VI

CHANGING ESTABLISHMENTS

The colonies of New York, Maryland, New Jersey, and Georgia form a group by themselves, by reason of the fact that their history is marked by change in the relation of the colonial government to the Church. In all of them there occurred during the colonial period a distinct modification of the ecclesiastical attitude. New York and New Jersey, begun under Dutch auspices and with ecclesiastical subjection to the Reformed Church of Holland, were by the English conquest brought into a peculiar ecclesiastical struggle. Not only was their ancestral Church dislodged from its position, but a prolonged, though unsuccessful, effort of the English government to force upon them an alien establishment was the cause of much trouble and bitterness. Maryland began with almost complete freedom, under a Roman Catholic palatine, but through Puritan uncharitableness and political intrigue was forced into intolerance, and finally subjected to an Anglican establishment. Georgia also was planted with the allowance of liberty, but, on the annulling of its charter by the crown, this liberty gave place to the royal establishment of the Church of England. The history of colonial Georgia is, however, so short, and its beginnings were so near to the time of the Revolution, with the crucial questions of liberty already decided, that its religious story is without much importance in the development of our present theme.

I. New York

The story of New York, in relation to the Church and to religious liberty, has some peculiar features without likeness

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in other colonies, except New Jersey. Throughout the colonial period there either was, or was supposed to be, an established Church, but the Church of early institution was other than the one which the English conquest of New Amsterdam attempted to introduce. In regard to the later establishment there is also the curious fact that, while the English authorities always acted on the supposition that the Church established in New York by the act of 1693 was the Church of England, it yet was not such and legally had no organic relation to the Anglican establishment.

Another notable thing is, that the bounds of this latter establishment were restricted to four counties by the terms of the act, all the rest of the colony being free from the imposition of a State-Church.

Yet one more general feature is in the vacillating conduct of the colonial authorities in regard to religious and ecclesiastical affairs; for the most part easy and tolerant of dissent, and occasionally breaking out in stern language of repression or harsh measures of persecution. There was no set purpose, as in Massachusetts and Virginia, to force one form of worship on the people, a purpose steadily adhered to until relaxation was compelled by the strong growth of dissent. Whether the utmost possible laxity, or a bigoted narrowness, should prevail in the governmental policy depended entirely on the changing caprice, or principle, of governors.

To begin with, when the Dutch West India company set out, under the broad and almost imperial powers of their charter from the states general of Holland, to found their colony on the Hudson, unlike other colonial founders, they made no professions of religious motives. Undoubtedly, the religious troubles in Europe had large influence in peopling the colony. Germany sent Lutherans out of the turmoils of the Thirty Years’ War; France sent many of her Huguenot refugees; out of Scotland and intolerant Massachusetts came the disciples of Presbytery; while the Dutch founders brought with them the ordinances of discipline of

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the Reformed Church of Holland. The latter were hastened also in their schemes of colonization by the sharp, political antagonisms in the Netherlands growing out of the Arminian debate. Thus it may be truly said that, the settlement of Manhattan grew directly out of the great continental struggles of Protestantism.”¹

Yet the confessed motive of the undertaking was neither for liberty of conscience nor for the propagation of the gospel among the heathen. So far as the states general were concerned, the motive was political, to give to Holland place and power among the colonizing nations of Europe; while the West India company occupied its mind with dreams of commercial gain.

At the same time, the thought of, and provision for, religion were not absent from the company’s plans. That some provision should be made by government for religious services in the settlement was a necessity of the time. It was taken for granted, both that such arrangement should be made, and that the religious affairs should be under the control of the company.

The first Dutch minister, Jonas Michaelius, was sent out by the company in 1628, for whose support the company made itself responsible. He “built a Church” and formed an organization, with Peter Minuit, the first Dutch governor, as one of its two elders. So far as is reported, the first formal expression of the company’s policy in regard to religious matters was made in 1638,² in the “Articles for Colonization.” These articles were drawn with the aim of attracting emigrants, and were submitted for approval to the states general. The two sections which touch upon religion are as follows: —

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The intent of a Church establishment, with a rate assessed by the civil law on every inhabitant, is thus clearly expressed while there is marked liberality in the allowance of dissent.

Because of this latter feature, it would appear, the articles failed of approval by the states general; and, two years after, the direction about the Church modified to the terms of positive and exclusive establishment of the national Church of Holland. The article reads: “No other Religion shall be publicly admitted in New Netherland except the Reformed, as it is at present preached and practiced by public authority in the United Netherlands: and for this purpose the Company shall provide and maintain good and suitable preachers, school-masters, and comforters of the sick.”¹ Under this restricted rule the ecclesiastical affairs of the colony were ostensibly administered to the end of the Dutch possession, but showed no indications of harshness until the fiery Stuyvesant came to the governorship. The company assumed the expense of Church-building and maintenance of the ministry,² the choice and commissioning of whom it claimed as its prerogative a genuine right of presentation.

