius VII 
 had, by his Bulls of April 8th, divided the diocese 
 of Baltimore, and erected the Sees of New York, 
 
BISHOP RICHARD LUKE CONCANEN 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 459 
 
 Philadelphia, Boston and Bardstown, Kentucky. 
 The learned Dominican, Father liichard Luke 
 Concanen, had heen appointed Bishop of New 
 York, and it was announced that he would bring 
 with him to America a Brief and the Pallium for 
 John Carroll, the patriot, who had been made 
 Archbishop of Baltimore. It w^as with great 
 reluctance that the student monk was reconciled 
 to wearing" the miter. He was consecrated with 
 great pomp in the Church of the Nuns of St. 
 Catherine, at Rome, April 24th, 1808, by Car- 
 dinal de Pietro, and left for Leghorn to take 
 passage for New York. The disturbed condition 
 of the country, owing to the Napoleonic wars and 
 the sequestration of American ships by the 
 French, made it impossible for him to sail. The 
 anxiety of two years' fruitless endeavor to reach 
 his diocese proved too much for him, weakened 
 by a protracted illness, and he died in Naples, 
 June 19th, 1810. As day succeeded day, and 
 the eagerlj'^-expected Bishop did not arrive in his 
 diocese, the joy caused by the news of his ap- 
 pointment turned to something like dismay. 
 There was urgent need of a head to direct the 
 faithful, whose numbers were increased by every 
 emigrant ship that entered the bay. The knowl- 
 edge of these conditions added to the anxiety and 
 grief of Bishop Concanen, and prompted him 
 to send to Archbishop Carroll a general authority 
 over ecclesiastical matters in the New York dio- 
 cese. 
 
 Whenever, in the early history of New York, 
 the Catholics needed assistance, one of the Soci- 
 ety of Jesus hurried to their aid. They were the 
 ministers, often at the peril of their lives, to the 
 
460 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 first of the faithful to settle here ; they organized 
 the first congregation, and one of them was sent 
 by Archbishop Carroll to organize the diocese. 
 In December, 1808, the Jesuit Father Anthony 
 Kohlmann came to the city. He was a French- 
 man, thirty-seven years old, a graduate of the 
 Colleges of Colmar and Freiburg. After his 
 ordination, in 1796, he joined the Society of the 
 Sacred Heart. Driven from Belgium by the 
 Revolution, he settled at Hagenbrunn, Austria. 
 During an epidemic in 1799, he was called the 
 " Martyr of Charity " by the sufferers because 
 of his self-sacrificing zeal in their behalf. Next 
 he is found nursing sick soldiers in Italy, after- 
 wards president of a college in Bavaria, and later 
 of a college in Holland. On the re-establishment 
 of the Jesuit order he joined it, and, coming to 
 America in 1806, was appointed a visitor to the 
 congregations in Pennsylvania. Two years later 
 he was transferred to the diocese of New York 
 and was appointed, vmder Archbishop Carroll's 
 authority from Bishop Concanen, Vicar-Gen- 
 eral and Administrator. Father Kohlmann ar- 
 rived in the city at a time of great commercial 
 depression, produced by the passage by Con- 
 gress, December 22nd, 1807, at the recommenda- 
 tion of President Jefferson, of an act prohibiting 
 the departure from United States ports of all 
 cargo-laden vessels. This embargo was repealed 
 by an act of February 27th, 1809. During the 
 first three months of its enforcement 500 ships 
 were tied at the New York wharves, there were 
 120 business failures, amounting to $5,000,000, 
 and thousands were unemployed. The popula- 
 tion of the city numbered about 85,000. The 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 461 
 
 number of inhabitants had trebled in twenty 
 years, and the improvements had kej)t pace with 
 the growth of the population. 
 
 Broadway from the Battery for a mile and a 
 half was lined with, for that day, lofty red brick 
 buildings, chiefly dwellings near the Battery, 
 and large stores further up the thoroughfare. 
 Its brick-paved walks were shaded by trees, and 
 the roadway was well-paved. Between Broad- 
 way and the Bowery road were unfinished streets 
 and detached buildings. The City Hotel, on 
 Broadway, its grade floor occupied by well- 
 stocked stores, was one of the most imposing 
 buildings in the city. Mechanic Hall, at the cor- 
 ner of Broadway and Robinson Street, was an- 
 other fine structure. On Broadway, corner of 
 Rector Street, Grace Episcopal Church, a plain 
 brick edifice, had been erected recently. Facing 
 Bowling Green, with its pedestal from which the 
 patriots had pulled down the statue of George 
 III, stood the Government House, erected as an 
 executive mansion on the site of the old fort, at 
 this time occupied as a custom house, and one 
 hundred years later to be occupied by a marble 
 palace devoted to the same purpose. The City 
 Hall, formerly Federal Hall, on Wall Street, 
 had grown old, shaky and inadequate to accom- 
 modate the public departments of the growing 
 city's government. The corner stone of a new 
 City Hall, destined to be one of the most admired 
 buildings for many a day in the United States, 
 was laid on the Park, or Common, in May, 1803. 
 Ten years elapsed before the completion of the 
 edifice. Facing the Park, or Common, were Me- 
 chanic Hall, the theater and some of the best 
 
462 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 dwellings in the city. In the Park were flourish- 
 ing elm, plane, willow and catalpa trees, and the 
 sidewalks on Broadway and Chatham Street, 
 bounding the Park, were bordered with rows of 
 stately poplars. The theater, with a seating 
 capacity of 1,200, was unfinished, exteriorly, but 
 so handsomely decorated and appointed within 
 as to vie with London's favorite playhouses. All 
 the London successes were reproduced on the 
 New York boards, and several of Shakespeare's 
 plays. " The only fault is," wrote a visitor to 
 the city, " that they are too much curtailed, by 
 which they often lose their effect; and the per- 
 formances are sometimes over by half past ten, 
 though they do not begin at an earlier hour than 
 in London." The New Yorkers of that day be- 
 lieved in keeping early hours. 
 
 In the summer the Vauxhall and Ranelagh 
 gardens, with their band concerts and theatrical 
 and fireworks exhibitions, were favorite resorts. 
 There were thirty-four churches in the city, 
 five banks and nine insurance companies. Every 
 day except Sunday was market day, and the 
 Exchange, Fly, Oswego, Bear, Catherine Slip 
 and New Markets were busy centers of bar- 
 ter and sale. Thirty-one charitable and benevo- 
 lent organizations took care of the poor and un- 
 fortunate. Twenty newspapers and magazines 
 were published, and on Nassau Street, between 
 Cedar Street and Liberty Street, was a pubhc 
 library of about ten thousand volumes, besides 
 three or four public reading rooms and several 
 subscription circulating libraries. The ordinary 
 cost of carrying on the city government, about 
 this time, was $170,000. Prior to the passage of 
 
IN OLD NEW YORK 463 
 
 the Embargo Act, the older section of the cit5% 
 with its wharves hned ^^'ith shipping, its narrow 
 streets, crowded with drays and pedestrians, its 
 warehouses, counting houses and coft'ee houses, 
 had been the busiest section in the new world. 
 
 Within the twenty years prior to 1808, every- 
 thing in New York had grown and improved 
 with the growth of the population except the 
 Catholic Church organization, and this Father 
 Ivohlmann had been sent to regulate and direct. 
 He found about fourteen thousand Catholics, one 
 church edifice, burdened with debt ; a graveyard ; 
 a parochial school, with about 100 pupils, that 
 would probably have ceased to exist if it had not 
 been assisted with public funds. Such was the 
 condition of the diocese when Father Kohlmann 
 came to New York, and through his heroic 
 labors and those of his co-worker. Father Fen- 
 wick, erected St. Patrick's pro- Cathedral and 
 established the New York Literary Institution 
 on what is now the corner of Fifth Avenue and 
 Fiftieth Street. On that corner, from the pul- 
 pit of St. Patrick's Cathedral, His Grace John 
 M. Farley, the beloved Archbishop of New 
 York, announced, Sunday, February 2nd, 1908, 
 the arrangements for the celebration of the 
 centenary of the establishment of the diocese. 
 He reminded his hearers that the present num- 
 ber of Catholics in the archdiocese was 1,200,- 
 000. That the churches in the archdiocese num- 
 bered 310. That the four priests ministering to 
 the faithful in 1808 had increased to 855 in 1908. 
 One hundred and thirty parochial schools were re- 
 quired to accommodate the pupils that one school 
 could house one hundred years ago. " Beloved 
 
464 CATHOLIC FOOTSTEPS 
 
 brethren," said liis Grace, " what heroic sacri- 
 fice all this implies I need not say to you who are 
 the descendants of the men and women who made 
 all these things possible by their self-denial in 
 order that God's Church might grow, that His 
 holy Faith might be known to all men, that 
 it might be preserved to their children, that 
 His Kingdom might be established and His holy 
 will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. This 
 noble spirit of sacrifice for God's sake is what has 
 brought such abundant blessings on the Church 
 during these one hundred years past." 
 
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 Campaign of 1776 Around Nexo York and Brooklyn. Henry P. 
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466 BIBLIOGRAPHY, ETC. 
 
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 German Element in the War of American Independence. Greene. 
 
 Half Century of Conflict. 2 vols. Francis Parkman. Boston, 
 1899. 
 
 Hessians and the Other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in 
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 Hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the United States. John 
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 Historic and Antiquarian Scenes in Brooklyn and Its Vicinity. 
 T. W. Field. Brooklyn, 1868. 
 
 Historic New York. 3 vols. Half Moon Papers. New York, 
 1899. 
 
 Historical Account of the Incorporated Society for the Propa- 
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 Historical Sketch of Trinity Church, New York. Rev. William 
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 History of Acadia. James Hannay. St. John, N. B., 1879. 
 
 History of Canada. 3 vols. F. X. Garneau. Montreal, 1866. 
 
 History of Commodore John Barry. Martin I. J. Griffin. Phila- 
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 History of Don Francisco de Miranda's Attempt to Effect a Revo- 
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 History of Long Island. 3 vols. Peter Ross, LL.D. New York 
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 Historif of Long Island. Benjamin F. Thompson. New York, 
 1839. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY, ETC. 467 
 
 History of J^eio France. Rev. P. F. Charlevoix, S. J. John 
 
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 New York. 
 History of New York. Wm. Smith, A.M. Albany, 1814. 
 History of New York Churches. J. Greenleaf. New York, 1846, 
 History of New York City. Benson J. Lossing. New York, 1884. 
 History of Neio York City. William L. Stone. New York, 1873. 
 History of New York During the Revolutionary War. Thomas 
 
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 History of Roman Catholicism in North America. Rev. Xavier 
 
 Donald MacLeod. New York. 
 History of the British Army. 2 vols. Hon. J. W. Fortescue. 
 
 London, 1899. 
 History of the Catholic Church in the New Enyland States. 2 
 
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 History of the Catholic Church in the United States. Henry De 
 
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 History of the Catholic Missions Among the Indian Tribes in the 
 
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 N. Y., 1869. 
 History of the City of New York. Mary L. Booth. New York, 
 
 1866. 
 History of the City of New York. 3 vols. Mrs. Martha J. Lamb. 
 
 New York and Chicago, 1877. 
 History of the City of New York. David F. Valentine. New 
 
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 History of the Irish Settlers in North America. Thomas D'Arcy 
 
 McGee. Boston, 185:3. 
 History of the Navy of the United States of America. 2 vols. 
 
 J. Fenimore Cooper. Philadelphia, 1840. 
 History of the Parish of Trinity Church. 4 vols. Rev. J. Morgan 
 
 Dix, D.D. New York. 
 History of the Public School Society of the City of New York. 
 
 Wm. Gland Bourne, A.M. New York, 1870. 
 History of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. 
 
 Rt. Rev. Thomas O'Gorman. New York, 1897. 
 History of the State of New York. 2 vols. John Romeyn Brod- 
 
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 History of the State of New York. F. S. Eastman. New York, 
 
 1831. 
 History of the State of New York. S. S. Randall. New York, 
 
 1870. 
 History of the Tammany Society. E. Vale Blake. New York, 
 
 1901. 
 History of the United States. 10 vols. Geo. Bancroft. Boston, 
 
 1870. 
 Indian Biography. Samuel G. Drake. Boston, 1832. 
 In Old New York. Thomas A. Janvier. New York, 1903. 
 
468 BIBLIOGRAPHY, ETC. 
 
 In Olde New York. Charles Burr Todd. New York, 1907. 
 Irish in America. John Francis Maguire. New York, 1868. 
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 1895. 
 Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (The). Reuben Gold. 
 
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 Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century. Francis 
 
 Parkman. Boston, 1900. 
 Journal of Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Baltimore, Md., 1845. 
 Journals of the American-Irish Historical Society. Boston. 
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 New York, 1789. 
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 1691-1743. Albany, 1861. 
 Landmark History of New York. Albert Ulmann. New York, 
 
 1901. 
 La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West. Francis Parkman. 
 
 Boston, 1900. 
 Life and Administration of Richard, Earl of Bellomont. Fred- 
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 History of New York City. William L. Stone. New York. 187:3. 
 Life of Cardinal Cheverus. Rev. J. Huen Dubourg. Boston, 
 
 1839. 
 Life of Father Isaac Jogues. Rev. Felix Martin, S. J. New 
 
 York, 1885. 
 Life of Mrs. Eliza A. Seton. Rev. Chas. A. "White, D.D. New 
 
 York, 1893. 
 Lives of the Deceased Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in 
 
 the United States. Richard H. Clarke. New York, 1872-1886. 
 Local Catholic History. Thomas F. Meehan in The Catholic 
 
 Nercs. 1907-8. 
 Magazine of American History. New York. 
 
 Manuals of the Corporation of the City of New York. New York. 
 Maple Leaves. 1894. Sir J. M. Le Moine. Quebec, 1894. 
 Market Book (The). Thomas F. De Voe, New York. 
 Memoir, Letters and Journal of Elizabeth Seton. 2 vols. Most 
 
 Rev. Robert H. Seton. New York, 1869. 
 Memoirs of James the Second. London, 1821. 
 Memoirs of the Prince De Talleyrand. 5 vols. Due de Broglie. 
 
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 Memorial Historij of the Ciii/ of Neui York. 4 vols. James Grant 
 
 Wilson, Editor. New York, 1892. 
 Men and Times of the Revolution. Elkanah Watson. New York, 
 
 1861. 
 Military Journal During the American Revolutionary War, from 
 
 1775 to 1783. James Thacher, M.D. Hartford, 1854. 
 Montcalm and Wolfe. 2 vols. Francis Parkman. Boston, 1899. 
 More Colonial Homesteads and Their Stories. Marion Harland. 
 
 New York and London, 1899. 
 Narrative and Critical History of America. 8 vols. Justin Win- 
 
 sor. Editor, New York and Boston. 1887. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY, ETC. 469 
 
 Narrative of Events at Lake George. B. F. De Costa. New 
 
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 New Amsterdam and Its People. J. H. Innes. New York, 190:3. 
 NeiD France and New England. John Fiske. Boston and New 
 
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 New France in the New World. James Douglas, LL.D. Cleve- 
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 Neio York. 2 vols. Ellis H. Roberts. Boston and New York, 
 
 1887. 
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 Horsmanden. New York, 1810. 
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 Philadelphia and London, 1903. 
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 Nooks and Corners of Old New York. Charles Hemstreet. New 
 
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 Old Merchants of New York City. 5 vols. Walter Barrett (Sco- 
 
 ville). New York, 1885. 
 Old Catholic Maryland and Its Early Jesuit Missionaries, Rev. 
 
 W. P. Tracy. Swedesboro, N. J. 
 Old New York. John W. Francis, M.D, New York, 1886. 
 Old New York. Pasco. 
 Old New York Frontier. Francis Whiting Halsej. New York, 
 
 1901. 
 Old Regime in Canada. Francis Parkman. Boston, 1899. 
 Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution. 2 vols. Benjamin J. 
 
 Lossing. New York, 1851. 
 Pioneers of France in the New World. Francis Parkman. Bos- 
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 J. O'Kane Murray. New York, 1876. 
 Recollections of Brooklyn and Neio York. J. Johnson. 
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 Revolutionary Incidents of Suffolk and Kings Counties. H. On- 
 
 derdonk. 1849. 
 St. Laicrence River. George Waldo Browne. New York, 1905. 
 Sir William Johnson. Augustus C. Buell. New York, 1903. 
 Sketches of the Early Catholic Missions of Kentucky. The Rev, 
 
 M. J. Spalding, Louisville, Ky. 
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 New York and London, 1897. 
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 1897. 
 
