DONGAN'S CHARTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Read before the United States Cath^olic Historical Society 
 by John Gilmary Shea. 
 
 There is a subject which the Executive Council con- 
 sidered too important not to be commemorated by at best a 
 brief mention in a meeting of a Society devoted by its very 
 charter to preserve and make known all that relates to the 
 history of Catholics in this country. 
 
 The act is that by which on April, 1686, New York was 
 raised to the rank of a city, endowed with property and fran- 
 chises. It was the act of a Catholic Governor acting in the 
 name and by authority of a Catholic Lord Proprietor, who 
 after making New York English and the keystone of a great 
 colonial system that was to secure to our tongue the pre- 
 ponderance on this continent, had ascended the throne of 
 England, the first and only Catholic to rule there during the 
 last three hundred years. 
 
 •'The Dongan Charter" is a theme that we hoped to have 
 treated here by the Irish Catholic Mayor of New York, as 
 some remarks would come appositely from his lips, filling as 
 he does the Chief magistracy of a city chartered two centuries 
 ago by an Irish Catholic Governor. 
 
 I regret that the topic does not fall to better hands than 
 mine, and as I too can plead ill health, I beg your indulgence. 
 
 Some years ago, a high city official listening to an im- 
 portant debate in the Chamber or argument in Court heard 
 
2 
 
 constant reference to the Dongan Charter. At last he leaned 
 over to some other official near him and asked in a whisper ; 
 '•What is the Dongan Charter ? " His friend's blank visage 
 did not require even the movement of his head to show his 
 ignorance. An appeal to another City worthy resulted in no 
 more satisfactory elucidation of the problem, and the high 
 official resigned himself to the prevailmg ignorance. But the 
 allusions to "Dongan's Charter" became too much for human 
 nature. He rushed out of the City Hall, secured a carriage 
 on Broadw^ay and ordered the coachman to drive at once to 
 the New York Historical Society. Alighting, he mounted 
 the stairs, and the staircase of that venerable institution 
 was not planned with an eye to the comfort of well fed city 
 offiicials and entering the Library asked of the Custodian of 
 books, his great conundrum ; "What is the Dongan Charter.?" 
 The answer came promptly: it was the charter making New 
 York a city and giving it extensive rights, granted April 2 2d, 
 1686 in the name of James 11 King of Great Britain and 
 Ireland by Colonel Thomas Dongan, an Irish Catholic Gen- 
 tlemen, then Govenor of the province of New York. But 
 where is this great document. ! " was the next question. "The 
 original in several large sheets of parchment with its seals is 
 preserved in the office of the Comptroller." "What down in 
 the Park ? " "Undoubtedly." "And where can I see a copy ? " 
 "More or less correctly in the City Charter, in many col- 
 lections of Laws relating to the City and in many of 
 Valentine's Common Council Manuals." 
 
 After examining a copy he hurried back, and studying 
 it at leisure set up as a pundit in regard to "Dongan's 
 Charter." 
 
 In the remarks about to be presented, I am far from 
 implying in my audience any such ignorance as to the Don- 
 gan Charter, or the Governor who granted it, or of the reign 
 and the times in which he lived. Much less do I pretend to 
 give a full or comprehensive account, for it would require a 
 volume to present real facts and sweep away accumulated 
 dust and cobwebs that have long passed for history. 
 
 The elevation of New York to the rank of a city was 
 
3 
 
 only one of a series of wisely planned and ably guided acts 
 looking to the future well being and greatness of America. 
 It was important not to the city only and the colony of New 
 York, but to the English empire in America, which the 
 house of Brunswick subsequently received, but lacked states- 
 manship and honesty enough to retain. The Guelphs lost 
 and lost dearly what the Stuarts consolidated and secured. 
 This to some may be viewing history from a new standpoint, 
 but it is a correct view. 
 
 Any one who passes rapidly in mind over the list of 
 English monarchs whose rule extended to this country, will 
 see little interest displayed by any of them in its actual or 
 future prosperity. Elizabeth gave grants, James did the 
 same and wrote a book to injure tobacco, the great staple 
 of Virginia; Charles I made land concessions, but that was 
 all. Cromwell did nothing but involve Maryland and Vir- 
 ginia in strife and confusion. Pleasure loving Charles II 
 of his own impulse would have done as little for America as 
 any of his predecessors; but his brother James was a man of 
 different stamp. Eminently a man of action and adminis- 
 trative ability, James, Duke of York, applied himself during 
 his exile to acquire military experience and saw service under 
 the best general of his time. After the restoration he was 
 made Lord High Admiral of England, and he set to work to 
 increase the efficiency of the British navy. The rules drawn 
 up by him were so wise, so thorough and so practical that 
 they were maintained till our time, and the Nelsons, the 
 Rodneys and the Hoods, the men who made England mis- 
 tress of the seas, were trained under the system introduced 
 by James, whom venal or careless historians persist in hold- 
 ing up to us as a shallow, bigoted man. 
 