It is not to be supposed, however, that the company’s outlay for these purposes was large. In the whole period of the Dutch rule not more than ten ministers were sent and there appeared early tokens of desire to shift the burden of maintenance upon the colonists. This desire, indeed, was

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expressed in the first articles, and was put into the agreement of 1629¹ with the “Patroons.”

This agreement, which instituted a favored class of men unlike any found in other colonies, conferred upon any, who “within four years would plant a colony of fifty souls,” a right to purchase immense tracts of land and to exercise thereon the power of lords of the manor.² The agreement recited that, “the Patroons and colonists shall in particular and in the speediest manner endeavor to find out ways and means whereby they may support a minister and school-master, that the service of God and zeal for religion may not grow cool and be neglected among them; and that they do, for the first, procure a comforter for the sick there.”

With this desire to get rid of the expense of the establishment, the company was yet unwilling to part with its right of presentation; and on that subject it came promptly into collision with its first patroon upon the Hudson, Kiliaen van Rensselaer. This powerful and rich member of the company had by purchase from the Indians and by patents obtained an enormous estate, extending twenty-four miles on both sides of the Hudson, above and below Fort Orange (Albany), and forty-eight miles east and west. To such a manorial lord as this it seemed but fitting that the choice of a minister in his domain should vest in himself.³ He therefore agreed with and appointed John Megapolensis as the minister at Fort Orange. To this appointment the company objected strenuously, claiming that the directors alone could make or approve such appointments. The strife between the two parties was continued for several months, and was finally composed by a compromise, which left a doubtful victory to the company, that Van Rensselaer should consent to “the directors approving the appointment, under protest, saving his rights as Patroon.”

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Sundry other instances of action by the company and by the civil authorities at New Amsterdam may further illustrate their intentional administration of a Church establishment. In 1638 Domino Bogardus, evidently regarding himself as a servant of the company, requested permission to visit Holland, which request the governor and council refused, explaining, “We have deemed it necessary to retain the Minister here, so that the Church of God may increase more and more, day by day.”¹

A similar application was made to the council by Megapolensis in 1619, and refused, on the ground that, “the extreme need of the Church imperatively demands that one minister at least remain in this province, . . . were it only for administering Baptism to the children.”² The Domine had already been dismissed from Rensselaerwyck and had come to New Amsterdam, on his way to Holland. The council not only refused permission to sail, but formally called him to the Church of New Amsterdam, recently left vacant by the departure of Domine Bogardus. The council reported their determination to retain Megapolensis, “blanda vi et quasi nolens volens. Such we resolve to be most necessary for the honor of God, the service of his Church, and the salvation of the people.” This action of the governor (Stuyvesant) and council was approved by the directors in Holland, who wrote to Stuyvesant,³ that they have paid to the Domine’s wife 600 florins as six months’ salary; that they are taking steps to have published at their expense a religious treatise by Megapolensis; and that they have engaged the Rev. Samuel Drisius, “a very pious man and possessed of great gifts, able to preach in English, Dutch, and French,” to go out as an assistant. The directors fixed the salary for Drisius at 100 florins per month and 250 florins annually for subsistence.

Another record or set of records — exhibits the governor and council attempting to exercise ecclesiastical discipline.⁴ The subject of it was the same Domino Bogardus, whose

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spiritual services were in 1638 too valuable to lose. Seven years after that date, either the Domine had changed his conduct or the council had altered their opinion of him, for in 1645 Governor Kieft sent to him from the council a formal admonition in writing, “which he would not receive or open, and the paper was returned by the court messenger.” Thereupon Bogardus was summoned to answer before the governor and council on various charges of improper and scandalous conduct “unbecoming a Minister.” The summons also upbraids him for “your disposition towards the Company, by whom you are paid.” To this summons Bogardus replied in writing, refusing to appear, and “abusing them from the chair of truth.” The council then offered to leave the matter to the decision of Domines Megapolensis and Doughty; but this also Bogardus refused, demanding that the case be deferred until the arrival of the new governor (Stuyvesant), then daily expected.

When Stuyvesant arrived he decided to send the stubborn minister home to Holland, together with Kieft, whose administration of civil affairs had been one continued disgrace. The two sailed in the ill-fated Princess, which was lost at sea. The directors, in notifying Stuyvesant of the loss, wrote of Bogardus: — “‘When the shepherd errs, the sheep go astray,’ fitly applies to his case. He with others, has been relieved from rendering his account.”