470 BIBLIOGRAPHY, ETC. 
 
 Thomas Fitz Simons, Pennsylvania's Catholic Signer of the Con- 
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 Two Years' Journal in New York. Rev. Charles A. Wooley, A.M. 
 New York, ISUO. 
 
 United States Catholic Historical Magazine. New York. 
 
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 Maegher Field, Editor. New York, 190:3. 
 
 Verrazano the Navigator. J. C. Brevoort. New York, 1874. 
 
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 190:3. 
 
 MANUSCRIPTS 
 
 The following manuscripts have aflForded much material not 
 heretofore in print: 
 Council Minutes, 1668-1783. New York. State Library, Albany, 
 
 N. Y. 
 New York Colonial Manuscripts. 103 volumes. New York State 
 
 Library, Albany, N. Y. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acadia, now Nova Scotia, 
 passed three times from pos- 
 session of France to England, 
 319; Acadians refuse to take 
 oath of allegiance to Eng- 
 land, 319; Bretons incite In- 
 dians to attack, 319; 18,000 
 souls deported, 318, 319; ar- 
 rive in N. Y., sent to Staten 
 Island, 3:30; children farmed 
 out, 3^0; families scattered, 
 320. 
 
 AcADiAxs seen in N. Y., 317; 
 thirty families dispersed in 
 province, 317; land on L. I., 
 327; imprisoned, 322. 
 
 AccoMAc (Va.), 40, 77. 
 
 Albany, N. Y., ancient ruin 
 near, 11; Dutch Catholic sol- 
 diers sent to, 15, 16; Father 
 Jogues again at, 36; F. Bres- 
 sani ransomed at, 43, 77, 78, 
 80, 88, 91; Dongan grants 
 charter to, 100; Fathers Har- 
 vey, Harrison and Gage in, 
 10*2, 120, 122; Albanians re- 
 fuse to recognize Leisler's au- 
 thority, 151, 155, 214, 343. 
 
 Albany County, 145. 
 
 Alfonso V., King of Portugal, 
 85. 
 
 Algonquins, 22, 23, 42. 
 
 Alien Freemen, crimes against, 
 ■ 72. 
 
 Allefonsce, or Alphonse, 
 Jean, Roberval's chief pilot, 
 12; explores L. I. Souncl, 12, 
 13; sketch of, 12. 
 
 Allyn, John, Secretary of 
 Connecticut, warns against 
 Catholics, 137, 153, 159, 164, 
 165. 
 
 Altham, S.J., Father John, 
 34. 
 
 Amsterdam, 114. 
 
 Andastes Tribe, 23. 
 
 Anderson, Henry James, sketch 
 of, 429, 430. 
 
 Andros, Governor Sir Edmund, 
 arrives in N. Y., 66; comes to 
 take possession of New Neth- 
 erland, 66, 67, 69; sails for 
 England, 72, 73, 74, 75, 78; 
 successor appointed, 80; suc- 
 ceeds Dongan, 108, 112, 117; 
 imprisoned in Boston, 118, 
 158. 
 
 Andros, Lady Mary, 66. 
 
 Angel, Pablo Ventura, Cath- 
 olic Spanish negro, tried for 
 conspiracy, 267. 
 
 Anguileme, 8. 
 
 Anne of Austria, 35. 
 
 Anne, Queen of England, 
 grants King's Farm to Trin- 
 ity Church, 96. 
 
 Ann Street, 107. 
 
 Anorumbega, 11. 
 
 Areskoui, Indian god, 31. 
 
 Arundel, Dohichey, French 
 officer in American army, 349 ; 
 object of anti-Catholic big- 
 otry, 349; killed at Gwynne's 
 Island, 349; General Lee's 
 panegyric of, 349. 
 
 Assembly, General, 88, 89; 
 elected by people, 90; enact- 
 ments, 90, 91 ; adopts Charter 
 of Liberties, 91 ; passes thirty- 
 two laws, 96; refuses appro- 
 priation to feed jjrisoners, 
 238; act for preventing the 
 conspiracy of slaves passed, 
 240. 
 
 Atlantic Ocean, 22. 
 
 Anticosti, Island of, 20. 
 
 xVucHMUTY, Reverend Samuel, 
 D.D., preaches in Trinity 
 against " Popery," 316. 
 
 AURIESVILLE, 36. 
 
472 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Atllox, de, 11. 
 
 "Babylok," F. Jogues terms 
 
 Indian village, 31. 
 Badajos, 10. 
 
 Bandol, Father Seraphin, 
 sketch of, 354, 355; in N. Y., 
 366, 368; says Mass at Span- 
 ish and French embassies, 
 369; sails for France, 386. 
 Barbadoes, 133. 
 Barclay Street, 332. 
 Barnwell, George, 396, 408, 
 
 431. 
 Barre, Governor Lefebvre de 
 
 LA, 78, 95, 97. 
 Barrington, Luke, a convert, 
 
 jailed, 265; escapes, 265. 
 Barry, James, and family 
 friends of Bishop Carroll and 
 Mrs. Seton, 445. 
 Barry, John, Commodore Am- 
 erican Navy, 361; fights last 
 battle of Revolutionary War, 
 361 ; in N. Y., 361 ; sketch of, 
 362; suggested establishment 
 of Navy yards, 365 ; death of, 
 365. 
 Battery, The, 17, 339, 389. 
 Baxter, Captain Jervis, a 
 Catholic appointed Councilor, 
 98, 106; asks leave to with- 
 draw from province, 125; 
 joins Col. Dongan at Mon- 
 mouth, 125. 
 Baxter Street, 11. 
 Bayard Nicholas, 109,112,124; 
 denounced as "Papist," 136, 
 153, 154; warrant for arrest 
 of, 157, 158. 
 Bayley, Dr. Richard, health 
 officer, port of N. Y., 433; 
 cares for Irish immigrants, 
 433; sketch of, 443. 
 Beaubassin, Lieut. Alexander 
 LE Neuf, la Valliere, Sieur 
 DE, in N. Y. with prisoners 
 for exchange, 309, 310. 
 Beauharnois, Charles de la 
 Brische, Marquis de. Gover- 
 nor of New France, 310. 
 Beaujolais, Comte de, in N. Y., 
 422. 
 
 Beaumet, M., in N. Y., 416,417, 
 
 418. 
 Beaver Street, 78. 
 Beekman, Burgomaster Wil- 
 
 LEM, 66, 87. 
 Belair, Sieur Nadeau de, 331. 
 Bellomont, Earl of. Governor 
 of N. Y., sketch of, 198, 199; 
 discovers alleged Huguenots 
 to be Catholics, 200; proposes 
 stratagem to capture Jesuits, 
 202; his contempt for New 
 Yorkers, 203 ; forces adoption 
 of law against priests, 210; 
 urges sending to Indians mis- 
 sionaries able to compete 
 with Jesuits, 212; his rela- 
 tions with Captain Kidd, 213; 
 death of, 214. 
 Berard, John, with wife and 
 slave seek refuge in N. Y., 
 413. 
 Bernard, Chevalier, Canadian 
 prisoner of war in N. Y., 326. 
 Bernier, Lieutenant de, of 
 Royal Swedish Regiment, is 
 carried a prisoner to N. Y., 
 317; wounded at Lake George, 
 317; restrained within bounds, 
 317; sails to England, 317; 
 returns to New France, 317; 
 in charge of military hospital, 
 317; intermediary between 
 French and British, 318; re- 
 turns to France, 318. 
 Beverswyck. (See Albany.) 
 BiLLOP, Lieutenant Christo- 
 pher, 66. 
 Blackwell, John, Governor of 
 
 Penn., 117. 
 BLAU\nELT, Captain, 16. 
 Block Island, 8. 
 Board of Aldermen, 118. 
 
 BOGARDUS, D03IINIE, EvERARDUS, 
 
 19. 
 Bolting Privilege, 79; Dongan 
 
 confirms, 94; disallowed by 
 
 Leisler, 161. 
 Bombay (India), 85. 
 Bonaparte, Chari^s Joseph, 
 
 442. 
 Bonaparte, Jerome, in N. Y. 
 
INDEX 
 
 473 
 
 with his bride, 439; his career, 
 439, 440, 441, 442. 
 
 BoxNEAU, Captaix, Canadian, 
 prisoner of war in N. Y., 3:36. 
 
 BosToisr (Mass.), Plowden in, 
 41, 82, 123, 214. 
 
 Boston Road, 117, 137, 157. 
 
 Boucher, de la Perrikre, 
 French officer in N. Y., 238. 
 
 Bougie, Charles de, Judge of 
 Martinique in N. Y., 305. 
 
 Bourdox, Sieur Jeax, 97; 
 sketch of, 97. 
 
 Bouteroue, M'd'lle de, 57. 
 
 BouviAT, with D'Aux, on em- 
 bassy to Indians, 188. 
 
 Bowling Greex, 80. 
 
 BowNE, Captaix John, 124, 
 125, 136. 
 
 Bradford, William (Printer), 
 tells Rev. J. Talbot of rise of 
 Catholicity in Philadelphia, 
 219. 
 
 Brazil, 13. 
 
 Brebeuf, S.J., Father John, 
 22, 44. 
 
 Brehon, Marquise de, arrives 
 in N. Y., 386; sketch of, 386; 
 American comments on, 386, 
 387. 
 
 Bressani, S.J., Father Fran- 
 cis Joseph, comes to New 
 Amsterdam, 42; captured by 
 Mohawks and tortured, 42, 
 43; received in Rome by Pope 
 Innocent X, 44; returns to 
 Canadian mission, 44; death, 
 44. 
 
 Bressoles, Lieut.-Col. M. Gil- 
 bert DE, 359. 
 
 Briand, Jean Oli\t:r, Bishop 
 OF QxTEBEC, loyal to Great 
 Britain, 340; forbids inter- 
 course with F. Carroll, 344; 
 silences F. Floquet, 344. 
 
 Bridge Street, 48. 
 
 Brissot de Warville, 387, 412; 
 critizes emigres attitude to- 
 wards Americans, 412. 
 
 British Naa'y, 82. 
 
 Broad Street, 49, 80, 332. 
 
 Broadway, formerly Heere- 
 
 Straat, 51, 79, 107, 146, 345, 
 461. 
 
 Brockholls, Anthony, of old 
 English Catholic family, OS; 
 arrives in N. Y., 66; second 
 in command to Andros, 68; 
 sketch of, 68, 69; governs as 
 Commander-in-Chief, 69, 70, 
 71 ; in command of province, 
 72, 73; succeeds Salisbury in 
 Albany, 74, 75; appointed 
 Receiver-General, 76; mar- 
 ries, 76, 77, 78; children bap- 
 tized in Dutch Reformed 
 Church, 76; his Catholicity, 
 78; house in Brouwer's 
 Straat, 80, 88; at Pemaquid, 
 117, 122, 135; arrested and 
 liberated, 137; vote chal- 
 lenged, 152; in N. Y., 1694, 
 195; not permitted to vote, 
 195; accounts audited, 195; 
 obtains land patent at Pom23- 
 ton Plains, N. J., 195; Schuy- 
 ler on, 195; settles at Pomj)- 
 ton, 196; date of death 
 unknown, 196; will offered 
 for probate, 196; children, 
 196, 
 
 Brookha\'en, L. I., 83. 
 
 Brooklyn (Breukelen), Cath- 
 olic fined in, 58, 83. 
 
 Brooklyn Benevolent Society, 
 founded by Cornelius Heeney, 
 455. 
 
 Brooklyn Ferry, 80; granted 
 to N. Y. City, 93, 158, 78; 
 Acadians imprisoned at, 322. 
 
 Brouwer's Straat, 80. 
 
 Bruyas, S.J., Father James, 
 corresponds with Brockholls, 
 72. 
 
 BucKMASTER, Edwaed, 113, 134, 
 137, 165. 
 
 Burke, ^danus, 398; in Con- 
 gress, 398; sketch of, 403, 
 404. 
 
 Burke, Gibbon, 396. 
 
 Burke, Father Nicholas (or 
 Michael), substitutes in St. 
 Peter's, 411. 
 
 Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop of 
 
474 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Salisbury (A>rGLiCAx), Leis- 
 ler corresponds with, 160. 
 
 Burnet, Gov. William, arrives 
 in N. Y., 346; address of 
 Legislature to, 246, 247. 
 
 BuRTSELL, Peter, 456. 
 
 BusHwicK, L. I., 83. 
 
 Byrne, Garrett, 457. 
 
 Byrne, John, 451. 
 
 Cabo de Arenas (See Sandy 
 Hook). 
 
 Cabo de S. Maria, 7. (Sandy- 
 Hook.) 
 
 Cabot, John, 61. 
 
 Cadillac de la Mothe, charted 
 waters of N. Y. harbor, 187; 
 unites with Frontenac in 
 planning capture of N. Y., 
 187. 
 
 Cadiz, 3. 
 
 Caffiniere, Admiral, 187. 
 
 Callieres, Chevalier Hector 
 DE Bennevlte, 187. 
 
 Calvinists, 15; in New Am- 
 sterdam, 34. 
 
 Campeachy, Bay of, 73. 
 
 Canada, 19, 20, 2-2, 335, 337; 
 sentiment changes toward in- 
 vading Americans, 340; 
 " Fourteenth Colony " lost, 
 344; religious division of 
 population, 344. 
 
 Canarsie Tribe, 83. 
 
 Cape Cod, 8. 
 
 Cape May, 38. 
 
 Cape St. Vincent, 4. 
 
 Cape Tourbiente, 20. 
 
 Cape Tralfagar, 3. 
 
 Capske, The, 17. 
 
 Carey, Matthew, issues first 
 edition of Douay Bible in 
 Philadelphia, 408; calls a 
 meeting of American pub- 
 lishers in N. Y., 435; sketch 
 of, 435, 436, 437. 
 
 Carroll, Archbishop John, 
 praises zeal of Father Farmer, 
 338; requested to accompany 
 Congressional Committee to 
 Canada, 341; sketch of, 342; 
 arrives in N. Y., 342; letter of, 
 describing conditions in N. Y., 
 
 343; arrival of commission in 
 Canada, 344; Canadian mis- 
 sion a failure; accompanies 
 Franklin home, 344; ap- 
 pointed Superior of American 
 mission on Franklin's recom- 
 mendation, 345, 368, 375; ex- 
 tract from letter to Trustees 
 of St. Peter's Church, 375; 
 extract from letter to Father 
 Plowden, 377, 378, 380, 381, 
 382; says Mass at Spanish 
 Embassy, 383; pamphlet at- 
 tacking, 405 ; consecrated 
 Bishojj, 409; Archbishop of 
 Baltimore, 459; Bishop Con- 
 canen gives him general au- 
 thority over N. Y. diocese, 
 459; sends F. Kohlmann, S.J., 
 to organize diocese, 460; ap- 
 points him Vicar - General, 
 460. 
 
 Carroll, of Carrollton, 
 Charles, on committee to 
 Canada, 341; sketch of, 342; 
 arrives in N. Y., 342; extract 
 from journal, 343; arrives in 
 Canada, 344; extract from 
 journal, in N. Y., 398; U. S. 
 Senator, 398, 406, 407. 
 
 Carroll, Daniel, in N. Y., 398; 
 representative in Congress, 
 398; sketch of, 398, 406, 407. 
 
 Carroll, Matthew, 457. 
 
 Carteret, Lady, 77. 
 
 Carteret, Sir Philip, 66. 
 
 Casco (Portland), 60; destruc- 
 tion of, 188. 
 
 Cataracouy, 188. 
 
 Catherine, of Braganza, 85. 
 
 Catherine Street, 332. 
 
 Catholics, among Dutch sol- 
 diers on Manhattan Island, 
 16; bulk of population of 
 France, 16; few Non-Cath- 
 olics in Spain, 16; liberty 
 of worship forbidden, 183; 
 proposed disposal of Cath- 
 olics in N. Y., 187; op- 
 pressive enactments against 
 190, 191; hatred of, "incul- 
 cated by Church and State," 
 250; Wm. Livingstone's opin- 
 
INDEX 
 
 475 
 
 ion of, 314, 315; many Cath- 
 olics in regiments in N. Y., 
 
 316, 33:3; F. Hunter in N. Y., 
 
 333; interments of, 433; 
 
 population of N. Y., 458. 
 Caugiinaavaga, 102. 
 Caumoxt, Louis Stephex le 
 
 CouTEULx, in N. Y., 379; 
 
 sketch of, 379. 
 Cavalier, Johx, 79; Catholic 
 
 in N. Y. 1694, 195; office 
 
 holder under Dongan, 196. 
 Cavanagh, Thomas, 431. 
 Caylus, JNIarquis de. Governor 
 
 of Martinique, 398, 299. 
 Cayuga Nation, 23, 57. 
 Celbridge, Ireland, Dongan's 
 
 birthplace, 83. 
 Chabot, Philipe, 9. 
 Chamboult, De, Canadian, 
 
 prisoner in N. Y., 339. 
 Chambre, M. de la, visits N. 
 