 In France he had learned from the numerous books 
 printed on Canada and Acadia, the extent of the French 
 empire in America, and saw how the indifference of the 
 English government was periling not only the future sway 
 of our continent, but the very existence of the two neglected 
 groups of colonies, Virginia and Maryland at the south, and 
 New England at the north, colonies posssessing no common 
 
4 
 
 bond or tie, colonies not homogeneous in government, re- 
 ligion or policy. 
 
 Reviving an old English claim, James solicited from his 
 brother a grant of the territory colonized by the Dutch and 
 that was wrested by them from the Swedes. As head of the 
 navy he sent over the vessels and force necessary to take 
 possession. New Netherland disappeared from the map, 
 and New York, a new English colony became the con- 
 necting link between New England and Maryland, and as 
 his grant included Maine, the British flag floated from the 
 Penobscot to Cape Fear, over a series of colonies in unbroken 
 line. We see his influence too in the grant of the Carolinas 
 to a number of noblemen, completing the occupation of the 
 coast and confronting the French in Acadia at the north, and 
 the Spaniards in Florida at the south. 
 
 That the credit is due to James and not to any settled 
 policy of English statesmen is evident, from the fact that 
 this plan had no precedent, and that for nearly half a century 
 after the fall of James not a step was taken to extend the 
 limits of the British coast line his genius had secured. 
 
 To develop the province he had himself acquired James 
 transferred the country between the Hudson and Delaware 
 to others who soon peopled New Jersey. His friend William 
 Penn, interested in that colony, soon became Proprietor of 
 Pennsylvania, as all know, by the aid and support of James. 
 In New York he established English laws, introduced English 
 settlers and developed the resources of the province. There 
 he established liberty of conscience, Bancroft says that "no 
 glimpse of it reached James," and that he was "an advocate 
 of toleration without a sense of the natural right to freedem 
 of conscience," but that James was in the full sunshine 
 instead of getting a mere glimpse is proved by his acts. He 
 established religious freedom in New York and lost his 
 throne for endeavoring to establish toleration in England. 
 
 Let me quote a more impartial writer, one not biased by 
 hereditary New England hate of James, never forgiven for 
 his endeavor to bring that part of America into harmony 
 with the British constitution. 
 
5 
 
 "Determined to give his American province the fran- 
 chises its people desired, the Duke of York sought an able 
 colonial governor to take the place of Andros * * * * The 
 man chosen by James was Colonel Thomas Dongan, born in 
 1634, a younger son of an Irish baronet, Sir John Dongan, 
 and a nephew of Richard Talbot, afterward created Earl and 
 Duke of Tyrconnel in Ireland. Thomas Dongan, of course, 
 gained advancement by his brother's and his uncle's in- 
 fluence at the English court. Dongan was quickly promoted 
 to be a colonel in the royal army, and having been assigned 
 to serve with his Irish regiment under Louis was stationed 
 for some time at Nancy. In 1678 he was ordered home from 
 France, to his pecuniary loss; but was rewarded by Charles 
 with a pension and the appointment of Lieutenant Governor 
 of Tangier, in Africa, under Lord Inchiquin, whence he was 
 recalled in 1680. Dongan was a Roman Catholic, enter- 
 prising and active; coveting money, yet "a man of integrity, 
 moderation and genteel manners." His experience in France 
 was an important recommendation, because of the delicate 
 relations between New York and Canada, and the necessity 
 of managing them skilfully on the English side. Dongan 
 was accordingly appointed governor of New York." 
 
 Such is the language of John Romeyn Brodhead, his- 
 torian of our State, a scholar and man of thought, with no 
 bias in favor of an Irishman or a Catholic. 
 
 Several new officers came over with Dongan. "The 
 Rev. Doctor John Gordon was also commissioned to be chap- 
 lain of the soldiers in New York. An English Jesuit priest, 
 Thomas Harvey, of London, likewise accompanied Dongan, 
 who embarked for America in the old Parliamentarian 
 frigate 'Constant Warwick.' With a considerable retinue 
 Dongan arrived at Nantasket, and set out for New York 
 overland, accompanied some ten miles to Dedham, by a 
 troop of Boston militia, besides several other gents of the 
 town." Brodhead "History of the State of New York, ii pp. 
 370-375, This was in August, 1683. 
 
 About two weeks after his arrival on this island, Dongan 
 summoned the first assembly of the province of New York. 
 