In the same period with these records are others showing the liberal disposition of the authorities at New Amsterdam. In 1642 the Rev. F. Doughty, whose expulsion from the Church at Taunton has been narrated in the chapter on Plymouth, came with Richard Smith and others to Long Island, and the company received from the council permission to settle with their minister. It was ordained that “They shall enjoy the free exercise of religion.”¹

Patents were issued in 1642, 1644, and 1645 to different parties of “Englishmen,” at New Town, Flushing, and the

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“Great Plaines on Long Island,” which ordained “the use and exercise of the reformed Religion, which they profess, with the Ecclesiastical Discipline thereunto belonging.”¹ The patent to the Flushing settlers specified that they were “to have and Enjoy the Liberty of Conscience according to the Custom and Manner of Holland, without molestation or disturbance from any Magistrate or Magistrates, or any other Ecclesiastical Minister that may pretend Jurisdiccôn over them.” In these regulations a full toleration of orderly dissent was undoubtedly intended. So much the “Custom and Manner of Holland” involved, while the reference to the “Reformed Religion which they professe” clearly carries the broad construction of the word “Reformed.”

Besides these admissions, other parties were welcomed to the Dutch Throgmorton and a number of friends, who had left Massachusetts on account of the prosecution of Roger Williams, settled at West Chester with the permission of the council. Sir Henry and Lady Deborah Moody, “who had become imbued with the erroneous doctrine that infant baptism was a sinful ordinance,” were, 1645, with Ensign George Baxter and Sergeant James Hubbard permitted by a formal vote of the council to settle at Gravesend, Long Island.² The celebrated Ann Hutchinson also found a free asylum among the Dutch, taking up her abode with her younger children in the upper part of Manhattan Island. Not long afterward they all perished in the massacre by the Indians. That the directors approved of such admissions is stated in their letter to Stuyvesant, that they had no objection to Englishmen settling in New Netherland “in reasonable numbers.”³

In 1646 Peter Stuyvesant began his tempestuous reign at

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New Amsterdam. Honest and faithful, never did a man strive more earnestly than he to serve his masters and bring order out of chaos. With a devoted patriotism, never did a man drink a bitterer cup than he when he surrendered to the British. At the same time, the one-legged governor qualified these virtues by narrowness of mind, obstinacy, and a fiery temper. The beginning of his administration was with gentleness and with many indications of his care for the Church, several incidents of which are noted in illustration of the acknowledged dependence of religious affairs on governmental action.

In 1646 the sheriff and others in the new settlement at Flushing applied to the governor and council to “favor them with a pious, learned, and reformed minister, and then to order that each inhabitant shall contribute to such godly work according to his ability.”¹ To this the council promised such action “as shall be found to promote peace, union, and tranquillity both in ecclesiastical and civil affairs.” The matter having been reported to the company, a reply assured that, “We shall look out for a man fit to attend the Church there.” This search does not seem to have been immediately successful, or it may be that a vacancy had occurred, for in 1654 the directors of the company alluded to the matter again, saying: “We have been pleased to see the zeal of several of our inhabitants of a new village on Long Island for the Reformed religion, and, that it may not cool, we have resolved to contribute 600 fl. yearly, and are looking about here for a fit and pious teacher or minister.”²

In the letter of Stuyvesant, telling of the above request, he also suggested to the directors that Domine Megapolensis should be transferred from Fort Orange to the Church in New Amsterdam, to which they answered with a doubt whether the patroons would consent, and whether the Domine could not be as useful at Rensselaerwyck as elsewhere. Then, in striking contrast with a frequent arbitrariness in

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such matters, they remarked: “It must also be considered that this plan cannot be well carried out without the consent of the colonists.”

Interest in the religious affairs of the colony finds expression in the states general in Holland, which in 1650 resolved that, “New Netherland being now provided with only one clergyman, orders shall be given forthwith for the calling and support of at least three more.”¹

The matter of support of ministers was the subject of much action both in Holland and New Amsterdam. In 1654 the company wrote to Stuyvesant that, Domino Drisius complained “that he did not get his salary,” and rebuked the governor for his carelessness in not securing the payment of the minister.² Thereupon the council at New Amsterdam adopted a rule, ordering the Schepens (associate justices) in each town to provide for the minister’s salary. To this the burgomasters and schepens replied with an agreement to “pay one preacher, one precentor, who is to be schoolmaster, and one beadle.” This official array they styled “the ecclesiastical establishment.”

There seems to have been some failure on the part of the town officers to fulfil this agreement, as, later in the same year, the governor and council sent the following remarkable notice to them. It asserts that the matter of “Tavern Excise” had been put into the hands of the burgomasters and schepens, “on the promise and under the condition that they would induce, or compel, the proprietors to provide means for the support of the preachers.” They having failed, the council will now “let the said Excise to the highest bidder”; and the notice concludes: “By these means the Burgomasters and Schepens will be excused and delivered from carrying out their agreement to support one clergyman, one schoolmaster, and one beadle; the intentions and orders of the Lords Directors will be executed; the jus patronatus will

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be preserved, and both the clergymen paid and placed above want.” No record was made of the success of this ingenious scheme to support the gospel from the proceeds of the liquor business, and to maintain the rights of an established Church.