 Y., 73. 
 Champlaix, Samuel de, 12, 23. 
 Charles I, King of England, 
 
 grant to Plowden, 37. 
 Charles II, King of England, 
 
 2, 61 ; reaffirms grant to Duke 
 
 of York, 66, 77, 84, 85 ; death 
 
 of, 99. 
 Charlevoix, S. J., P.F.X., on 
 
 Hertel, 58. 
 Charter of Liberties signed by 
 
 Dongan, 9; disallowed bv 
 
 James II., 101. 
 Chase, Samuel, on committee 
 
 to Canada, 341. 
 Chastelaixe, S. J., Father 
 
 Peter, 20, 24. 
 Chastellux, Marquis de, 360. 
 Chateaubriaxd, Fraxcois Au- 
 
 guste Viscouxt de, visits N. 
 
 Y., 410; sketch of, 410, 411. 
 Chaumoxot, S. J., Father 
 
 Peter, J. M., 24. 
 Chesapeake Bay, Verrazano 
 
 misses mouth of, 6, 34. 
 Chesxaye, Charles Aubert, 
 
 petitions for trade license, 
 
 100. 
 Cheverus, Father Johx, 445. 
 Chicheley, Sir Hexry, Gov. 
 
 OF ViRGIXIA, 77. 
 
 Childs, Fraxcis, 408. 
 
 Choiseuil, Couxt de, arrives in 
 city, 330. 
 
 Churcher, William, 129, 137. 
 
 Church Street, 51, 332. 
 
 City Hall, 79, 86, 87, 91 ; Don- 
 gan charter in, 100; alfray at, 
 138, 139, 140; troops quar- 
 tered in, 173; description of 
 new, 257, 332. 
 
 Clarke, George, Lieutenant- 
 Gov., his character, 250; 
 oft'ers reward for incen- 
 diaries, 256; issues proclama- 
 tion on alleged conspiracy, 
 259. 
 
 Clarksox, Matthew, appointed 
 Secretary of N. Y., 154. 
 
 Classis of Alkmaer, Megapo- 
 lensis sent out by, 18. 
 
 Classis of Amsterdam, extract 
 from letters of Megapolensis 
 and Dresius to, "concerning 
 Jesuits, 55 ; letters to, con- 
 cerning Catholics, 78; letters 
 to, from Dominies Selyns, 
 Dellius and Variclv concern- 
 ing Leisler troubles; letter 
 from D. Selyns to, 194; Dom- 
 inies still writing to, concern- 
 ing Jesuit school in N. Y., 
 201. 
 
 Clavaer, Captaix, brings Span- 
 ish prize to N. Y., 216. 
 
 Cliff Street, 335. 
 
 Cliftox, Lieutexaxt - Coloxel 
 Alfred, Lieut.-Colonel of R. 
 C. Volunteers, 355; sketch of, 
 356. 
 
 Clixtox, Admiral George, Gov. 
 of N. Y., 289. 
 
 Clossey, Miles F., 457. 
 
 COLDEX, LlEUT.-GoV. CaDWAL- 
 
 LADER, refuses to release Aca- 
 dians, 331. 
 
 C o L E R u s. Major Cretien", 
 French officer in American 
 army, 349. 
 
 CoLiGXY, Admiral, 13. 
 
 CoLix, an interpreter, 188; 
 burned, 188. 
 
 CoLOXiAL CouxciL adopts reso- 
 lution against Indian slavery, 
 
476 
 
 INDEX 
 
 73; urges Leisler's execution, 
 183. 
 
 Columbia College (see also 
 King's), legislature makes it 
 non-sectarian, 385, 439. 
 
 CoLVE, Gov. Anthony, delivers 
 New Orange to English, 65, 
 6Q; absolves Dutch from alle- 
 giance, 67; sails from N. Y., 
 67. 
 
 Committee of Safety, 145, 151 ; 
 assemblage renews fealty to, 
 154. 
 
 CoMMOX Council, 118, 307. 
 
 CoNCANEN, Bishop Richard 
 Luke, appointed Bishop of 
 N. Y., 459 ; consecrated in 
 Rome, 459; unable to sail for 
 America, 459; grants general 
 authority to Archbishop Car- 
 roll over diocese, 459; dies 
 before reaching America, 
 459. 
 
 Coney Island, 119, 134, 214. 
 
 Connecticut claims N. Y. ter- 
 ritory, 77, 80, 93, 124; loans 
 cannon and men to Leisler, 
 145 ; delegates warning 
 against "Popery," 145, 146; 
 recalls troops from N. Y., 
 153, 328. 
 
 Congressional Congress, 335 ; 
 address people of Great Bri- 
 tain, 336; address inhabitants 
 of Quebec, 336, 337; Cana- 
 dians denounce it as " perfi- 
 dious and double-faced," 341 ; 
 sends committee to Canada, 
 341. 
 
 CooDE, John, 117, 160. 
 
 CooLEY, John, Catholic in N. 
 Y. in 1694, 196; blacksmith 
 in fort until 1700, 196. 
 
 Cooper, Francis, elected to As- 
 sembly 450,452; trustee of 
 St. Peter's Church, 452. 
 
 CooTE Richard. (See Bello- 
 mont. Earl of.) 
 
 CoRCHAUG Tribe, 83. 
 
 CoRGAN, John, 457. 
 
 Cornbury, Lord (see Hyde), 
 216; embezzles public funds, 
 217. 
 
 Corne de St. Luc, Canadian, 
 prisoner in N. Y., 339. 
 
 CoRNELis, Marten, 76. 
 
 CoRRivEAu, Captain Jacques, 
 Canadian, prisoner of war in 
 N. Y., 326. 
 
 Corsairs, 4. 
 
 CoRTEZ, Hernando, 2, 4. 
 
 CoRVAN, William, kidnapped 
 mulatto, 72. 
 
 CoTTEREL, Robert, shot for al- 
 leged mutiny, 212. 
 
 Cottomaer (Captain), 163, 164. 
 
 CouLON, Rene, French-Cana- 
 dian agent in N. Y., 219. 
 
 Counties, division of province 
 into, 91. 
 
 Courcelles, Governor Daniel 
 DE Remi de, 57. 
 
 CouREURs de Bois negotiate with 
 Bellomont, 212, 213. 
 
 Courts, Dongan erects, 98. 
 
 Couture, William, 28, 30. 
 
 Cregier, Captain Martin, 51. 
 
 Crevecceur, Jean Hector St. 
 John de, agent of French 
 packet line, 336; French Con- 
 sul General, 366; trustee of 
 Catholic Church, 370; sketch 
 of, 370, 371, 372. 
 
 Cruz, Antonia de la, Spanish 
 Catholic negro, tried for con- 
 spiracy, 267. 
 
 Cuba, 16. 
 
 Cunningham, Philip, Catholic 
 in N. Y., 1694, 195. 
 
 " Curse of Cowardice," pam- 
 phlet urging recruiting, 329. 
 
 CuYLER, Lieutenant Henry, 
 125, 126, 127, 128, 129. 
 
 Daille, Pastor Pierre (Hugue- 
 not), abused by Leisler, 170. 
 
 D'Aillebout, Gov. Louis, 52, 
 
 Danby Fort, 39. 
 
 Danby, Sir Thomas, grant to, 
 by Plowden, 39. 
 
 Daniel, S. J., Father An- 
 thony, 22, 25, 44. 
 
 Dankers and Sluyters (Laba- 
 dists), 11. 
 
 D'Anselme, Col. M., 360. 
 
 D'Anville, Admiral, 306. 
 
 Da Ponte, Lorenzo, in business 
 
INDEX 
 
 477 
 
 in N. Y., 438; sketch of, 438, 
 439; professor in Columbia 
 College, 439; death of, 439. 
 
 D'Arismonde, Miguel, sent to 
 Boston for exchange, 197. 
 
 Darre, Fidele, French officer in 
 American army, 349. 
 
 D'Aux, Chevalier Pierre, 
 SiEUR DE JoLLiET, named by 
 Indians Dionakaronde, pris- 
 oner in fort in N. Y., 186; 
 ambassador to Onondagas, 
 188; captured by Indians and 
 sent, a prisoner, to Leisler, 
 188; teaches Dominie Varick 
 French, 188; appeals in be- 
 half of French women and 
 children, 189; escapes, recap- 
 tured, 189; in Boston, 189; 
 again escapes, reaches Cana- 
 da, death of, 189. 
 
 Davost, S. J., Father Ainibrose, 
 22, 25. 
 
 Dedham (Mass.), 82. 
 
 Deerfield, 60. 
 
 Dekannisore or Tegaxxisor- 
 Exs, Onondaga sachem and 
 orator, 201; sketch of, 201,- 
 202 ; death, 202. 
 
 De Laxcey, Lieut. -Gov. Jajies, 
 to Lords of Trade, 314; suc- 
 ceeds Gov. Hardy, 322; or- 
 ders all French prisoners of 
 war and Acadians impris- 
 oned, 322. 
 
 De la Nov, Peter, 144; elected 
 Mayor of N. Y., 152. 
 
 Delaware, 78. 
 
 Delaware Bay, Robert Evelin 
 explores, 40. 
 
 Delaware River, Swedish set- 
 tlements on, 38. 
 
 Dellius, Dominie Godfrey 
 (Dutch Reformed), flees to 
 Boston to escape Leisler, 169; 
 receives £60 formerly paid to 
 Dongan's chaplains, 182; on 
 embassy to New France, 200. 
 
 Delonguemare, M., 456. 
 
 Demuraux, Canadian, prisoner 
 of war in N. Y., 339. 
 
 Dexonville, James Rexe de 
 Brisay, Governor-General of 
 
 New France, Letters to Don- 
 gan, 89 ; threatens to burn Al- 
 bany, 101, 104; seizes 50 Iro- 
 quois, 104; advice to Louis 
 XIV., 109; obeys Dongan's 
 ultimatum, 109, 188. 
 De Nouii, S. J., Father Axxe, 
 
 Depeyster, Capt. Abraham, 
 125, 128, 135. 
 
 Dequa, Philip & Dego, slaves, 
 petition for freedom, 96. 
 
 Dernier, 15. 
 
 Desiertas, 5. 
 
 Desnoues, Joseph, an early N. 
 Y. printer, 447. 
 
 Desobrey, Bexjamix, 456. 
 
 Despeyrox, Major M., 360. 
 
 D'EsTAixG, CouxT, his fleet en- 
 ters N. Y. bay, 354. 
 
 Dieppe, 9. 
 
 DiESKAu, Barox de, defeated at 
 Lake George, 316; sent a 
 prisoner to N. Y., 317; 
 wounded, 317; well guarded, 
 317; sent to Boston and re- 
 turned to N. Y., 318; sails 
 for England, 318; dies in 
 France from eff^ect of 
 wounds, 318, 327. 
 
 Dionakauoxde, Indian name 
 for Chevalier D'Aux, 186. 
 
 Dix, Rev. J. Morgax, D.D., on 
 Verrazano's voyage, 8. 
 
 DOXGAX, GoVERXOR ThOMAS, 
 
 arrives at Nantucket, Mass., 
 82; biographical sketch of, 83, 
 84, 85; enters N. Y. city, 86; 
 calls popular assembly, 87, 
 88; appoints officials, 87; sails 
 for Albany, 88; overtures to 
 Five Nations, 89; settles 
 boundaries, 89; proclamation 
 on liquor question, 91 ; divides 
 city into wards, 92; grant of 
 land to, from Hempstead, 93; 
 establishes postal communica- 
 tion, 98; proclaims day of 
 thanksgiving, 99 ; grants char- 
 ter to citj% 100; appointed 
 Captain-General, etc., 100; 
 orders liberation from slavery 
 of Spanish-American Indians, 
 
478 
 
 INDEX 
 
 103; reports to Committee of 
 Trade, 103; proposes taking 
 possession of Mississippi.river, 
 103; erects manor of " Cassil- 
 towne," 103; resents French 
 aggression, 104; ultimatum to 
 Denvonville, 105 ; orders war 
 tax, 107; impoverishes him- 
 self for province's defence, 
 106; Andros succeeds him, 
 108; declines high rank in 
 British army, 108; impover- 
 ished, 108; issues proclama- 
 tion of emancipation, 108; re- 
 tires, to Hempstead, L. I. 
 109; in New Jersey, 133; 
 wanted in N. Y. by people, 
 124>; charged with conspiracy, 
 154; warrant for, 159; leaves 
 for Boston, 159. 
 
 DoRxix, Bernard, Catholic 
 publisher in N. Y., 458; 
 sketch of, 458. 
 
 Douglass, William, early N. Y. 
 Catholic, 195; dismissed from 
 New Jersey Assembly for 
 being a Catholic, 196. 
 
 Downing, John, 408. 
 
 Doyle, Dennis, 457. 
 
 Drake, Sir Francis, 3. 
 
 Drisius, Dominie Samuel 
 (Dutch Reformed), 53. 
 
 Dubois, Col. Louis, French offi- 
 cer in American army, 349. 
 
 DuBOURG, Very Rev. Louis 
 WiLLiAjr Valentine, be- 
 friends Mrs. Seton, 445, 450; 
 his career, 450, 451. 
 
 Duchene, La Marque, Cana- 
 dian, prisoner of war in N. 
 Y., 339. 
 
 DuGAN, M., French officer in 
 American army, 349. 
 
 Duke of Monmouth, 99. 
 
 Duke's Farm (see also King's 
 Farm), location, 96; Dongan 
 asks its grant for school, 96. 
 
 DuMAS, M., former French offi- 
 cer, arrested as spy in N. Y., 
 323. 
 
 D'Unguent, French name for 
 Dongan, 85. 
 
 Du Plessis, Chevalier Mau- 
 
 DuiT, French officer in the 
 American army, 349. 
 
 DuPLEssis M., Canadian, pris- 
 oner of war in N. Y. City, 
 306. 
 
 DupuYS, Lieut., 238. 
 
 DURAND, I. B., 457. 
 
 DuRANT, John, renegade Recol- 
 lect from Canada, 247; offers 
 to sell French military secrets 
 to England, 247; in London, 
 247. 
 
 Dutch, 13; trade on Hudson's 
 river, 15; sailors befriend F. 
 Jogues, 33, 34, 36; ransom F. 
 Bressani, 41 ; surrender New 
 Orange, 67, 74. 
 
 Dutch Reformed Church, 
 BrockholFs children baptized 
 in, 76, 113, 136; members of, 
 denounced as " Papists," 140. 
 
 Dutch West India Company, 
 49 ; censures Megapolensis 
 and Stuyvesant for surren- 
 dering N. Y., 62, 114. 
 
 Dyer, William, 75. 
 
 Earl of Argyle, 99. 
 
 Easom or Easoner, John, pri- 
 vateersman, captured Espi- 
 nosa's sloop, 304; petitions 
 Court that Espinosa's cargo 
 be condemned as unlawful, 
 304; inhuman treatment of 
 French seamen, 307. 
 
 East River, described in early 
 Cosmographie, 12, 17, 48; the 
 "Shoeinge," 49, 86, 117; 
 British armv crosses to N. Y., 
 351. 
 
 Easthampton, L. I., 70, 83, 120. 
 
 Eight Men, The, 19. 
 
 Elm Street, 11. 
 
 Embargo Act, 460. 
 
 England, 2, 40, 41, 61; captures 
 New Amsterdam, 63 ; occupies 
 New Orange, 67; renames it 
 N. Y., 67, 80, 118, 154, 186 
 215, 243, 289, 293, 307; Colo- 
 nies rebel against Taxation, 
 334, 335, 340; cessation of 
 hostilities with the U. S., 360. 
 
 Epstein, Captain Carl, 66. 
 
 Erie Tribe, 23. 
 
 1 
 
INDEX 
 
 479 
 
 Eriwomeck, Evelin builds fort 
 at, 40. 
 
 Esopus, N. Y., 77. 
 
 EspiNOSA, Dox Jose, brings 69 
 English to N. Y. for ex- 
 change, 300, 301, 302; N. Y. 
 authorities worried by, 30:3; 
 bad treatment of, 304; cap- 
 tured by privateers in N. Y. 
 bay, 304 ; secures decision that 
 Spanish mulattoes are to be 
 treated as prisoners of war, 
 305. 
 