6 
 
 When James became proprietor, such a step with a people 
 ignorant of British laws and government, would have been 
 useless. To give the power to the handful of English who 
 came over, would have been to make a petty minority govern 
 the majority. New York had in twenty years years however 
 developed and James who wished the people to be governed 
 impartially now established a form 'of goverment in which he 
 aimed to give the legislation to the free-holders, securing on 
 their part a loyal dependence on the British crown, wiser in 
 his generation than the Georges in the next century. 
 
 On the 17th. of October. i684. the seventeen delegates to 
 the first New York Colonial assembly met with the Governor 
 and Council in Fort James, the English fort between the 
 Bowling-green and the bay. The first and grandest of its 
 acts was "The Charter of Liberties and Priviledges," se- 
 curing the rights of British subjects and establishing 
 entire freedom of concience and religion to all peaceable 
 persons which profess faith in God by Jesus Christ." 
 
 Thus is Dongan's name linked with an act and a day 
 memorable in the annals of New York. 
 
 But this is not his only claim to a place in history. He 
 at once took a firm stand for New York Colony and its rights. 
 While Thomas Dongan was Governor of New York no in- 
 fringement on its territoral or other rights, be it from the 
 French in Canada, the over reaching men of New England 
 or the Proprietor of Pennsylvania or the Governors of 
 Maryland and Virginia would be brooked. 
 
 He was the bold, skilful, polished but determined up- 
 holder of the rights of New York. He was a splendid 
 exponent of state rights. 
 
 Towards the French he presented a firm front. The 
 noble missions of the Jesuits among the Five Nations had, as 
 a Catholic, Dongan's warmest sympathy, but France could 
 not make their pious labors the ground of a territorial claim- 
 The territory of the Iroquois was withm the limits of New 
 York, and New York would not recognize any claim to a 
 single foot of land in their occupation. He upheld the line 
 of the great lakes as the natural border, and strove to keep 
 
the French from any foothold below that line. Seeing the 
 importance of Detroit, he endeavored to occupy it as a key 
 to the West. If the line of the lakes is now the northern 
 boundary of the United States, we owe it to James II and his 
 able lieutenant Thomas Dongan. 
 
 Maryland and Virginia had grounds of complaint against 
 the Five Nations. They sought to negotiate with that won- 
 derful confederacy. Dongan put his foot down. They are 
 New York Indians. You can negotiate with them only in my 
 presence and by my sanction. Lord Howard of Effingham 
 came from Virginia to make terms with the Indians under 
 the eye of the Catholic Colonel. His negotiation gave for all- 
 time to the Virginians an Iroquois name. The Dutch inter- 
 preter wishing to convey to the Mohawks the meaning 
 of Howard, took the nearest Dutch word he could find, one 
 meaning a hanger or short-sword. This to the Indians was 
 big-knife, and they called the Governor of Virginia Assarigoa. 
 Big- Knife ; and that henceforward became the name for 
 Virginians. Dongan's claim over the Five Nations endures 
 to this day. When the Federal Government was formed, it 
 attempted to pour its legion of Indian agents, contract 
 schemers, and plunderers on the Indians in New York State, 
 especially the Five Nations. Governor Clinton took his stand 
 on Dongan's strong position. "The Six Nations are New 
 York Indians. We tolerate no interference from the general 
 goverment," and this attitude has been maintained. 
 
 Towards New England Dongan was equally firm. In the 
 whole line of Colonial Governors there is not one who can be 
 ranked higher than Colonel Thomas Dongan. Brodhead, 
 indeed, accuses him of love of money, but more money was 
 freely voted to him than future governors,, could wring by 
 flattery or force. And Dongan freely spent the money in the 
 public service. He left office with arrears of salary due him 
 and large amounts advanced from his purse for public needs. 
 
 Among the memorable acts of his administartion was 
 that of granting a Charter to the City of New York in the 
 name of the King. 
 
 New York had enjoyed a kind of vague existence as a 
 
8 
 
 city. It had the name without the substance. It had no 
 powers that courts would be bouud to recognize. 
 
 To place the rights of the city on a firm basis, Dongan in 
 April, 1686, in the name and certainly not without the sanc- 
 tion of King James II, issued a Charter in the name of James 
 as King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, and also 
 as Supreme Lord and Proprietor of the Colony and Province 
 of New Yord. It recognized New York as an ancient city 
 confirmed all its rights whether by prescription or by any 
 grant, formal or informal, from the States General or himself, 
 or governors acting in their name. 
 
 Technically a city requires a bishop, but we were not 
 ready just then to begin our line of bishops. In fact we 
 had to wait sometime. 
 