Sundry records illustrate the attention of the council to the details of the Church, to an extent that deprived ministers and Churches of much self-determining power. A few of such, taken almost at random, are of interest.¹ Thus, in 1654, the council ordered that “Dom. Polhemus should continue at Midwout, and the people have liberty to collect money for building a Church.” The people must have met with success in their collection, but they were not to be allowed to spend the funds at their own discretion, for at a subsequent meeting of the council a committee from its own members was appointed to superintend the building of the Church.

To a petition from Brooklyn asking that the minister at Midwout be allowed to preach alternately in Brooklyn, the gracious answer was returned: “The Director General and Council of New Netherland have no objection against Do Johannes Polhemius officiating alternately at both places, wind and weather permitting.”²

This Domine Polhemus had troubles which he brought to the council.³ In 1656 he complained that his “house was not fit to live in,” and also asked the council to pay him 100 florins on salary account. This the council did, but took no action about his house. Two years afterward, the council paid all arrears of his salary, and ordered the arrest of three men of Brooklyn for refusing to pay 6 guilders each toward the minister’s support. One of the three was a Frenchman and the others were Englishmen. The first pleaded that he was a Catholic, and the others that they did not understand Dutch; but each was compelled to pay a fine of 12

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guilders.¹ The Domine’s wrongs found their way into the chambers of the company at Amsterdam, on complaint of three Holland ministers, and payment was ordered by the directors.² About the same time the complaint came to the council that “some Inhabitants of Hempstead refused to pay” toward the minister’s support, and the magistrates of the town were authorized to “constrain and punish as they in equity shall think meet.”³

Toward the middle of Stuyvesant’s term there appear tokens of a more strenuous rule, and determination to uphold the established Church against all comers. In 1651 the Council adopted an ordinance, declaring that the judges must be “promoters and professors of the Reformed Religion, as it is at present taught in the Churches of New Netherland, in conformity to the Word of God and the order of the Synod of Dordrecht.”⁴

The governor was jealous for his own authority also, and, while watchful that the Churches were faithful in religious duty, would permit no outbreaking of the clergy into civil affairs. Domine Backerus had offended him by some such manifestations, whereon the peppery Stuyvesant went in to the Domine’s house and left a written notice, forbidding him “to read, or have read, in Church any writing, petition, or proposal, having relation to the municipal or general government, whether generally or in particular, before such writing shall be signed by the Director himself, or the Secretary, by order of Director and Council. But this is not to apply to ecclesiastical affairs.”⁵ The precise nature of the minister’s offence is not recorded, but the governor’s rebuff seems to have crushed him, for presently he applied for permission to return to Holland, which was at once

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granted by the council. Such was the issue of the first attempt in New York to take politics into the pulpit.

Stuyvesant was also of a mind to assert his ecclesiastical authority at a distance from the capital, as in 1657 he wrote to the magistrates of Hempstead, nominating a Mr. Denton to be minister there, and forbidding “the return of Rev. Mr. Fordim because he did leave the place, and also the exercise of the ministry without our wish or knowledge, and for no or little reasons.”¹ The governor meant to govern in all things, and had small patience with opposition, whether from individuals or Churches, in things secular or religious.²

The first dissenters subjected to his annoyance were the Lutherans. Many of these religionists had been attracted to New Amsterdam, and in 1653 petitioned the governor and council for liberty of worship and permission to send for a Lutheran minister.³ The petition was opposed by the Dutch clergy, and referred to the company in Holland, who, in 1654, replied: “We have decided absolutely to deny the request made by some of our inhabitants, adherents of the Augsburg confession, for a preacher and free exercise of their religion, pursuant to the custom hitherto observed by us and the East India Company, on account of the consequences arising therefrom; and we recommend to you also not to receive any similar petitions, but rather to turn them off in the most

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civil and least offensive way, and to employ all possible, but moderate, means to induce them to listen and finally join the Reformed Church.”

Notwithstanding this rebuff, the Lutherans persisted in their desire, and held religious services in their houses without a minister, by which they excited the governor’s wrath, made specially severe by the Lutheran assertion that “Heaven was above law.” Some of the offenders he threw into prison, and posted up an “edict” prohibiting any more attempts at their dissenting worship.

In this harsh treatment Stuyvesant doubtless thought himself justified by the directors’ refusal to permit freedom of worship; but it seems that in the meantime they had found reason to modify their decision, notice of which they sent to the governor together with a rebuke for his violence. Under date of June 11, 1656, they wrote: “We should have gladly seen that your Honor had not posted up the transmitted edict against the Lutherans, and had not punished them by imprisonment. . . . inasmuch as it has always been our intention to treat them with all peaceableness and quietness. Wherefor, your Honor shall not cause any more such or similar Edicts to be published without our previous knowledge, but suffer the matter to pass in silence, and permit them their free Worship in their houses.”