 EvELYX, Robert, an associate of 
 Plowden, 38; explores coast, 
 38; in New Amsterdam, 38; 
 in New Albion, 39. 
 
 Exchange Place, 78. 
 
 Fanueil, Captaix Bexjamin, 
 prominent Huguenot in N. Y., 
 charged with French intrigue, 
 218; exonerated, 218. 
 
 Farmer, Axthoxy, Catholic, 
 house attacked by Leislerites, 
 137, 138. 
 
 Farsier, S.J., Father Ferdi- 
 
 NAXD (StEEN MEYER ), oflFcrS 
 
 mass in N. Y., 338; sketch of, 
 338, 344; in N. Y. City, 367; 
 offers mass in N. Y., 367; 
 writes to Superior Carroll, 
 369; in New York, 370, 376; 
 letter to Superior Carroll, 
 378; death of, 379. 
 
 Farley, Most Re\'erend Johx, 
 Archbishop of New York, 
 463, 464. 
 
 Federal Hall, 389, 397. 
 
 Feexy or Fenxy, Johx, Cath- 
 olic in N. Y. in 1694, 195, 196, 
 197. 
 
 Fexelox, Marqltis de. Gov. of 
 Martinique, petitions for 
 Acadians, 331. 
 
 Fenwick, S.J., Father, 463. 
 
 Feruz de Hondia, Governor 
 Don Aloxzo, endeavors to 
 liberate Spanish freemen en- 
 slaved in N. Y., 323. 
 
 Fleuromoxt, Canadian, pris- 
 oner of war in N. Y., 339. 
 
 FiLiccHi, Philip and An- 
 
 thony, in N. Y., 444; be- 
 friend Mrs. Seton, 444. 
 
 Fitch, Captain James, 137. 
 
 Fitzgerald, Colonel John, 
 aide-de-camp and secretary to 
 General George Washington, 
 348; sketch of, 347, 348. 
 
 FiTzsiMONS, Thomas, in N. Y., 
 398; representative in Con- 
 gress, 398; his career and 
 distinguished public services, 
 399, 400, 401, 402, 403. 
 
 Five Nations (see also Iro- 
 quois), 80, 89, 95, 101, 102, 
 104, 105, 106, 107, 233. 
 
 Flanders, 85. 
 
 Flatbush, L. I., 83; French 
 prisoners of war sent to, 233; 
 F. Mareuil, S.J., a prisoner in, 
 234; French war prisoners in, 
 305. 
 
 Flatlands, 83. 
 
 Fleming, Thomas, 457. 
 
 Fletcher, Governor Benja- 
 min, on New Yorkers, 185; 
 sketch of, 191; succeeds 
 Sloughter, 191 ; anti-Leisler- 
 ite, 191 ; corrupt, 191 ; instruc- 
 tions to him concerning print- 
 ing presses, 192; writes about 
 F. Millet, S.J., 193; writes 
 Board of Trade concerning 
 Catholics, 195; writes con- 
 cerning Catholic soldiers, 197; 
 Assembly wants his coat of 
 arms removed, 203. 
 
 Floquet, S.J., Father Pierre 
 Rene, silenced on charge of 
 American sympathy, 344. 
 
 Flushing, L. I., 83. " 
 
 FoNTAINEBLEAtT, 35. 
 
 FoNTENAY, Cadet de, Canadian, 
 prisoner of war in N. Y., 326. 
 
 Forster (Gulick), S.J., Father 
 Michael, meets F. Harvey, 
 S.J., in N. Y., 86. 
 
 Fort Amsterdam (see also Fort 
 James, Fort William and 
 Fort William Henry), de- 
 scription of, 16, 37. 
 
 Fort Chambly, 105, 935. 
 
 Fort Charles (Pemaquid), 72. 
 
 Fort Duquesne, 310. 
 
480 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Fort Elfsborg, 41. 
 
 Fort James (see also Forts 
 Amsterdam, William and 
 Willam Henry), 88, 94, 123; 
 captured by Leislerites, 129; 
 fire in church in, 140; a 
 " Papistical " design, 140. 
 
 Fort Orange (see Albany). 
 
 Fort William (see also Forts 
 Amsterdam, James and Will- 
 iam Henry), named, 145; 
 Leisler fills dungeons of, 150. 
 
 Fort William Henry (see 
 Forts Amsterdam, James and 
 William), named, 181; dis- 
 turbance among soldiers in, 
 311. 
 
 Fort William Henry, 29; sur- 
 renders to French, 322, 326. 
 
 Fox, Robert, 457. 
 
 France, 5, 9, 14, 16, 19, 21, 32, 
 35, 118, 186, 214, 289, 293, 307. 
 
 Francis I, King of France, 
 sends Verrazano in search of 
 westward passage to Spice 
 Islands, 1, 5; taken prisoner 
 at Pavia, 12. 
 
 Franchessen, Col. Jaques An- 
 toine de, Knight of St. Louis; 
 French officer in American 
 army, 349. 
 
 Franklin, Dr. Benjamin, on 
 Congressional Committee to 
 Canada, 341, 342; Canadian 
 mission a failure, 344; returns 
 with F. Carroll, 344. 
 
 Franklin Square, 80. 
 
 Franklin Street, 11. 
 
 Freay, Padre, prisoner of war 
 in N. Y. city, 219. 
 
 Freemasons, negroes organize 
 spurious lodge of, 261, 273, 
 421. 
 
 French, fur factors on Man- 
 ants Island, 11; Dutch proofs 
 of French priority on North 
 River, 15, 16, 80. 
 
 French Neutrals (see also 
 Acadians), 317, 319, 322. 
 
 French, Philip, arrested by 
 Leisler and liberated, 134, 
 135, 140. 
 
 French Revolution drives 
 
 many refugees to N. Y. City, 
 411, 412. 
 
 Frontenac, Louis de Baude de. 
 Governor of New France, 60, 
 72, 73; plans conquest of N. 
 Y., 187; too late to attack 
 N. Y., 187. 
 
 Gage, S.J., Father Charles, 
 joins Father Harvey in N. Y. 
 in, 102. 
 
 Gaisson, Canadian, prisoner in 
 N. Y., 339. 
 
 Gallissoniere, Michel Rol- 
 LAND Barvin, Count de la, 
 Governor of New France, 
 309. 
 
 Gasibs, Major, 359. 
 
 Gamelon, Canadian prisoner in 
 N. Y., 339. 
 
 Garakonthie, Daniel, orator 
 and Sachem of Onondaga na- 
 tion, ^Q; enters and prays in 
 Dutch church in N. Y., 5Q; 
 sketch of, 57; baptized, 57; 
 death, 58. 
 
 Gardner's Island, L. I., 83. 
 
 Gardoqui, Don Diego de, ap- 
 pointed " Encargado de Ne- 
 gocias," 370; in N. Y., 370, 
 379, 390, 407, 408; leaves N. 
 Y., 408. 
 
 Garnier, S. J., Father 
 Charles, 20, 24. 
 
 Garnier, S.J., Father Julian, 
 57. 
 
 Genet, Edmoxd Charles, 
 French minister in N. Y., 
 414. 
 
 Georgian Bay, 22. 
 
 George III of England, 337. 
 
 Ghiglino, Lorenzo, takes ship 
 bearing Papal flag into N. Y. 
 bay, 326; sails for Genoa with 
 French prisoners, 326. 
 
 GiBAULT, Father, " Patriot 
 Priest of the Revolution," 
 340. 
 
 Gibraltar, 3. 
 
 Glover, Thomas, 457. 
 
 Golden Book, to promote emi- 
 gration, 223. 
 
 Golden Hill, Battle of, 335. 
 
 Gold, Major Nathan, 137. 
 
INDEX 
 
 481 
 
 Gomez, Estavan, enters N. Y. 
 bay, 10; sketch of, 10. 
 
 GONTAUT, ArmAXD LoUIS DE, 
 
 Due DE Lauzan, 360. 
 
 GOTTSBERGER, JOHX GeORGE, 45i?; 
 
 trustee of St, Peter's Church, 
 
 459. 
 GouDAiN, Lawrence, 457. 
 GoupiL, Rene, 28, 29, 30; killed, 
 
 31. 
 Governor's Island, early names 
 
 Pagganck, 17; Nutten, 131. 
 GovERT, Brevet Captain 
 
 Jacques Paul, French ofBcer 
 
 in American army, 349. 
 Graessel, Father Laurence, 
 
 passes through N. Y., 385; 
 
 sketch of, 385, 386. 
 Graham, James, 74, 146. 
 Granet, Sieur, prisoner of war 
 
 in N. Y., 326. 
 Gravesend, L. I., 83. 
 Great Dock, 79. 
 Great River of the Mountains 
 
 (see Hudson River). 
 Grents, Father Thomas, 
 
 O.S.D., a war prisoner in N. 
 
 Y., 244. 
 Greveraet, Andries, 116, 117. 
 GuiTEREz, AuGusTiN, Catholic 
 
 Spanish negro, tried for con- 
 spiracy, 267. 
 Hadden, Richard, charged with 
 
 piracy, 324; captures several 
 
 vessels of friendly power; 
 
 prosecuted, 325. 
 Hadley, Mass., 71, 73. 
 Haeger, Rev. John Frederic, 
 
 appointed pastor to Palatines, 
 
 227; finds Catholics among 
 
 them, in N. Y., 228, 231. 
 Hakluyt, Richard, 9. 
 Halbout, Father James 
 
 Charles, in N. Y., 423, 424. 
 Hamilton, Colonel Andreav, 
 
 122. 
 Hanover Square, 80. 
 Harburg (or Tavern). (See 
 
 Stadt Huys.) 
 Hardy, Governor Sir Charles, 
 
 succors French prisoners, 317, 
 
 318, 319; orders Acadians dis- 
 
 tributed to remote parts of 
 province, 322, 323. 
 
 Harding, S.J., Father Robert, 
 General Gage asks him to 
 send priest to the " Illinois," 
 330. 
 
 Harrison, S.J., Father Henry, 
 joins F. Harvey in N. Y., 99, 
 102. 
 
 Hartford, Conn., 74. 
 
 Harvey, S.J., Father Thomas 
 (John Smith), Dongan's chap- 
 lain, 83; sketch o"f, 83, 86; 
 opens Latin scliool, 95, 96, 97, 
 113; administers oath of alle- 
 giance to James II, 118; in 
 N. Y. in hiding, 147; leaves 
 for Maryland, 191; returns to 
 N. Y., 191; in N. Y., 198; 
 death of, 246. 
 
 Hayti, 3. 
 
 Heeney, Cornelius, 451, 452; 
 trustee and treasurer of St. 
 Peter's, 452; sketch of, 452, 
 453, 454, 455; founds Brook- 
 lyn Benevolent Society, 455. 
 
 Heere-Graft, The, 48 ; filled in, 
 78. 
 
 Heere Straat (now Broad- 
 way), 51. 
 
 Hell Gate, 13. 
 
 Helsie, Arthur, piratical pri- 
 vateersman, 298 ; captures 
 Spanish flag-of-truce vessels, 
 298 ; taken by Spaniards, 298 ; 
 correspondence concerning, 
 298. 
 
 Hempstead, L. I., 83; grant of 
 land to Dongan, 93; French 
 prisoners of war sent to, 233. 
 
 Henry II (King of France), 
 11. 
 
 Henry VIII (King of Eng- 
 land), 9. 
 
 Hercourt, Jean Baptist, 
 French-Canadian agent in N. 
 Y., 219. 
 
 Hertel, Canadian prisoner in 
 N. Y., 339. 
 
 Hertel, Francois, in New Am- 
 sterdam, 58; sketch of, 58, 
 59, 60; letters to F. Le Moyne 
 and his (Hertel's) mother, 59. 
 
482 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hertel, Sieur de Chambly, 
 French-Canadian agent in N. 
 Y., i?19; another son visits 
 N. Y., sketch of, 248. 
 
 Heurimoxt, Hervieux, Cana- 
 dian prisoner in N. Y., 339. 
 
 High Street or Hoogh Straat, 
 49, 80. 
 
 HiNTOx, JoH^r, 451. 
 
 HisPAKiOLA. (See Hayti.) 
 
 HoeS, Johx, 451. 
 
 HoGAN, John, 431. 
 
 Holland. (See Netherlands.) 
 
 HoRSMANDEN, Daniel, Com- 
 ments on alarms of fire, 256; 
 on bench in negro trials, 258, 
 259, 261, 262, 263, 264, 266, 
 269, 2T3, 278, 282, 287, 288. 
 
 HouDiN, Michael, flees from 
 New France, comes to N. Y., 
 290; sent to Jamaica, 290; 
 regarded as French spy, 290; 
 identified as Father Poten- 
 cien, 290; sketch of, 290, 
 291 ; renounces Catholic Faith, 
 291 ; preaches in New Jersey 
 without license, 291; preaches 
 in Trinity Church, 291 ; chap- 
 lain in British army, 291 ; ap- 
 pointed pastor in New Roch- 
 elle, 292; death of, 292. 
 
 HowARDiNG, Thosias, Catholic 
 in N. Y. (1694), 195; ship 
 owner and patentee, 196. 
 
 Hudson Bay, 22. 
 
 Hudson, Henry, 14. 
 
 Hudson River, named the " San 
 Antonio" by Gomez, 10; 
 known as the " Great River 
 of the Mountains," 10; de- 
 scribed by Allefonsce, 13; 
 Hollanders trade on, 15; F. 
 Jogues crosses upper, 29, 32; 
 Father Bressani on, 42, 51 ; 
 Connecticut claims to line of, 
 77, 92, 101, 105; Palatines set- 
 tle on, -l-l-i. 
 
 Huguenots, 200 families settle 
 in N. Y., 104; James II 
 grants full liberty to, 104; 
 Leisler purchases tract for, 
 163; protest against War Tax, 
 163, 164; demand investiga- 
 
 tion of Newinhuysen's story, 
 218; petition for charter, 330; 
 propose conversion of Cana- 
 dian Catholics, 330. 
 
 Hunter, S.J., Father George, 
 Superior of Maryland prov- 
 ince, 332; passes through N. 
 Y., 332; sketch of, 333. 
 
 Hunter, Governor Robert, ar- 
 rives as governor, 227; spends 
 private fortune to support 
 Palatines, 229 ; concerning 
 rights of Spanish slaves in 
 N. Y., 239. 
 
 Huntington, L. I., 83, 120. 
 
 Hurley, D.D., O.S.A., Father 
 Michael, 445; aids N. Y. 
 priests during epidemic, 449. 
 
 Huron Nation, Jesuit mission 
 to, 22, 25, 28, 30; F. Bressani 
 visits, 42, 44. 
 
 Hyde, Edward (Viscount 
 Cornbury), Governor of N. 
 Y., 215; character of, 216; 
 embezzles public funds, 217. 
 
 Icard, Joseph, 456. 
 
 Idley, Joseph, mass in his house 
 in Wall Street, 338, 408. 
 
 Ihonitiria, 22, 25. 
 
 I31BERT, Captain John Louis, 
 French officer in the American 
 army, 349. 
 
 Independent Reflector, 314. 
 
 Indian Ocean, 6. 
 
 Indians, 6, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 
 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 35, 42, 43, 
 44, 50, 88, 101, 102, 104, 105, 
 106, 107; demonstration of, on 
 Northern border, 151 ; address 
 of Catholic to Indian commis- 
 sioners, 206, 207, 305. 
 
 Indians (Free Spanish Cath- 
 olic), many held in slavery in 
 N. Y. City" 238. 
 
 Ingoldsby, Major Richard, ar- 
 rives with troops in N. Y., 
 171; demands fort from Leis- 
 ler, 171; asks aid of L. I. 
 militia, 172; operations 
 against Leisler, 172, 173, 174, 
 175, 176; Lord's sujiper re- 
 fused to, 216. 
 
 r 
 
INDEX 
 
 483 
 
 IxNES, Rev. Alexander, Angli- 
 can chaplain in the fort, 135; 
 denounced as a " Papist," 135, 
 154. 
 
 Ireland, 34; 18th Royal Irish 
 Regiment recruited in, 339; 
 immigrants from, quarantine 
 on Staten Island, 434. 
 
 Iroquois (see also Five Na- 
 tions), nations forming the, 
 
 . 23, 25; their habitations, 25, 
 44, 88, 89, 95; promised as- 
 sistance against French, 101, 
 102, 104, 105, 106, 107; out- 
 break of, 187, 188; take war- 
 path against French, 233. 
 