 All lands granted to the city, the public buildings erec- 
 ted, the streets, ferries and all privileges, franchises, rights, 
 royalties, free customs, jurisdictions and immunites exercised 
 by the city were declared to be irrevocably vested in the 
 Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of New York. 
 Still more important perhaps was the grant to the City of all 
 waste, vacant, unpatented and unappropriated lands on the 
 island, with all rivers, rivulets, coves, creeks, ponds, waters 
 and water-courses, all land around the city down to low water 
 mark with power to fill in and reclaim 
 
 New York was to have a Mayor, six aldermen and as 
 many assistants, a town clerk, a chamberlain, a sheriff, a 
 coroner, a clerk of the market, a high constable and a mar- 
 shall. Nicholas Bayard was appointed the first Mayor, and 
 of the six Aldermen two bear English and four Dutch 
 names. 
 
 The Corporation thus created received power to regu- 
 ulate trade, markets and fairs, to open new streets and 
 ferries, and to pass ordinances for the government of the 
 city. 
 
 The Mayor with the Recorder or some of the Aldermen 
 was to preside in a Court of Common Pleas, and hold a 
 criminal court for the trial of offenders. 
 
 Such were the principal topics of this Charter which 
 
9 
 
 declares at its close " that such and no other construction 
 shall be made thereof, than that which may tend most to 
 advantage religion, justice and the public good; and to sup- 
 press all acts and contrivances to be invented, or put in use 
 contrary thereunto," 
 
 That New York prospered under the Dongan Charter 
 is seen by the tenacity with which the citizens clung to it. 
 When further powers were sought and a new charter issued 
 under Governor Montgomerie in 1730, care was taken to 
 recite the Dongan Charter at full length and confirm it. 
 That was the corner stone. 
 
 The able governor Dongan held his office till James in 
 1 688 united the province of New York to New England, and 
 placed all under the administration of Sir Edmund Andros. 
 
 Then Governor Dongan retired to his own estate, in the 
 colony. He had acquired lands on Staten Island and Long 
 Island; and had brought over two of his kinsmen, apparently 
 intending to make New York his home and establish the 
 Dongan family here. The fall of James II left New York in 
 confusion. A wild German fanatic, Leisler, seized the reins 
 of government in New York. Left by William Ill's in- 
 difference and neglect to do his will he launched the New 
 York Indians on the French in Canada, and committed a 
 frightful massacre at Lachine, compelling the French on 
 their side to use Indians in war, as they did with fearful 
 effect on New England and New York for many a day. 
 
 Dongan had taken no part in favor of the fallen mon- 
 arch, but Leisler hunted him like a wolf, and the best 
 governor New York had had was glad at last to escape to 
 Rhode Island, and sail to England from the port of Boston 
 where he had been so honorably received. 
 
 He reached England to find a foreigner on the throne, 
 his brother the Earl of Limerick in exile, the property of the 
 family confiscated. His own accounts as Governor had 
 never been settled, and New York owed him heavy arrears. 
 He petitioned in vain for the repayment of moneys which he 
 had with public spirit advanced, and for arrears due him. It 
 was not till after long delay that a pittance reached Dongan, 
 
10 
 
 a poor reward for long and able services to create a British 
 Empire in America. 
 
 When his brother died and the Earldom of Limerick' 
 devolved upon him, he sought at least a portion of the im- 
 mense estates in Ireland which had been confiscated, but 
 the same niggardly policy prevailed. 
 
 The great governor of New York, Thomas Dongan, 
 Earl of Limerick, died at last in the obscurity of poverty at 
 London, and was interred in Saint Pancras' Churchyard, 
 the chosen place of repose of Catholics of rank. 
 
 The Charter is still preserved intact in the office of the 
 Comptroller of the city,but may easily be marred or destroyed. 
 It is one of the oldest and most interesting documents re- 
 lating to the city and its rights, and yet one gentleman seeking 
 to consult it, found it used as a foot-rest by a clerk. 
 
 In the hope of being able to show the original Charter 
 to the members of the Society, I applied to the Hon. 
 W. Low, to permit it to be brought here this evening in cus- 
 tody of one of the officers of his department, Walter Dongan, 
 a descendent of the great governor, being now one. He re- 
 ceived our application with great courtesy, but expressed his 
 regret that he could not allow it to be removed from his 
 office except under a subpoena from a court of justice. 
 
 We are not prepared just yet to involve ourselves in liti- 
 gation, even with a skilful lawyer for our president ; but I 
 question whether the comptroller has any right to the custody 
 of the Dongan Charter. He is not one of the ancient officers 
 created by the charter, while the chamberlain is : but there 
 seems no authority for any financial officer to hold the 
 charters and rolls of the city, to be its "Custos Rotulorum." 
 
 When it was issued Dongan's Charter was surely com- 
 mitted to the custody of the Mayor, Nicholas Bayard, and the 
 Clerk, John West. It would seem therefore that the clerk is 
 the proper holder of the same and responsible for its safe 
 keeping.