This is as far as the directors were willing to go for a while; for they wrote to Stuyvesant in 1657,¹ that they would not increase the religious liberty of the Lutherans “beyond the terms of our letter of June of last year.” Again in 1658 they signified to the governor their approval of his action in sending out of the colony John Goetwater, a Lutheran minister, who had found his way thither and had attempted ministerial functions.²

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In their last letter the directors opened a matter, in which lay the root of Lutheran objections to the established Church. The law required the baptism of all children, while restricting the administration of the ordinance to the Reformed minister and in the Reformed Church. Thither were Lutheran parents compelled to take their children for an administration which they resented. The directors counsel “moderation and tolerance” in the enforcement of the law, and ordered the use of “the old formulary of baptism,” which they understood to be less offensive to the Lutherans; and also ordered that “the words ‘present here in Church’ (referring to parents) be entirely omitted.”¹

To this subject the directors returned in the next year, severely blaming Domines Megapolensis and Drisius for “making difficulties in regard to the use of the old formula of baptism,” and insisting that the Lutherans must “be placated,” as otherwise the trouble “might result in the permission to conduct a separate divine service there; for the Lutherans would very easily obtain the consent of the authorities here (the states general) upon a complaint, and we would have no means of preventing it.” In 1660 the directors informed Stuyvesant that they were sending two preachers, Blom and Selyns, both of whom “said that they

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would make no difficulty about the formula of baptism,” and they were also sending books containing the old formula to be given to Megapolensis and Drisisus, “that they may use it, and carry out our good intentions, which they must not oppose.”

The incident illustrates quite strikingly the religious powers of a commercial company, and puts in contrast the desire to placate the Lutheran conscience and willingness to coerce that of their own ministers. Still another contrast is exhibited in the same letter, which urged complacency to the Lutherans, by refusing similar regard for the English settlers in the colony. With a notable liberality of mind which their successors of a hundred years later might have copied to their advantage, the two Dutch ministers had urged the sending two English preachers, to be located in the English villages. This the directors refused, on account of “the condition of England,” but would try to find among the Dutch candidates some one who could preach English.”¹

The next religionists to feel the heavy hand of Stuyvesant were the Jews.² In 1654 he wrote to the company, requesting that no Jews be permitted “to infest New Netherland.” To this the company answered that the request was “unreasonable and unjust,” and that Jews should be permitted to go to the colony, on condition of taking care of their own poor, “without giving the said Jews a claim to the privilege of exercising their religion in a synagogue, or at a gathering. If they desire that, refer them to us.”

Stuyvesant, however, was a decided anti-Semite and contrived to put many hardships on the Jews. He refused, “for pregnant reasons,” to allow a deed to be given to a Jew, who had bought land in Manhattan; and forbade the Jews to trade at Fort Orange and South River. For such conduct he was rated sharply by the company, who ordered that the

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should have in the colony the same liberties as they possessed in Holland, except that of having a synagogue, and “may exercise in all quietness their religion within their houses.”

In the meantime trouble arose for the governor in another quarter.¹ The two ministers of the Dutch had heard that one Wickendam, a Baptist, had been holding unlawful services, and they complained to the council that, “during the absence of Do. Moore from Middlebush, some unqualified persons ventured to hold conventicles, and assumed to preach the gospel, from which nothing could be expected but discord, confusion, and disorder in Church and State.”

This complaint drew from the council the stringent “Ordinance against Conventicles,” adopted February 1, 1656, which ran: “Some unqualified persons in such Meetings assume the ministerial office, the expounding and explanation of the Holy Word of God, without being called or appointed thereto by ecclesiastical or civil authority, which is in direct contravention and opposition to the general Civil and Ecclesiastical order of our Fatherland, besides that many dangerous Heresies and Schisms are to be apprehended: Therefore, the director general and council. . . . absolutely and expressly forbid all such Conventicles and Meetings, whether public or private, differing from the customary, and not only lawful but scripturally founded and ordained, Meetings of the Reformed Divine Service, as this is observed according to the synod of Dordrecht.” The penalties imposed by the act were £100 Flemish for the preacher and £25 for every attendant.

Under this act William Hallett, sheriff of Flushing, who had allowed such meetings in his house, was deprived of office and fined £50. In default of payment he was to be banished. The preacher, Wickendam, was fined £100 and sent out of the country. Henry Townsend

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of Rustdorp was convicted of having had “prayer meetings in his house” and condemned to a fine of £8 pounds Flemish; failing which he was to be whipped and banished.

This persecution for irregular worship presently ran into the furious onslaught upon the Quakers, who had appeared in the colony about the same time as the wandering Baptist preacher, and whose proceedings could come under the Conventicle Act. Against the Quakers Stuyvesant was “exceedingly mad.” Ten of them came to New Amsterdam from Boston in 1657, and were immediately arrested and jailed.¹ As with the Boston magistrates, the Dutch governor did not propose to wait for any overt act. Their mere presence was an offence and danger.