 Isle of Orleans, 20. 
 
 Isle of Plowden (see Long Is- 
 land ) . 
 
 IsLip, L. I., 83. 
 
 Italians, 2. 
 
 Jamaica, L. I., 83, 120; Rev. 
 Michael Houdin in, 290; he is 
 regarded as a French spy, 
 290; French war prisoners in, 
 305. 
 
 Jamaica (West Indies), 3, 96. 
 
 James, Duke of York, 61, 66; 
 convert to the Faith, 68; 
 directs freedom of conscience, 
 68, 75, 77, 82; meets Dongan 
 in France, 84, 86, 89. 
 
 James II, King of England 
 (see also Duke of York), 89; 
 succeeds to throne, 99; in- 
 structions to Dongan, 101, 
 102; grants religious liberty 
 to Huguenots, 104, 106; for- 
 bids hostilities against New 
 France, 106; persecuted, 109; 
 declaration of indulgence, 
 110; dethroned, 110; escapes 
 to France, 110; his prayer, 
 110; instructions to his son, 
 110, 111, 112. 
 
 James, Rev. Thomas (Congre- 
 gationalist), pastor of East- 
 hampton, L. I., 70; greets 
 Dongan, 83. 
 
 Jamestown (Va.), 11. 
 
 Jaubert, Lieutenant, Cana- 
 dian, prisoner of war in N. 
 Y., 326. 
 
 Jay, John, introduces anti- 
 Catholic measures in the N. Y. 
 State constitutional conven- 
 tion, 352, 353. 
 
 Jay, Sir James, asks grant of 
 land for King's College, 331. 
 
 Jesuits, Father Jogues taken to 
 New Amsterdam, 19; F. 
 Chastelain and Gamier, 20; 
 F. Jogues, 22, 25, 26, 27, 33, 
 34, 35, 36; build shrine at 
 Auriesville, N. Y., 36, 52, 56; 
 F. Pierson in N. Y., 70; F. 
 Bruyas, 72; F. Forster (Gu- 
 lick) in N. Y., 86, 99, 102, 113, 
 147; F. Lamberville, 169, 190; 
 F. Milet, 192, 198; Bellomont 
 schemes to capture, 202, 212; 
 F. De Marieul in N. Y., 233; 
 Lords of Trade compliment, 
 243; death of F. Harvey, 246, 
 328; letter concerning, 329; 
 better feeling towards, 330; 
 General Gage asks for mis- 
 sioner to the Illinois, 330, 331, 
 341, 345; accused of Amer- 
 ican sympathv, 374, 459; F. 
 Hunter in N. Y., 332; F. Far- 
 mer in N. Y., 338; F. Kohl- 
 mann organizes diocese as 
 V.-G., 460. 
 
 Jesuit Relations, extract from, 
 of 1679, 56; extract from F. 
 Lamberville's letter, 190. 
 
 Jews, Dongan recommends their 
 petition to worship in N. Y., 
 99. 
 
 John, The Florentine (see 
 Verrazano). 
 
 Johnson, Sir William, defeats 
 Dieskau at Lake George, 316; 
 on missionaries, 330, 331, 333; 
 invites Scotch Highlanders to 
 his domain, 333. 
 
 Jogues, S.J., Father Isaac, 
 taken to New Amsterdam, 19; 
 his early life, 20; ordered to 
 Huron mission, 22, 24; his 
 journey, 24, 25; his labors 
 with the Hurons, 25; founds 
 mission and journeys west- 
 ward, 27; returns to Quebec, 
 28; captured, 28; tortured. 
 
484 
 
 INDEX 
 
 29; mutilated, 30; searches 
 for Goupil's body, 31 ; at Al- 
 bany, 32, 33; in New Amster- 
 dam, 34; " Ondessonk," 35; in 
 France, 35; returns to New 
 France, 35; at Albany, 36; 
 martyred, 36, 42. 
 
 JoHX Street, 332, 335. 
 
 JoNQUiERE, James Peter de 
 Tafanell, Marquis de. Gov- 
 ernor of Canada, 309. 
 
 Juan, Florix (see Verrazano). 
 
 JUMEL Maxsion, 425. 
 
 JuMEL, Stephen, comes to N. 
 Y. city, 424; sketch of, 424, 
 425. 
 
 Johnson, Johannes, sheriff, 
 152. 
 
 Kecoughtan (Va.), 40. 
 
 Kempe, William, Attorney- 
 General of N. Y., unable to 
 protect the liberty of Sjianish 
 prisoners of war, 312, 313; 
 his report on demand for lib- 
 eration from slavery of free 
 Spaniards, prisoners of war 
 in N. Y., 314. 
 
 Kennedy Mansion, 332. 
 
 KiDD, Captain William, serves 
 against Leisler, 175; his pir- 
 atical career and exalted part- 
 ners, 213, 214. 
 
 Kieft, Director Willem, wel- 
 comes F. Jogues to New Am- 
 sterdam, 19; gives F. Jogues 
 credentials, 34 ; receives Plow- 
 den, 37; succors F. Bressani, 
 43; drowned, 45. 
 
 Kierstede, Hans, 48. 
 
 Kings County, 122. 
 
 King's College (see also Co- 
 lumbia College), controversy 
 over, 314, 318; Sir John Jay 
 asks grant of land for, 331, 
 332; legislature makes it non- 
 sectarian, 385. 
 
 King's Farm (see also Duke's 
 Farm), Queen Ann grants it 
 to Trinity Church, 96. 
 
 Knapton, Ensign C.^sar, 66, 
 71, 72. 
 
 Kocherthal, Rev. Joshua, 
 
 leader of first band of Pala- 
 tines, 222. 
 
 Kohlmann, S.J., Father An- 
 thony, sent to organize N. Y. 
 diocese, 460; sketch of, 460; 
 appointed Vicar-General and 
 Administrator, 460, 463. 
 
 Labadie, John, 32. 
 
 Labrador, 12. 
 
 Lachauvignerie, Canadian pris- 
 oner, in N. Y., 326. 
 
 La Coste, Captain, Canadian 
 prisoner, in N. Y., 317. 
 
 La Fayette, General, visits N. 
 Y., 368. 
 
 Lake Champlain, 29. 
 
 Lake Genentaa, 52. 
 
 Lake George, 29 ; Father Jogues 
 names it "Lake of the Blessed 
 Sacrament," 35; Johnson de- 
 feats Dieskau at, 316. 
 
 Lake Huron, ii-2, 23. 
 
 Lake Nipissing, 23. 
 
 Lake of the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment. (See Lake George.) 
 
 Lake Saratoga, 29. 
 
 Lake St. Peter, 28, 42. 
 
 Lake Success, Dongan's home 
 near, 93. 
 
 Lalande, John, 36. 
 
 Lalebiant, S.J., Father Ga- 
 briel, 44. 
 
 Lalor, William, 408. 
 
 Labiberville, S.J., Father, 161, 
 161, 190, 233. 
 
 Landais, Pierre, in N. Y., 425; 
 sketch of, 425, 426, 427, 428, 
 429; his epitaph, 429. 
 
 Landes, Jean des, French Cana- 
 dian agent in N. Y., 219. 
 
 Lande, M'd'lle de la, 97; bap- 
 tized in N. Y., sent to Fronte- 
 nac as Philip's envoy, 98. 
 
 Land Gate, 51. 
 
 L'Anormee Berge. (See Pali- 
 sades.) 
 
 Laplante, Canadian prisoner in 
 N. Y., 326. 
 
 Larkin, James, arrested by 
 Leislerites in N. Y., 147. 
 
 La Roche, Estein, French de- 
 serter in N. Y., 290; identifies 
 Houdin as F. Potencien, 290. 
 
INDEX 
 
 485 
 
 La Rochelle, Canadian pris- 
 oner in X. Y., 326. 
 
 Laroue, Louis, 457. 
 
 Lauzun, Due DE, 360. 
 
 Laval, Marquis de, 359. 
 
 Laval-Moxtjiorency, Bishop 
 Fraxcis Xavier de, 57, 
 
 Lawren^ce, Charles, Governor 
 of Nova Scotia, 318; sends 
 Acadians to Georgia, 3-21. 
 
 Laws, Anti-Catholic, against 
 Jesuits and " Popish priests," 
 207, 208, 209, 210; no fran- 
 chise for Catholics, 215; form 
 of indictment for Catholic 
 priests found in province, 244, 
 245, 246 ; law against " Pop- 
 ish " priests and Jesuits re- 
 pealed, 367; obnoxious natu- 
 ralization oath abrogated, 
 450. 
 
 Leary, John, derided for per- 
 formance of Easter duty, 249. 
 
 Leary Street, named after Jno. 
 Leary, 332. 
 
 Le Bert, Lieutenant Francis, 
 French oflScer in N. Y., 238. 
 
 Le Blanc, Rene, Acadian exile 
 landed in N. Y., 321 ; sent to 
 Philadelphia, 321; dies there, 
 321. 
 
 L'Enfant Major Pierre 
 Charles, designer of Federal 
 Hall, 397; sketch of, 397, 398, 
 406, 407. 
 
 Le Grand, Charles, prisoner 
 of war in N. Y., 326. 
 
 Leisler, Jacob, sketch, 114, 115; 
 personality, 115, 116; anti- 
 Catholic, 115; accepts ap- 
 pointments from Dongan, 115 ; 
 evades custom duties, 119, 
 124, 134; proclaims William 
 and Mary, 138; assails custom 
 collectors, 141, 142, 143, 144; 
 writes against "Papists," 146; 
 chosen Captain of the fort, 
 151 ; constitutes himself Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of Province, 
 151 ; orders counties to elect 
 military and civil officers, 152; 
 orders illegal election, 152; 
 seizes Riggs dispatches, 155; 
 
 assumes title of Lieutenant- 
 Governor, 155; arbitrary acts 
 of, 156, 157; imprisons forty 
 officers, 158; seizes one hun- 
 dred and fifty commissions, 
 159; issues general warrant, 
 159; asks aid of Maryland 
 and Virginia against Canada, 
 160; takes guns from Dutch 
 ship, 160; people petition for 
 release of prisoners, 161 ; first 
 American Congress called 
 by, 161; prepares to attack 
 French, 161 ; sends fleet 
 against French, 161; opposi- 
 tion to, 161; petition to Wil- 
 liam and Mary against, 162; 
 people attack, 165, 166; im- 
 prisons Fitz-John Winthrop, 
 166; approves arbitrary laws, 
 168; imprisons and insults 
 Dutch ministers, 169; holds 
 fort against Ingoldsby, 173, 
 
 174, 175, 176; daughter mar- 
 ries Jacob Milborne, 174; pro- 
 clamation against Ingoldsby, 
 
 175, 176; fires on Ingoldsby's 
 forces, 176; letter to Slough- 
 ter, 180; surrenders fort to 
 Ingoldsby, 180; Leisler im- 
 prisoned, 181; charges against, 
 181, 182; found guilty, 182; 
 sentenced to death, 182; exe- 
 cuted, 184; reversal by at- 
 tainder against, 184; estate 
 restored to family of, 184; 
 hatred engendered by, dis- 
 tracts N. Y. for years, 184, 
 186. 
 
 Le Jeune, S.J., Father Paul, 
 Jesuit Superior in New 
 France, 21, 24. 
 
 Lemaire, Father John Bap- 
 TisTE Joseph, officiates at St. 
 Peter's, 422. 
 
 Lemoine, Captain Bernard, 
 commands French warship, 
 73; in N, Y., 73. 
 
 Le Moyne, Anthony, Commis- 
 sary of Martinique in N. Y., 
 305. 
 
 Le Moyne, S.J., Father Simon, 
 comes to New Amsterdam, 
 
486 
 
 INDEX 
 
 45; his tour of the city, 46, 
 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52; bio- 
 graphical sketch of, 52; leaves 
 New Amsterdam, 53; Stuy- 
 vesant's envoy to New France, 
 54; letter to Stuyvesant, 54; 
 death, 55; Garakonthie's love 
 for, 56. 
 Le Moyne, Pierre Sieur D'Ib- 
 ERVILI.E, arrives in N. Y., 203; 
 memorial concerning N. Y., 
 314, 315, 317. 
 Leroux, Bartholomew, 131. 
 Lespinard, Axtoixe, 104. 
 Leverett, Johx, Governor of 
 
 Massachusetts, 73. 
 Levis, Chevalier de, 318. 
 Lewin, John, Duke's agent, 75. 
 LiGNERis, Lieutenant Con- 
 stant DE Marchand des, in 
 N. Y. for exchange of pris- 
 oners, 308; official and social 
 success in N. Y., 309; sketch 
 of, 309, 310, 311. 
 Liquor Question, 91. 
 Liste Chronologique, 393. 
 Livingstone, Robert, letters to 
 " Lords of Trade " concern- 
 ing D'Iberville's visit to N. 
 Y., 214. 
 Lloyd, Thomas, official reporter 
 of House of Representatives, 
 394; "Father of American 
 Shorthand," 396; sketch of, 
 394, 395, 396, 407. 
 LoDwicK, Charles, 124. 
 London, 132. 
 London Gazette, 134. 
 Long Island, wars with Indians 
 on, 33; called "Isle of PIow- 
 den," 37, 76, 77, 80; Dongan 
 on, 83, 88, 105; outbreak 
 against Leisler in, 170, 214; 
 78 Acadians beached on, 321 ; 
 battle of, 350, 351. 
 Long Island Sound, AUefonsce 
 
 sails through, 12. 
 Lord Baltimore, 34, 77; connec- 
 tion of Dongan, 84. 
 Lord Howard of Effingham, 
 visits N. Y., 94, 95; asks Don- 
 gan's aid in Indian troubles, 
 95, 107. 
 
 Lord Inchiquin, 85. 
 Lords of Trade, 247, 314; Sir 
 William Johnson writes to, 
 concerning missionaries, 330, 
 331. 
 LoTBiNiERE, Michael Eustace 
 Gaspard, Marquis de, in N. 
 Y., 384; sketch of, 385. 
 Lotbiniere, Chartier de, Cana- 
 dian, prisoner in N. Y., 339. 
 Louis XIV (King of France), 
 
 85, 187. 
 Louis Philippe. Due D'Or- 
 LEANs, in N. Y., 433; sketch 
 of, 433, 433. 
 Louvois, 187. 
 Lovelace, Lord John, Gov. of 
 
 N. Y., arrives in, 319. 
 Low, Isaac, 337. 
 L'Terre, D'Enormee Berge, 10, 
 
 11. 
 LusiGNAN, Chevalier Paul, in 
 
 N. Y., 73. 
 Lutherans, in N. Y., 78. 
 Lynch, Dominick, arrives in 
 N. Y., 370; sketch of, 391, 
 393, 409, 434, 431. 
 Maagte Paetje (see Maiden 
 
 Lane), 50. 
 McCarty, Dennis, 457. 
 McGiNNis, Hugh, 457. 
 McKenzie, Captain George, 
 arrested by Leislerites, 148, 
 149. 
 MacGregorie, Major Patrick, 
 a Scotchman; offers to cap- 
 ture Dongan, 147; killed by 
 Leislerites, 176. 
 McMahon, O.S.D., Father 
 Anthony, died in N. Y. city, 
 431. 
 MacXevin, Dr. James, 447; his 
 early life, 449; arrives in N. 
 Y. city, from Ireland, 449; 
 his brilliant career in N. Y., 
 450. 
 McReady, Father, associated 
 with F. Whelan in N. Y., 369. 
 Madeiras, 5, 133, 306. 
 Magellan, 10. 
 
 Magdelaine, de la, Canadian, 
 prisoner in N. Y., 339. 
 
 '^ 
 
INDEX 
 
 487 
 
 Magraw, Dr., charged with be- 
 ing French pensioner and 
 Jesuit, 296, 297. 
 
 M viDEN Lake, 50, 107. 
 
 Maine, 9, 71. 
 
 M vioLLo's Map, designates San- 
 ay Hook as C. de S. Maria, 7. 
 
 M. lmadv, Brevet-Major, the 
 Marquis de, French officer in 
 the American army, 349. 
 
 Manhattan Island, French 
 traders on, 11; Allefonsce 
 sails past, 13; first Caitholic 
 Dutch on, 15; people embark 
 in privateering, 16, 17; Plow- 
 den claims, 37. 
 
 Manants, 11. 
 
 Manhasset Tribe, 83. 
 
 Manning, Captain John, 66. 
 