One of their number, Hodsham, escaped and went to Hempstead, where the magistrates issued a proclamation against him and his services. They arrested him, seized his papers and Bible, and fined two women who had entertained him, and then took all three to New Amsterdam for the disposal of the governor. Stuyvesant threw Hodsham into jail, and had him condemned to two years hard labor, “at the wheel-barrow with a negro.” The man either unable or refusing to work, the governor caused him to be beaten unmercifully, several successive days, and to be strung up by his hands with a log tied to his feet. He was finally released because of the intercession of Stuyvesant’s sister.

This severity had its natural issue of spreading the persecuted opinions, which found many adherents at Flushing and Jamaica. The council sent (1660) Domine Drisius to Jamaica to “inquire about the Quakers and their friends.”² Two years afterward, the magistrates of Jamaica reported to Stuyvesant that a majority of the people of the town were adherents of the Quakers.³ The absurd order was sent to the constables to arrest all such persons.

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A similar order had been sent (1658) to Flushing, in response to which the people of the town presented to the council a remonstrance,¹ refusing to execute the law against the Quakers. “Therefore,” they said, “if any of these persons come in love unto us, we can not in conscience lay violent hands upon them, but give them free Egresse and Regresse into our town and houses, as God shall persuade our consciences, and in this we are true subjects both of Church and State, for we are bound by the law of God and man to do good unto all men and evil to no man.” This remonstrance was read to the council by the sheriff of Flushing, Tobias Feake, who was at once put in jail, whither Edward Hart, the clerk, was sent to keep him company. Feake was soon released, but Hart was kept three weeks. The magistrates of the town were suspended from office, and Flushing was forbidden to hold town meetings without the special permission of the governor and council. Feake, who had added to his offence touching the remonstrance, that of “lodging some of the abominable sect called Quakers,” was removed from the shrievalty and fined 200 guilders. Should he refuse to pay the fine, he was to be banished.

Henry Townsend of Rustdorp, notwithstanding his experience of two years before, continued to have prayer meetings in his house, and joined himself to the Quakers. For this he was fined 300 guilders, and on refusing to pay, was “cast into a miry dungeon.”² Tilton, the clerk of Graves-end, who had “dared to provide a Quaker woman with lodging,” was fined £12 Flemish. In 1661, Henry Townsend, John Townsend, and Tilton were all banished for “harboring Quakers”;³ and it was ordered that soldiers be quartered on all inhabitants of Rustdorp, who did not promise to have nothing to do with Quakers.

In the next year the authorities resorted to frantic measures of repression. A proclamation was issued forbidding

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the public exercise of any other than the Reformed religion, “either in houses, barns, ships, or yachts; in the woods or fields,” under penalty; for the first offence, of 50 guilders fine; for the second offence, 100 guilders; and for the third, 200 guilders fine, with “arbitrary correction.” To import or distribute Quaker books was punishable by a fine of 150 guilders, while to receive such books subjected the recipient to a fine of 50 guilders. All persons arriving at New Amsterdam were to register and take the oath of allegiance, under the penalty of 50 guilders fine and “arbitrary correction.” All magistrates conniving at a violation of this ordinance were to be degraded and made incapable of holding office.¹

The climax to these high-handed measures was reached through the action and experience of John Bowne of Flushing. One of the most prominent of the citizens of that progressive and liberal-minded little burgh, he does not seem to have been concerned with the Quaker movement until after the issuance of Stuyvesant’s proclamation.² Then, as though prompted to bear testimony against such persecution, he announced himself a Quaker, and made his house a home for any of the persecuted sect who might come to the town. On this he was arrested and fined £25. He refused to pay and was thrown into prison. He lay in prison several months, and was then sent by the governor to Holland. Doubtless this deportation was considered by Stuyvesant as a final riddance, but it enabled Bowne to bring the issue to a prompt decision by the governors superiors, and to Stuyvesant’s complete discomfiture.

On arrival in Holland, Bowne at once appealed to the West India Company with the statement of his own wrongs and the sufferings of his fellow-religionists, securing from the company a sharp rebuke to Stuyvesant and a disallowance of all his persecuting measures. Under date of April 16, 1663, the

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directors wrote to the governor: “We heartily desire that these and other sectaries had remained away, . . . yet we doubt very much whether we can proceed against them vigorously, without diminishing the population and stopping emigration. In the youth of your existence you ought rather encourage than check the population of the colony. . . . The consciences of men ought to be free and unshackled so long as they continue moderate, peaceable, inoffensive, and not hostile to the government. . . . You may therefore shut your eyes, at least not force people’s consciences, but allow every one to have his own belief, so long as he behaves quietly. Such have been the maxims of prudence and toleration, by which the magistrates of this city have been governed; and the consequences have been that the oppressed and persecuted from every country have found among us an asylum from distress. Follow in the same steps, and you will be blessed.