 Marbois, Barbe, French minis- 
 ter to U. S., 338; mentions 
 burning of Catholic chapel in 
 N. Y. in great fire of 1776, 
 338, 366; sketch of, 367, 374. 
 
 Marieul, S.J., Father Peter 
 DE, sketch of, 233; Peter 
 Schuyler lures him to Albany, 
 234; a prisoner, but treated 
 kindly, 234; sent to N. Y. city, 
 234; in Flatbush, L. I., 234; 
 committee of Colonial Coun- 
 cil provides for, 234; his at- 
 tendant sent to Hempstead, 
 234; exchanged, 235. 
 
 Marsapeague Tribe, 83. 
 
 Martha's Vineyard (Mass), 
 82, 88. 
 
 Maryland, 34; asylum for 
 Plowden's colonists, 41, 107, 
 341. 
 
 Massachusetts Bay, Allefonsce 
 enters, 12. 
 
 Matchedash Bay, 27. 
 
 Massasoit, 71. 
 
 Matignon, Father, 445. 
 
 Matinecock Tribe, 83. 
 
 Megapolensis, Dominie Johan- 
 nes (Dutch Reformed), ac- 
 companies F. Jogues to New 
 Amsterdam, 18, 19; befriends 
 F. Jogues, 32, 33; a pervert, 
 34, 45; F. Jogues visits, 52; 
 F. Le Moyne sends letters to. 
 
 53; advises Stuyvesant to sur- 
 render N. Y. to British fleet, 
 61; in disgrace thereby, 62; 
 writes defence to Classis, 63, 
 63; death of, 63. 
 
 Menendez, 13. 
 
 Mercator's Globe, 11. 
 
 Mericoke Tribe, 83. 
 
 Mexico, 2; F. O'Brien collects 
 in, for St. Peter's, 384. 
 
 Meyer, Andraes and Jan, 113. 
 
 Michigan, 27. 
 
 Milborne, Jacob, in N. Y. city, 
 151 ; espouses Leisler's cause, 
 151 ; Albany surrenders to, 
 160; denounced by Long Isl- 
 anders, 170; marries Leisler's 
 daughter, 174; tried and 
 found guilty, with Leisler, 
 181, 182; sentenced to death, 
 182; executed, 184; reversal 
 of attainder against, 184; es- 
 tate restored to family of, 
 184. 
 
 MiLET, S.J., Father Peter, cap- 
 tive of Onondagas, 193; Gov. 
 Fletcher offers Indian boy in 
 exchange for, 193. 
 
 Militia (Provincial), 100. 
 
 MiNviELLE, Capt. Gabriel, 133. 
 
 Miranda, General Francisco, 
 leads expedition from N. Y. 
 against Spaniards in Venezu- 
 ela, 437; sketch of, 437, 438. 
 
 Mission of Our Lady of the 
 Angels, description of, 21, 
 22. 
 
 Mission of the Martyrs, 35. 
 
 Mission of the Immaculate 
 Conception, 27. 
 
 Mission of St. Joseph, 25. 
 
 Mississippi River, 23, 103. 
 
 Mohawk Nation, early French 
 trade with, 15; torture F. 
 Jogues, 19, 23, 29; F. Jogues 
 returns to, 35; F. Bressani at- 
 tacked by, 44, 58, 74; sachems 
 of, meet Dongan in N. Y., 89 
 105. 
 
 Mohawk River, F. Jogues' 
 body thrown into, 36. 
 
 Mohican Tribe, 105. 
 
 Moluccas, 5. 
 
488 
 
 INDEX 
 
 MONTAGNAIS TrIBE, 20. 
 MOXTAUK POIXT, 8. 
 
 MoNTAUK Tribe, 83. 
 
 Montcalm, Marquis de, takes 
 Forts Ontario and Oswego 
 and captures vessels and pris- 
 oners, 323. 
 
 Montgomery, General, Rich- 
 ard, killed at Quebec, 341. 
 
 Montmagny, Governor 
 Charles Huaualt de, 24. 
 
 Montmorency Falls, 20. 
 
 MoNTPONSiER, Due DE, in N. Y. 
 city, 422. 
 
 Montreal, F. Jogues in, 35, 78, 
 104; surrenders to Britisli, 
 330; surrenders to Americans, 
 339. 
 
 MooNEY, William, sketch of, 
 396, 408. 
 
 Moore Street, first dock at foot 
 of, 18, 45. 
 
 Moore, Thomas, the Irish poet 
 in N. Y., 439. 
 
 MooRE, Rev. Thoroughgood, 
 disciplines Ingoldsby, 216. 
 
 Moravians, 289, 292, 293. 
 
 More, Marguis de, visits N. Y. 
 city, 409. 
 
 Moreau, General Jean Victor, 
 in N. Y., 446; founder of 
 L'Ecole Economique, 447; his 
 brilliant military career, 447, 
 448. 
 
 Morgan, Henry, 2, 96. 
 
 MoRiELL, Charles, Catholic 
 Frenchman, in N. Y. garrison, 
 197; returned to England to 
 be dealt with, 197. 
 
 Morris, Andrew, 396, 409, 431, 
 451. 
 
 Morris, Gouverneur, opposes 
 John Jay's anti-Catholic 
 measures in N. Y. Constitu- 
 tional Convention, 352, 422. 
 
 Morriseau, Jean Baptiste, 
 French Canadian agent in N. 
 Y., 219. 
 
 Motier House (Washington's 
 headquarters), 346. 
 
 Motte, O.S.A., Abbe de la, con- 
 fined in Provost prison for 
 oflFering Mass, 354, 355; min- 
 
 isters to Catholic Indians in 
 Maine, 354. 
 
 MOUSTIER, ElEONORE FRAN9OIS 
 
 Elie, Marquis de, French 
 minister, arrives in N. Y. 
 city, 386 ; American comments 
 on, 386, 387, 388, 407; gives 
 fete in honor of Washington, 
 408. 
 
 MoYLAN, Stephen, sketch of, 
 346, 347; aide-de-camp and 
 secretary to Washington, 346; 
 services of, as Quartermaster- 
 General, 351. 
 
 Murray Street, 332. 
 
 Nanfan, John, Lieutenant- 
 Governor, in command of N. 
 Y., 203; receives French vis- 
 itors, 204. 
 
 Nantasket, Mass., 82. 
 
 Nantucket, Island of, 82, 236. 
 
 Narragansett Bay, 9. 
 
 Narrows, The, 119. 
 
 National Library, Paris, 12. 
 
 Navarette, Don Melchor de, 
 Governor of St. Augustine's, 
 311; corresponds with N. Y. 
 government concerning war 
 prisoners held in slavery, 311. 
 
 Naylob, Charles, 396, 409, 431. 
 
 Negro Plot, robbery of Hogg's 
 store, 250; arrest of negroes 
 concerned in, 250 ; Christopher 
 Wilson accused, 250; Caesar 
 and Cufi'ee (slaves) arrested, 
 250; Peggy Kerry implicated, 
 250; Wilson denounces Hugh- 
 son, 251 ; summoned to court 
 and discharged, 252; Hugh- 
 son's house searched, nothing 
 found, 252; Mary Burton, 
 Hughson's servant, accuses 
 Hughson, 252; Mary confined 
 for safe keeping, 252; Hugh- 
 son confesses and delivers up 
 stolen goods, 252; fire in Gov- 
 ernor's residence, 253; fire de- 
 stroys other buildings in fort, 
 253; other alarms of fire, 253; 
 Spanish negroes arrested, ^55 ; 
 other alarms of fire cause ap- 
 prehension, 254, 255; military 
 guard established, 253 ; Hugh- 
 
INDEX 
 
 489 
 
 son and wife committed, 256; 
 reward offered for incendiar- 
 ies, 256 ; house to house search, 
 256; Cuff committed for trial, 
 257; supreme court trial terra 
 opens, 258; Phillipse charges 
 Grand Jury, 258; Mary Bur^ 
 ton on stand, 258; denounces 
 Hughson, 258, 259; Court 
 proceeds against negroes, 259 ; 
 Peggy Kerry on stand pleads 
 ignorance of plot, 259; Ar- 
 thur Price becomes decoy, 
 260; Hughson and Peggy 
 Kerry convicted, 260; Sarah 
 Hughson arrested, 260; Peggy 
 Kerry implicates twelve ne- 
 groes, 260; John Romme im- 
 plicated, 260 ; Caesar and Cuf- 
 fee executed, 260; negroes in 
 spurious Masonic Lodge, 261 ; 
 Mary Burton implicates more 
 negroes, 262; John Romme 
 arrested, 262; Sandy (slave) 
 implicates Spanish-Americans, 
 262; Quack and Cuffee burned 
 at stake, 264; Gov. Ogle- 
 thorpe's warning against 
 Catholic priests, 264; the 
 Hughson's and Kerry ar- 
 raigned, 266; Mary Burton 
 testifies against them, 266; 
 five Spanish Catholic negroes 
 arraigned, 266, 267 ; no counsel 
 permitted, 267; masters give 
 good character, 268; found 
 guilty, 268; Silva condemned 
 to death, 268; hanged, 269; 
 others transported, 268; search 
 for " Popish emissaries," 269 ; 
 Mary Burton identifies and 
 denounces John Ury, 270; 
 " Popish " scare in city, 271 ; 
 Adam, a slave, illegally per- 
 mitted to testify against Urv, 
 272; Holt and Doctor Hamil- 
 ton, whites, accused, 373; 
 Hughson and Kerry hanged, 
 273 ; twenty negroes "confess," 
 273; Constable Shultz reveals 
 bogus confessions, 273, 274; 
 forty-two negroes transport- 
 ed, 274; Privates Kane and 
 
 Kelly of the garrison impli- 
 cated, 274; Marj^ Burton tes- 
 tifies against them, 274, 275; 
 Kane confesses, 275; testifies 
 against Ury» 275; seventeen 
 soldiers and other whites de- 
 nounced, 277; Ury examined, 
 278; declares innocence, 278; 
 convicted, 286 ; his career, 280, 
 281; Sarah Hughson par- 
 doned, 283; Ury respited, 287 ; 
 hanged, 287. 
 
 Netherlaxds, 15, 16, 38, 61, 63. 
 
 Neubeeg, Johx William, Duke 
 OF, 220. 
 
 Neutral Nation, 23. 
 
 Neu\'ille, Jean Guillaume, 
 Barox Hyde de, in N. Y., 
 447; a founder of L'Ecole 
 Economique, 447; sketch of, 
 448. 
 
 New Albiox, granted to Sir 
 Edmund Plowden, 37; Plow- 
 den's plans, 39; toleration, 39. 
 
 New AaiSTERDAM, Father Jogues 
 enters, 18; refugees in, 33; 
 Father Jogues sails from, 34, 
 35; Sir Edmund Plowden in, 
 38; F. Bressani in, 42; Robert 
 Evelin in, 40; Spanish prize 
 in, 45 ; Catholics in, 45 ; F. Le 
 Moyne's tour about city, 46, 
 
 47, 48, 49, 50, 51 ; government 
 of, 46; larger than Quebec, 
 
 48, 61 ; Stuyvesant Surrenders 
 to English, 61 ; retaken by 
 Dutch, 64; ceded to English, 
 65. 
 
 New England, 15, 50, 60, 61, 
 74, 107; N. J. and N. Y. 
 united to, 108, 121, 187. 
 
 New France, 19, 20, 28, 52, 57, 
 78; English prisoners refuse 
 to leave, 200; expedition 
 against, 233; failure, 233; an- 
 other expedition against, 235; 
 thirteen prisoners from N. Y. 
 become Catholics, 310. 
 
 New Ha\'en Colony, 40. 
 
 New Jersey, 37, 74, 81, 93, 101, 
 107, 328. 
 
 New Netherland succors F. 
 
490 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Jogues, 32, 50; ceded to Eng- 
 lish, 65. 
 
 New Spain, 16. 
 
 Newtown, L. I., 83; murder by 
 slaves in, 239. 
 
 New Utrecht, L. I., 83, 
 
 New York Bay, Verrazano's 
 description of, 7, 8; named 
 San Christobel by Gomez, 10; 
 Hudson "discovers," 14; D'lb- 
 erville's " La Renomee " in, 
 203, 204, 205, 207; rumor of 
 French fleet in, 218; privateer 
 captures Spanish flag of truce 
 in, 304; Count D'Estaing's 
 fleet in, 354. 
 
 New York City, final cession 
 to England, 66; Father Peter 
 Smith in, G'2; Father Pierson 
 or Pierron in, 70; Captain Le- 
 moine, 73; Chevalier Lusignan 
 and M. de la Chambre in, 73; 
 improvements in, under An- 
 dros and Brockholls, 78; 
 Bolting Act passed; growth 
 of city, 79; petitions Dongan 
 for additional privileges, 92; 
 divided into wards, 92; liquor 
 question settled, 93; market 
 days appointed, 93; docks 
 provided for, 93; regulations 
 for bakers, 93; carmen and 
 inviter to funerals appointed, 
 93; result of carmen's strike, 
 94; Latin school opened in, 95; 
 valuation of property, 99; 
 Dongan grants charter to, 
 100; military watch in, de- 
 fenses strengthened, 119, 120; 
 rumored invasion from Al- 
 bany, 121 ; Leislerites in con- 
 trol, 129; Pope's effigy 
 dragged in streets of, 154; 
 Leisler assembly in, 160; ru- 
 mored expedition against, 
 164; warlike rumor of French 
 fleet in, 193; Catholics in New 
 York, 195, 201 ; two " fryars " 
 in, 216; French scare in, 217; 
 city fortified, 217; arrival of 
 Palatines, 220 to 232; slave 
 market foot of Wall Street, 
 235; military watch during 
 
 negro troubles, 255 ; " Popish " 
 scare in, 271 ; 1,000 regulars 
 billeted in, 337 ; on eve of Rev- 
 olutionary War, 337; French 
 Canadian and English prison- 
 ers of war in, 339; news of 
 Concord and Lexington 
 reaches, 339; Washington in 
 command in, 345; disastrous 
 conflagration in, 351 ; French 
 packet line established, 365; 
 British evacuate, 366; French 
 Embassy transferred to, 369; 
 in 1789, 389, 390, 391 ; inaugu- 
 ration of Washington, 406, 
 407, 408; glimpse of social 
 life in, 409, 410; Catholic 
 emigrants die in yellow fever 
 epidemic, 421, 449; Catholic 
 population of, 458; an episco- 
 pal see, 458; population of, 
 460; description of, in 1808, 
 461, 462, 463. 
 
 New York (Province and 
 State) De Ayllon explores, 
 11; boundary disputes with 
 Connecticut, 77, 82; divided 
 into counties, 91; boundaries, 
 89,91,92; courts provided, 98; 
 only 3,000 fighting men in, 
 193, 194; court unable to pre- 
 vent enslaving of prisoners of 
 war, 312, 313; constitutional 
 convention for, 352; John 
 Jay's bigotry, 352. 
 
 iVejp York Post Boy, 291. 
 
 Neio York Gazette advertises 
 runaway Catholic slaves, 249; 
 John Leary, 331, 332; adver- 
 tisement of Roman Catholic 
 volunteers, 357. 
 
 Niagara, 105, 311, 315, 329. 
 
 Nicholas the Frenchman 
 fined in Breukelen, 58. 
 
 NicoLLS OR Nichols, Mat- 
 thias, 71 ; Speaker General 
 Assembly, 90. 
 
 NicoLS William, warrant for, 
 157; arrested, 158. 
 
 Nicholson, Francis, Lieuten- 
 ANT-Gov., 112, 113; affray 
 with Cuyler, 125, 126, 127, 128, 
 
INDEX 
 
 491 
 
 153; appointed Lieut-Gov. of' 
 ^'irg•inia, 160. 
 NissEauAG Tribe, 83. 
 
 NOAILLES, ^ND, CoL., ViSCOUNT 
 
 DE, 360. 
 
 NORTHFIELD, MaSS., 71. 
 
 North River (see Hudson 
 River). 
 
 NoRUJiBEGA Corruption of La 
 Terre d'Enormee Berge, 11; 
 an Indian village, 13. 
 
 Nugent, O.S.F., Father Ak- 
 DREW, arrives in New York, 
 377, 378, 381 ; trouljle with F. 
 Whelan, 383; suspended, 38;2; 
 sails for Europe, 382. 
 
 Nunez de Haro, Archbishop, 
 Alonzo, befriends Father 
 O'Brien, 348. 
 
 Nunez y Havasitas, Don Juan 
 Franz de, 299. 
 
 NuTTEN Island, 131. 
 