So ended the persecution of the Quakers and all persecution in New Netherland, of which it is evidently to be noted that the spirit of it was altogether Stuyvesant’s. It may be regarded as certain that, as his superiors did not approve, so his associates in the colony were not in sympathy with him in oppressive course, and were coerced into their agreement by the dignity of his office and the violence of his temper. Stuyvesant’s fierce bigotry was singular among the Dutchmen of that day, and the reader wonders that he should have been so blind as not to see that his course would be disowned by the company in Holland. Probably, at so great a distance from his masters and left to his own discretion in so many affairs, he grew to regard himself as an autocrat and his own opinions as Supreme. By whatever process he prepared for himself a humiliation public and stinging, such as rarely has been experienced by a governor not dismissed in disgrace.

It is well to remark this personal quality in the harsh religious measures of his term of power. Such measures did not belong to the policy of the government. The founders

of the colony, while all in the Reformed communion, and while seeking that their colony should maintain a Reformed establishment, had yet no purpose of coercion toward dissent. They had no theocratic principle to express in legislation, and gave to the religious affairs of New Netherlands the forms of an established Church, simply for the reason that they, with almost all of Christendom of the day, looked upon the state as in every place vested with a care for the Church. Except for Stuyvesant, “running before he was sent,” never in the fifty years of Dutch rule in America would any sectary have felt an oppressive hand.

We can well imagine that the reproof from Holland must have been a bitter morsel for the fiery governor to digest, but he had other and more serious troubles to disturb him presently. Not long afterward (1664) the English fleet sailed into the harbor and compelled surrender of the colony, a surrender almost welcomed by many of the people, because of Stuyvesant’s despotic ways. So ended the history of New Netherland, giving place to New York, save for the brief return of Dutch power in 1673 and 1674.

Our narrative may here anticipate that period, and, before regarding the incidents of English rule in the ecclesiastical affairs of New York, look at some religious features in the story of that Dutch return. When Evertsen and Colve came to New York in 1673, captured it without a blow and turned it to New Amsterdam again for a little season, they undoubtedly thought that the conquest was to be permanent. With this thought the intention took form to secure also the permanency of the Reformed Church establishment, while at the same time they did not hesitate to give expression to tolerance toward all forms of dissent. In this latter particular the legislature under Colve went further than any of its predecessors.

This care for the establishment at once expressed itself in a renewal of the ordinance of 1651, requiring that all magistrates should be “exclusively of the Reformed Christian

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Religion, or at least well affected thereto.” This action was repeated in the next year.¹ On these magistrates it was made obligatory that they “shall, each in his quality, take care that the Reformed Christian Religion be maintained in conformity to the Synod of Dordrecht, without permitting any other Sects attempting any thing contrary thereto.” This order, taken in October, 1673, was repeated in the next month and again enacted in the following January.² In consistency with this order the commissioners, sent in 1673 to Fort Nassau and South River, were instructed that their duty was, to take care, “First, that the pure, true Christian Religion, agreeably to the Synod of Dordrecht, shall be taught and maintained in all things as it ought, without suffering any the slightest attempt to be made against it by any other sectaries.” The same instruction was sent to the magistrates of Brooklyn and the other towns on Long Island, and of the settlements up the Hudson.³

Along with these tokens of a purpose to conserve the Reformed establishment, appear the evidences of a very tolerant spirit.⁴ From the legislature of 1673, the delegates from Fort Orange, “lately called Albany,” among other conditions demanded, “That conscience shall not be subjected to any constraint, as there are some here of different opinions, who have intermarried, but that every one shall be permitted to go where he pleases to hear the Word of God.” To this demand the response was, “Granted; and the Commandant and Magistrates are ordered to pay attention to it.” To the towns in the east of Long Island, on their submitting to the reëstablished Dutch rule, there was allowed “Freedom of Conscience in the Word of God and Church discipline.” The same was allowed to the settlers on South River, in reply to their petition: and to English settlers in Jersey there was

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“accorded Freedom of Conscience as the same is permitted in the Netherlands.”¹ But to these towns thus made free in the exercise of religious worship, it was commanded that their choice of magistrates should be restricted, according to the statute, to “such only as are of the Reformed Christian Religion, or at least well affected thereto.”²

Notwithstanding an apparent contradiction between these grants of freedom and some of the stringent terms requiring the maintenance of the Reformed Church, it is but fair to presume that no curtailing of the allowed religious liberty was designed; and that “any attempt against it by other sectaries” had in view, not the orderly independent services, but the possibility of invasion by the sectaries on the service of the established Church.