 O'Bierne, Rev. Thomas Lewis 
 (Anglican), Secretary and 
 Chaplain to Howe, 351; a 
 pervert, 351 ; sketch of, 351, 
 352. 
 
 O'Brien, O.S.D., D.D., Father 
 Matthew, appointed assistant 
 at St. Peter's, 341 ; extract 
 from letter of, concerning St. 
 Peter's, 432; extract from 
 letter of, to Bishop Carroll, 
 432, 458. 
 
 O'Brien, O.S.D., Father Wil- 
 liam v., appointed to suc- 
 ceed F. Nugent, 382; obtains 
 funds and paintings in 
 Mexico, 384, 409, 422; opens 
 free school, 450; health im- 
 paired, 458. 
 
 O'Brien, William, settles in N. 
 Y. city, 424; sketch of, 424; 
 ancestor of F. William 
 O'Brien Pardow, S.J., 424. 
 
 O'Connor. Thomas, in New 
 York City, 434; sketch of, 
 434, 435, 447. 
 
 O'CoNNELL, O.S.D., Father 
 John, arrives in N. Y. city, 
 378; chaplain to Spanish Em- 
 bassy, 378. 
 
 O'CoNOR, Charles, born in N. 
 
 Y. city, 435; his illustrious 
 career, 435. 
 
 Oglethorpe, Gov. James (of 
 Georgia), warns N. Y. au- 
 thorities against disguised 
 Catholic priests, 264, 265, 283. 
 
 O'Hara, Hugh, 457. 
 
 Ojibway Tribe, 27. 
 
 O'Mahoney, Father, arrives in 
 N. Y. city, 434; recommended 
 for Albany pastorate, 434. 
 
 "Ondessonk," F. Jogues' Indian 
 name, 35. 
 
 Oneida Nation, 23. 
 
 Onondaga, F. Le Moyne discov- 
 ers salt springs at, 53, 57. 
 
 Onondaga Nation, 29, 193. 
 
 Orleans, 20. 
 
 Ossernenon, 36. 
 
 ossossane, 27. 
 
 Ottawa River, 23. 
 
 Otto, Louis, French Charge 
 d'Affaires in N. Y., 338; men- 
 tions burning of Catholic 
 chapel in N. Y. in fire of 
 1776, 338, 376. 
 
 Oyster Bay, L. I., 83. 
 
 Paco, M., arrested as French 
 spy in N. Y., 315. 
 
 Pagganck Island. (See Nut- 
 ten and Governor's Island.) 
 
 Palatines, two arrive in N. Y. 
 city, 219; causes of exodus, 
 221 ; English pamphlet con- 
 cerning, 221 ; English govern- 
 ment liberal to first arrivals, 
 222; naturalized in England, 
 323; many Catholics found 
 among, 224; immigration to 
 England stopped, 224; com- 
 missioners appointed to raise 
 relief fund for, 225, 226; 
 many sent to Ireland, return, 
 226 ; " good barriers " against 
 French and Indians, 226; 
 government agreement with, 
 237; ten ships with, arrive in 
 N. Y., 227, 228; sheltered on 
 Nutten island, 238; ascend 
 Hudson to Livingston tract, 
 328; Catholics among, in N. 
 Y., 228; English public sen- 
 timent turns against, 229; 
 
492 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Londoners petition against, 
 230; parliamentary commit- 
 tee investigates, :?30; suffer 
 hardships on Livingston 
 tract, 230, 231; escape from 
 province, 232; locate in Penn- 
 sylvania, 232. 
 
 Palatixe, The, ravaged by 
 wars, 221. 
 
 Palisades, The, named L'An- 
 ormee Berge, 10; Allefonsce 
 mentions, 13. 
 
 Palmer, John, 104, 106. 
 
 Panama, Isthmus of, 3. 
 
 Parade or Plain, 51. 
 
 Parent, J., Canadian, prisoner 
 of war in N. Y., 326. 
 
 Park Row, 51. 
 
 Parlon, Louis, 327. 
 
 Pardow, S.J., Father William 
 O'Brien, 424. 
 
 Pascoal, Padre, prisoner of war 
 in N. Y., 219. 
 
 Patchogue Tribe, 83. 
 
 Patte, John, early N. Y. Cath- 
 olic, 195. 
 
 Patterson, Elizabeth (Bona- 
 parte), in N. Y., on her 
 honeymoon, 439; her sad 
 story, 439, 440, 441, 442. 
 
 Pearl Street, 48, 74, 80, 86, 114, 
 128. 
 
 Peintz, Governor John, per- 
 secutes Plowden's colonists, 
 38, 41. 
 
 Pelissier, Ciiristophe, sketch 
 of, 350. 
 
 Pemaquid, 71, 82. 
 
 Penn, William, grant to, from 
 Charles II, 77; covets N. Y. 
 territory, 81 ; Dongan foils his 
 efforts to acquire upper Sus- 
 quehanna Valley, 88. 
 
 Pennsylvania, 77, 94, 106, 187. 
 
 Pere, Captain, 187. 
 
 Perel Straat (now Pearl 
 Street), 48. 
 
 Permittet, Sieur, prisoner of 
 war in N. Y., 326. 
 
 Perry, John, N. Y, postman, 
 arrested, 150. 
 
 Philadelphia, 117, 331, 335. 
 
 Philip, Indian sachem, 71. 
 
 Phillipse, Frederick, 128. 
 
 Phips, Sir William, 60, 97. 
 
 Pierret, Pastor Antoine 
 (Huguenot), abused by Leis- 
 ler, 170; applies for deniza- 
 tion of alleged Huguenots, 
 201. 
 
 Pierson or Pierron, S.J., 
 Father, in N. Y., 70. 
 
 Pinhorne, William, 74; har- 
 bors F. Harvey in N. Y. city, 
 147. 
 
 Piracy, 16. 
 
 Pirates, 77. 
 
 Piscataqua, 60. 
 
 Plowden, Sir Edmund, arrives 
 in New Amsterdam, 37 ; inter- 
 view with Gov. Kieft, 38; 
 claims Dutch territory, 38; 
 sails for New Albion, 38; his 
 colonial scheme, 39 ; marooned, 
 40; abandons domain, 41; 
 death, 41. 
 
 Plowman, Matthew, Catholic, 
 appointed Collector of port of 
 N. Y., 105; sends public 
 money to fort on outbreak of 
 Leisler troubles, 118; de- 
 nounced as a Catholic, 119, 
 129, 136; dismissed from of- 
 fice, 141 ; writes Lord Hali- 
 fax, 149, 150, 155. 
 
 PONTGIBAUD, ChEVALIER DE, 
 
 visits N. Y. city, 409. 
 
 Pope Innocent X, receives F. 
 Bressani, 44. 
 
 Pope Puts VII, erects See of 
 New York, 458. 
 
 Population of N. Y. citv, 1682, 
 87; of province, 1686, "l 00; of 
 city in 1712, 238; of city in 
 1740, 250; Catholics in city, 
 1808, 458. 
 
 Portugal, 4, 10, 105. 
 
 Portuguese, 34. 
 
 Potencien, Father (see Mich- 
 ael Houdin). 
 
 PoucHOT, Captain, Command- 
 ant at Fort Niagara, 311; 
 brought a prisoner of war to 
 N. Y., 328. 
 
 Prearie, M. de la, 131. 
 
 Prudhomme, 9. 
 
INDEX 
 
 493 
 
 Printing Press, James' instruc- 
 tions concerning, 10:3; identi- 
 cal with William's to Fletcher, 
 192. 
 
 Privateering, 16; Arthur Helm, 
 
 298, 299 ; Helm punished, 305 ; 
 cruelty to French prisoners, 
 306, 307; French ships cap- 
 tured after peace, 308; Rob- 
 ert Troup kidnaps free Span- 
 iards, 313, 324; privateering 
 active, 324; complaints from 
 the home government, 324; 
 take ship carrying Papal flag, 
 326, 328. 
 
 Prisoners of War (French 
 AND Canadian), many in N. 
 Y. city, 192, 197, 198, 200, 
 219; sent to Flatbush and 
 Hempstead, 233; number of 
 in city, 243, 293, 294, 295, 298, 
 
 299, '306; many leave for 
 home, 306; Gov. Clinton 
 charged with " grafting," 
 306; cast adrift at sea by 
 privateers, 307, 308; twenty- 
 one reach N. Y. badly 
 wounded, 317; shipped home 
 on Spanish vessels, 325; or- 
 dered distributed and sub- 
 sisted at public expense, 325; 
 some shipped to French 
 ports, 325; subsistence of 
 prisoners a public burden, 
 326, 327; break jail, 327. 
 
 Prisoners of War (Spanish), 
 many in X. Y. city, 235, 243; 
 free Spanish subjects con- 
 demned to slavery, 254, 294; 
 held as slaves, 295; petition 
 Gov. Clinton for freedom, 
 295, 298, 299, 306, 307, 308, 
 311, 312, 314. 
 
 PuEBi.A DE i.os Angeles, dona- 
 tion to St. Peter's, 384. 
 
 PuiLLiN, Francois, entertains 
 French visitors, 205. 
 
 PuLLEN, Sheriff Thomas, of 
 Orange County, charged with 
 Catholic tendencies, 248, 249. 
 
 Pynchon, John, 74. 
 
 Quakers, 219, 452. 
 
 Quebec, F. Jogues, Charletain 
 
 and Garnier reach, 21 ; in 
 1636, 21, 23, 25, 28; F. Jogues 
 returns to, 35; F. Bressani 
 in, 44, 53, 57, 60, 100; French 
 Protestant oflScers send in- 
 formation to Mass., 194, 335; 
 stormed by Americans, 341. 
 
 Quebec Act, preserves rights 
 of Catholics, 335; feeling 
 against strong in N. Y., 337; 
 broadside against, 337. 
 
 Queens County, outbreak 
 against Leisler in, 170; 
 French war prisoners in, 170. 
 
 Queen Street, 332. 
 
 QtriRRYNSE, Lieut. Carl, 66. 
 
 Quogue, L. I., 8. 
 
 Ramesay', visits New York, 247. 
 
 Ranelagh Garden, 332. 
 
 Regonville, Major, prisoner in 
 New York, 339; asks permis- 
 sion to perform Easter duty, 
 339. 
 
 Raymbault, S.J., Father 
 Charles, 27. 
 
 Reade Street, 332. 
 
 Regiments (American), many 
 Catholics in Pennsylvania 
 and Maryland, 350. 
 
 Regiments (British): Sey- 
 mours, 236; Kane's, 236; 
 Clayton's, 236; Kirk's, 236; 
 Disney's, 236; Windresse's, 
 236; Redding's, 236; Pepper- 
 el's (51st), 316; Shirley's 
 50th— Dirty Half Hundred), 
 316; 16th,' 335; 18th Royal 
 Irish, 339, 340; 60th Royal 
 American, 350; Roman Cath- 
 olic Volunteers, 355, 358 ; Vol- 
 unteers of Ireland (105th), 
 358. 
 
 Regiments (French and Can- 
 adians) : La Reine, 327; La 
 Sarre, 327, 328; Royal Rou- 
 sillon, 327, 328; Languedoc, 
 327; Giiienne, 327,328; Berry, 
 327 ; Beam, 328 ; Marines, 328 ; 
 Bourbonnais, 359 ; Soisson- 
 nais, 359 ; Lauzun's Legion, 
 360. 
 
 Regiments (German Auxili- 
 aries) : Some Catholics in. 
 
494 
 
 INDEX 
 
 351; Catholic Chaplain in 
 Anhalt-Zerbst, 353. 
 
 Rene, Chevalier de, prisoner 
 of war in N. Y., 326. 
 
 Rexsselaerswyck. (See Al- 
 bany.) 
 
 Revolutionary War, New 
 York on eve of, 337, 338. 
 
 Rhode Island, 77. 
 
 Ribera, Diego, his map indicates 
 Sandy Hook, New York Bay 
 and Hudson River, 10. 
 
 RiGGS, John, 12:3 ; arrives in 
 New York, 154. 
 
 Bivington's Gazette, doggerel 
 on French alliance, 358, 359. 
 
 Roberval, Sieur, 12. 
 
 Rochambeau, General Jean 
 Baptiste, Donation de Vi- 
 MiEUB, commander of French 
 forces, 360. 
 
 Rochambeau, Vicomte de, 359. 
 
 Rochefoucauld - Liancourt 
 D'EsTissAc Due DE LA, sketch 
 of, in New York, 415, 416. 
 
 ROCHELLE, LA, 4, 5, 13, 20, 43. 
 
 RocKAWAY Beach, 8. 
 
 RocKAWAY Tribe, 83. 
 
 Roman Catholic Volunteers, 
 history of, 355, 356, 357, 358. 
 
 Roosevelt, John, 263. 
 
 ROSSELL, ChEV'ALIER de, 244. 
 
 Rome (Italy), F. Bressani, 
 born in, 42. 
 
 Roth, Michael, 451, 457. 
 
 RouviLLE, prisoner in New 
 York, 339. 
 
 Russell, Ensign George, ar- 
 rested by Leislerites in N. Y., 
 147. 
 
 Ryall, ijrisoner in New York, 
 
 339. 
 , Saens de Bitare (Father An- 
 dre), prisoner of war in New 
 York, 244; robbed, 244. 
 
 Sagamite, 24. 
 
 Saguenay River, Allefonsce at 
 mouth of, 12, 20. 
 
 St. Aignan, Denis Courten de, 
 master of " Le Talente," 237; 
 carries wrecked Englishmen 
 to New York, 237; robbed by 
 
 British naval captain, 237, 
 238. 
 
 Saint Aulaire, Chevalier de, 
 French oflBcer in American 
 army, 349. 
 
 St. Benuito, Antonio de, 
 Spanish Catholic Negro tried 
 for conspiracy, 267. 
 
 St. Charles Rn'ER, 21. 
 
 Saint Gelais, Melin, 13. 
 
 St. George's Square, 332. 
 
 St. John's (Newfoundland), 
 12. 
 
 St. Lawrence Bay, 20. 
 
 St. Lawrence River, explored 
 by Allefonsce, 12, 20, 28, 89, 
 316. 
 
 Saint-Mai3ie, Col. Compte de, 
 359. 
 
 Saint Marie Mission, 27. 
 
 Saint Martin, Lieu. Col., 
 French officer in American 
 army, 349. 
 
 Saint Merv, Medric Louis 
 Elie Moreau de, in extreme 
 poverty in New York, 412; 
 sketch of, 412, 413. 
 
 Saintonge, 12. 
 
 St. Ours, 339; prisoner in New 
 York, 339. 
 
 St. Peters, Chukch, Trustees 
 appointed without ecclesias- 
 tical authority, 370; corner 
 stone laid, 373; description 
 of, 373; invites Father Jones, 
 O.S.F., 377, 378; people agi- 
 tate for F. Whalen's removal, 
 378; High Mass solemnized, 
 379 ; trustees elected, 381 ; ask 
 F. Nugent's dismissal, 381 ; 
 strife in, 382; F. Nugent sus- 
 pended, 382; F. Wm. O'Brien 
 appointed, 382; front portico 
 and sacristy furnished, pews 
 installed, 411; petition Trin- 
 ity Corporation for abate- 
 ment of rent, 421 ; donation 
 of pastor to Trinitv School, 
 422; F. Mathew O'Brien ap- 
 pointed assistant, 431 ; debt, 
 1800, 432; organ purchased, 
 choir organized, 432; congre- 
 gation grows, 433; churchyard 
 
INDEX 
 
 495 
 
 purchased, 433; improvements, 
 433; Dr. Hurley assist at, 
 during epidemic, 449; Abbe 
 Sibourd assists at, 449; 
 trustees protest against oath, 
 450; free school receives pub- 
 lic funds, 450; trustees in 
 1800, 451 ; Christmas Eve riot 
 outside of, 456. 
 
 Salisbury, Capt., 72, 74. 
 
 Salvaye, SiEtJR Peter de, envoy 
 to Brockholls in New York, 
 78, 97. 
 
 San Antonio River. (See 
 Hudson River.) 
 
 San Christobel (see New 
 York Bay). 
 
 San Domingo, revolution in, 
 drives many to New York, 
 411, 412. 
 
 Sandy Hook, C. de S. Marie on 
 Maiollo's Map, 7; named by 
 Gomez, Cabo de Arenas, 10, 
 187. 
 
 San Miguel, Guadape, 11. 
 
 Santa Maria of the Azores, 
 4. 
 
 Saratoga, Dongan projects In- 
 dian Catholic Settlement at, 
 102. 
 
 Sault Sainte Marie, Father 
 Jogues and Raymbault at, 27. 
 
 Schenectady, 80, 105; mas- 
 sacre at, 158, 187. 
 
 ScHRiCK, Susanna, 74; marries 
 Brockholls, 76. 
 
 ScHRicK, Paulus, a Hartford 
 settler, 74; Brockholls' father- 
 in-law, 74. 
 
 Schuyler, John, lures Father 
 de Marieul into captivity, 
 233. 
 
 Schuyler, Peter, 233, 326. 
 
 Scotch, 236; family lost in 
 wreck off Seven Islands, 236; 
 articles of Catholic devotion 
 found in wreckage, 236; 
 Highland Catholics land in 
 New York, 333. 
 
 Scotland, 99. 
 
 ScoTT, John Morin, 334. 
 
 Secatague Tribe, 83. 
 
 SiELYNS, Dominie Henry, to 
 
 Classis of Amsterdam on 
 Catholics, 78; letter to Clas- 
 sis, 113; parsonage searched 
 by Leislerites, 154; letter to 
 Classis denouncing Leisler, 
 169; preaches against Leis- 
 lerism, 181; notifies Leisler of 
 his fate, 184; attends him on 
 scaffold, 184; writes to Clas- 
 sis concerning New York, 
 193, 194. 
 
 Seneca Nation, 23, 57, 105. 
 
 Setauket Tribe, 83. 
 
 Seton, Elizabeth (Mother 
 Seton), her account of 
 quarantined Irish immigrants, 
 434; her early life, conversion 
 and subsequent career, 442, 
 443, 444, 445, 446. 
 
 SE\nEN Year's War, 315. 
 
 Seze, Ellen Eugenia Adelaide 
 DE, Baptized in St. Peters, 
 430. 
 
 Seze, John Baptist Alexis 
 Mary de, French emigre in 
 New York, 430. 
 
 Shelter Island, L. I., 83. 
 
 Shearman, 327. 
 
 Sherbiel, M., prisoner of war 
 in New York, 306. 
 
 Shinnececk Tribe, 83. 
 
 Ships: Adventure, 197; Alli- 
 ance, 361 ; Amazon, 244 
 America, 364; Archangel 
 171; Asia, 339; Asted, 367 
 Atlanta, 365; Bachelors, 295 
 Beaver, 118; Bermuda, 324 
 Black Prince, 362; Blessed 
 William, 161 ; Bordeaux, 150 
 Boston, 439; Brave Hawk, 
 308; Canterbury, 171; Castle, 
 65; Castor, 306, 307; Ceres 
 366; Charming Peggy, 324 
 Constant Abigal, 218; Con- 
 stant Warwick, 218; Coureur 
 de I'Amerique, 365; Coureur 
 I'Europe, 365; Coureur de 
 New York, 365; Coureur de 
 rOrient, 365; Cruizer, 303; 
 D' Aigrette, 386; Dauphin, 1, 
 5, 7, 14; Delaware, 364; Dia- 
 mond, 65, 66, 115;, Dolphin, 
 354; Due de Lauzun, 361; 
 
496 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Edward, 363; EflSngham, 363; 
 Embuscade, 187; Feversham, 
 236; Flamborough, 251; 
 Fleur de la Mar, 313; Four- 
 gon, 187; Fox, 308; Galves- 
 ton, 406; General Johnson, 
 327; General Monk, 400; 
 George, 327; Golden Fleece, 
 73; Halve Maen, 14; Harlem, 
 364; Hector, 237; Hester, 
 311; Hornet, 362; Hyder 
 Ally, 400; Immaculate Con- 
 ception and St. Ignatlo de 
 Loiola, 326; John and Cath- 
 erine, 161; John and James, 
 171; John and Rebecca, 197; 
 Joseph, 237; Kingston, 235, 
 303; La Garce, 16; L' Alliga- 
 tor, 365; L'Amazone, 308; 
 La Princesse, 190; La Reno- 
 mee, 203, 204; La Virgen del 
 Rosario y el Santo Cristo de 
 Buen Viage, 324; Le Con- 
 corde, 307; Le Languedoc, 
 354; Le Marechal de Saxe, 
 307; Le Mars, 307; L'Espe- 
 rance, 190; Le Talente, 237; 
 Lexington, 362; Le Zephire, 
 307; L'Industrie, 308; Lowes- 
 toft, 236; Marguerite, 306; 
 Mars, 365; Mary, 237; Mi- 
 nerva, 365; Muyall Tromp, 
 65; Neptune, 237; Nuestra 
 Senore de Guadalupe, 324; 
 Otter, 114; Planter's Adven- 
 ture, 77; Pollux, 306, 307; 
 Prince Charles, 306; Prophet 
 Elias, 160; Queen Ann, 217; 
 Raleigh, 364; Ranger, 304; 
 Resolution, 161; Revenge, 
 326; Richmond, 198; Royal 
 Albany, 161; Royal Cath- 
 erine, 307; Ruth, 77; St. 
 Charles, 308; Saint Francois 
 Xavier, 187; St. Jean, 190; 
 St. Joseph, 327; St. Michael, 
 243; St. Pierre, 190; Samson, 
 409; Samuel, 235; San Miguel 
 J la Virgen de los Dolores, 
 299; San Vincente Ferrer, 
 308; Senorita Del S. Carmen, 
 311; Sita Gratia, 197; Sto 
 Christo del Burgo, 235; Sun- 
 
 flower, 243; Swallow, 243; 
 Sybille, 243, 261; Telmaque, 
 383; Trepassy, 365; Triton's 
 Prize, 217, 218; Union, 190; 
 United States, 366; Victory, 
 234; William, 77, 306. 
 
 " Shoeinge," The, description 
 of, 49. 
 
 SiBOURD, Father Louis, in New 
 York, 423; sketch of, 423, 
 424, 449. 
 
 SKmDY, JoHK R., 457. 
 
 SiLVA, Juan de la, Spanish 
 Catholic negro, tried for con- 
 spiracy, 267; condemned to 
 death, 268; hanged, 269. 
 
 SiLVA Jose Roiz, 368; trustee 
 of Catholic Church, 370; 
 sketch of, 372, 396, 409; dies 
 of yellow fever, 424. 
 
 Sloughter, Go\t:rxor Henry, 
 arrives in New York on 
 "Archangel," 177; assumes 
 command, 178; appoints 
 judges to try Leisler and 
 others, 181 ; signs Leisler's 
 and Milborne's death war- 
 rants, 183. 
 
 Slaves, Indian and Negro, 213; 
 commit murder in Queens, 
 239; outbreak of in New 
 York, 240, 241, 242. 
 
 Smith, Captain John, 14. 
 
 Smith, Father Peter, in N. 
 Y., 62. 
 
 Smith, William, 122. 
 
 Smithtown, L. I., 83. 
 
 Smit's V'ly or Siniith's Val- 
 ley, 80; blockhouse in, sur- 
 renders, 175. 
 
 Society for the Propagation 
 OF the Gospel in Foreign 
 Parts, Rev. T. Moore's letter 
 to, 216, 228, 231, 242, 291, 
 292; Rev. R. Jenney writes to 
 " No Popery in New York," 
 295. 
 
 SoLjETT, Louis, French-Cana- 
 dian agent in New York, 219. 
 
 SouGE, Father Jean Ambrose, 
 in New York, 423; sketch of, 
 423. 
 
INDEX 
 
 497 
 
 Southampton, L. I., 70, 83, 119. 
 
 southold, l. i., 70, 83. 
 
 Spain, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 16, 105, 
 343, 307; King Charles IV, 
 donation to St. Peter's, New 
 York, 373. 
 
 Spaniards, 3, 5, 13, 16, 45, 
 
 Spanish America, 3. 
 
 Speth, George, 409. 
 
 Spice Islands, 10. 
 
 Spragg, John, clerk, first as- 
 sembly, 90. 
 
 Springfield, Mass., 71. 
 
 Stadt Huys or City Hall, 
 originally the Harburg or 
 tavern, 17, 49; description of, 
 49, 67, 86. 
 
 Stamp Act passed and re- 
 pealed, 334. 
 
 Staten Island, 65, 77, 93 ; Don- 
 gan erects Cassiltown, 133, 
 131, 315; Acadian refugees 
 settle temporarily in, 330; 
 Irish immigrants on, 433. 
 
 States-General, Dutch mer- 
 chants petition, 15, 33, 66, 67. 
 
 Steenwyck, Councilor Cor- 
 
 NELIS, 66. 
 
 Stewart, James, Trustee Cath- 
 olic Church, 370, 396. 
 
 Stoll, Ensign Joost, 150, 154; 
 announces appointment of 
 Governor Sloughter, 164. 
 
 Stoughton, Don Thomas, Do- 
 minie Lynch's partner, 391 ; 
 arrives in New York, 391 ; 
 sketch of, 393, 394; obituary 
 in "Truth Teller," 409, 431, 
 451. 
 
 Stockade or Wall, description 
 of. 
 
 Stone Street, 80. 
 
 Strand, The, 48. 
 
 Stuyvesant, Governor Peter, 
 Plowden visits, 38; comes to 
 New Amsterdam, 45; his per- 
 sonality, 46, 47, 61; surren- 
 ders New Amsterdam, 61 ; in 
 disgrace, 63. 
 
 Suffolk County, 130, 133; 
 prisoners sent to, 338. 
 
 Susquehanna Tribe, 33. 
 
 Swedish Delaware Possessions, 
 38, 41. 
 
 Sullivan, John, 397, 409, 431. 
 
 Tadoussac, 30. 
 
 Talbot, Mark, Catholic in 
 Dongan's suite, 88; sent to 
 London, 93. 
 
 Talbot, Dongan's maternal an- 
 cestry, 84. 
 
 Talleyrand de Perigord, 
 Charles Maurice, in New 
 York, 416, 417, 418, 419, 430. 
 
 Tangiers (Africa), 85. 
 
 Taxation, 91. 
 
 Test Act, passed 1673, 67; "in- 
 operative in colonies, 68; text 
 of oath, 178, 179; becomes 
 inoperative in Canada, 335. 
 
 Thatcher, Thomas, 73. 
 
 Thames River, 8. 
 
 Thayer, Father John, 433. 
 
 Thebaud, Joseph, in New York, 
 430; sketch of, 430, 431. 
 
 Third Plenary Council, Kal- 
 timore, 36. 
 
 TiNNEY, William, 409. 
 
 Tisserant, Abbk, J.S., 445. 
 
 Tobacco Nation, 33, 37. 
 
 Tonancour, prisoner in New 
 York, 339. 
 
 ToussAiNT, Peter, Dominican 
 slave brought to New York, 
 413, 414; his charity; death 
 of, 413, 414. 
 
 Tracy, Governor Alexandre 
 Prouville de, 57. 
 
 Trapani, Anthony, 457. 
 
 Treat, Governor Robert, of 
 Connecticut, 92. 
 
 Treaty of Westminster, 65. 
 
 Trinity Church, 391, 316; col- 
 lection for Highlanders in, 
 333; burned, 351; offers to 
 sell St. Peter's trustees site 
 of church, 431 ; donation for 
 school from St. Peter's pas- 
 tor, 433. 
 
 Trois Rivieres (Three Rubers), 
 60. 
 
 Tuder, John, Captain, Leisler 
 denounces, 167, 168. 
 
 Turenne, Marshal, 84. 
 
408 
 
 INDEX 
 
 T'WATER POORT OR WaTER GaTE, 
 50. 
 
 Tymense, Elsje, Leisler's wife, 
 114. 
 
 Ulster County, 145. 
 
 Ury, John, sketch of, 269; 
 schoolmaster, 269; denounced 
 as " Papist " priest, 270 ; ar- 
 raigned, pleaded not guilty, 
 278; convicted, 279; his ca- 
 reer, 280, 281; respited, 287; 
 hanged, 287. 
 
 Valiniere, Father Pierre 
 HuET DE LA, Sulpitian, 369, 
 373, 374; sketch of, 374, 375, 
 376, 377. 
 
 Van Brug, Burgomaster Jo- 
 hannes, G6, 
 
 Van Corlaer, Arendt, 32. 
 
 Van Cortlandt, Jacobus, 96. 
 
 Van Cortlandt, Stephen, 
 Mayor, 118, 124, 128, 136; de- 
 nounced as " Papist," 136, 
 138, 152; warrant issued for, 
 157. 
 
 Van Hoboken, Harmanus, 
 New Amsterdam schoolmas- 
 ter, 49. 
 
 Van Der Grift, Paulus Leed- 
 ertsen, 51. 
 
 Van Loon, Jan, 76. 
 
 Van Rensselaer, The Rev. 
 Nicholas, comes to New 
 York as chaplain to garrison, 
 GQ\ troubles with Leisler, 
 115. 
 
 Van Rensselaer Island, 11. 
 
 Van Rensselaer, Patroon, 32. 
 
 Varet, Francis, 457. 
 
 Varick, Dominie Rudolphus, 
 letter to Classis, 113; im- 
 prisoned by Leisler, 169; 
 writes Classis concerning con- 
 dition in N. Y., 192. 
 
 Vaudreuil, Philip de Rigaud, 
 Governor of New France, 
 233, 236, 318, 326, 327; sur- 
 renders New France, 330. 
 
 Vauxhall Garden, 333. 
 
 Vega, Don Francisco Caxegal 
 de, tries to restore enslaved 
 Spaniards, 323. 
 
 Verrazano, Giovanni Da, early 
 
 history of, 1, 2; preys on 
 Spanish commerce, 3, 4, 5; 
 sent by Francis I to seek a 
 westward passage to Spice 
 Islands, 5; the voyage begun, 
 6; sights the North Carolina 
 coast, 6; enters the Bay of 
 New York, 7; Lond Island 
 and New England, 8, 9; ar- 
 rives at Dieppe, 9; his subse- 
 quent history, 9, 10, 12. 
 
 Vermenet, Brevet-Major Jean 
 Arthur de, French officer in 
 American army, 349. 
 
 ViAR, Jose, Spanish Charge 
 D'AflF aires in New York, 408. 
 
 ViBERT, AnTOINE FeLIX, 
 
 French engineer in American 
 army, 349. 
 
 ViLLEBON, Chevalier de Robi- 
 NEAU, visits New York, 187. 
 
 Vincentian Fathers, 446. 
 
 Virginia, 15, 37, 107. 
 
 Vuillet, Gov. John Sieur de 
 Chassaigne, envoy in New 
 York, 348; sketch of, 248. 
 
 Walsh, Captain John, Cath- 
 olic privateersman, impris- 
 oned, 354; sketch of, 354. 
 
 Walsh, James, 457. 
 
 Walters, Robert, Leisler's son- 
 in-law, elected alderman, 152. 
 
 Wall Street, 51, 80, 332; Jos- 
 eph Idley's house on, 338. 
 
 Walton House, 332. 
 
 Washington, General George, 
 in New York city, 345; com- 
 mands French - American 
 army that threatens New 
 York, 360; inaugurated, 406, 
 407, 408. 
 
 Watcessit, Plowden's manor at, 
 40. 
 
 "Water Side," The, 80. 
 
 Wedderborne, George, 122. 
 
 West, John, 74. 
 
 West Broadway, 332. 
 
 West Indies, 2, 105; number of 
 slaves from, in New York, 
 247. 
 
 Whelan, Father Charles 
 (Capuchin), comes to N. Y., 
 368; sketch of, 368, 369, 377, 
 
INDEX 
 
 499 
 
 378; leaves N. Y., 380; Arch- 
 bishop Spalding's eulogy of, 
 381, 382. 
 
 Walsh, S.S., Father Andrew, 
 34. 
 
 Whitehall Street^ 48, 80, 114, 
 
 William, Prixce of Orange, 
 67, 109; invited to England, 
 lands in Torbay, 110; rumors 
 of an invasion reaches New 
 York, 117. 
 
 William and Mary, 133. 
 
 William III, King of Eng- 
 land, address from Leisle- 
 rites, 133; his relations with 
 Captain Kidd, 213. 
 
 William Street, 335. 
 
 Williams, John, pirate, 77. 
 
 WiNCKEL Straat (now White- 
 hall Street), 48. 
 
 WiNTHROP, Governor John, 
 41; writes Bellomont con- 
 cerning Jesuits, 205. 
 
 Wood, James, Catholic soldier 
 in New York garrison, 197; 
 sent back to England, 197, 
 
 WooLEY, The Rev. James, 
 Chaplain in fort, 74. 
 
 Worth Street, 11. 
 
 YoNG, Captain Thomas, a 
 colonist of Plowden's, 39.