Of other religious action by Colve’s government one item may be cited for its ferocity. There had been some disorder in New Amsterdam and martial law had been proclaimed. Under such rule it was ordered, with a Puritanical zeal worthy of early Massachusetts and of Dale’s “Lawes Martiall and Morall” in Virginia, that “Whosoever blasphemes the name of the Lord, or His holy Word, shall be, for the first offence, fined and committed three days to prison on bread and water; and, for the second offence, shall have his tongue bored with a red hot iron, and he shall furthermore be banished out of this government and the United Provinces, as a villain.”³ On one occasion Colve exercised an ecclesiastical jurisdiction, degrading for one year a Lutheran minister, Fabricius, who had married parties without publishing banns. After the year he must apply for a special license in order to preach. The language used indicates the governor’s purpose, not to silence a sectary, but to suspend a minister from his spiritual office.⁴ Colve also showed his care for the State-Church in obtaining from the council an order for the payment out of public funds of all arrears of salary to the widow

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of Do. Megapolensis, “about to return to Patria”; and to Do. Samuel Megapolensis, then settled in the colony.¹

With this pleasing evidence of desire to see justice done, Colve ended his care of the Reformed Church in New Netherland, and presently, surrendering his government, ended also this short Dutch episode. With the peace of 1674 between England and Holland the colony was returned to English hands, and reassumed the name of New York, so to remain under the British rule until the era of American Independence.

With the fall of the Dutch power, fell also the Reformed Church from its position of a State establishment. This, indeed, was the immediate result of Stuyvesant’s surrender in 1664, to be made final and complete by the return of the English, ten years later, after their short-lived banishment.

This disestablishment of the Dutch Church did not, however, place it on a level with other non-Anglican communions in New York. In the “articles of Capitulation,” in 1664, it was specifically agreed that, “The Dutch here shall enjoy the liberty of their Consciences in Divine Worship and Church discipline.”² The intent of this agreement was that the Reformed Church should enjoy a complete autonomy in its own affairs, and not be subjected to the interference by the magistrates, which other Churches were compelled to submit to until near the end of the colonial period. The principles thus obtaining were in the main respected by the English governors, though some departures will appear. The Dutch themselves were so jealous and watchful for these rights, that, on the resumption of the province by the English, they refused to take the oath of allegiance to the king of England, until assured in writing “that the Articles of Surrender are not in the least broken, or intended to be broken, by any words or expression in the said oath.”³

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The agreement at the second surrender to the English was made by Colve and Andros, and each consented to the stipulation of the other. In regard to Church affairs and the rights of the Dutch, Colve insisted “that the Inhabitants of Dutch Nativity may be allowed to retain their customary Church privileges in Divine Service and Church discipline.” To this Andros added, “The usual discipline of their Church is to be continued to them as formerly.”

To return now to the surrender of 1664, the first English governor, Nicholls, on entrance to office published his “Instructions” from the Duke of York, to whom Charles had given the province. In these were recited, “The Conditions for new planters in the territories of his royal highness, the duke of York.” Among these conditions, with an undoubted intent to make the first step toward tolerance of Roman Catholics, it was prescribed that, “In all the territories of his Royal Highness liberty of conscience is allowed, provided such liberty is not converted to licentiousness or the disturbance of others in the exercise of the protestant religion. Every township is obliged to pay their minister, according to such agreement as they shall make with him, and no man shall refuse his proportion; the minister being elected by the major part of the householders, inhabitants of the town.”¹

The Duke’s laws, touching upon Church affairs,² further provided that a Church building with a seating capacity for two hundred should be erected in every parish; that the cost of such building and of the support of the minister should be raised by public tax; that “every inhabitant shall contribute to all charges both in Church and State;” that preachers must produce to the governor certificates of ordination by some Protestant bishop or minister, on which the governor shall induct them in their pastorates; that the minister must administer the Lord’s Supper at least once a year, and must not refuse baptism to a child of Christian parents;

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“nor shall any person be molested, fined, or imprisoned, for differing in judgment in matters of religion, who professes Christianity.”

Besides this breadth of tolerance, unwonted at the time, the instructions and laws of the duke are notable in that they do not surrender civil control over religious affairs. The unique character of this position is in the assumption of civil power of direction over all sects. No individual Church is sought to be thereby established, and the legal effect was to establish religion as such, by whatever Churches it might be represented. The vast majority of the population were, of course, Dutch, and any Church organized by them would be Reformed. Other settlers were expected and came from England in the immediately following years. But the duke’s laws do not specify to either nationality the particular Church, only that there must be a Church of some kind in every town. Here is an establishment without a name.

This further appears in the making Church expenses a public charge, in directing as to minutiæ of Church services, in prescribing an examination and approval by the governor of ministerial credentials, and finally in the putting into the governor’s hands the right and power of induction.

Such arrangements virtually made the head of the civil government the head also of the Church, not specifically the Reformed or Anglican, but every Church in the province! Theoretically, this situation is without a parallel in the entire history of Church and State. Elsewhere the idea of civil power over the Church always involved the legal preference of one Church, accompanied by either the proscription, or modified tolerance, of all others. Singular as the relation was, it will be seen that the early governors of New York frequently acted upon the supposition of its propriety and validity, up to the time of the abortive endeavors of Fletcher to establish the Church of England.

Nicholls, who published the duke’s instructions, noted his first use of ecclesiastical authority by ordering the city to pay

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the salary of the Dutch minister.¹ His successor, Lovelace, extended his protection over the Lutherans in 1666, forbidding all interference with them, “so long as they live quietly and in order.”² In 1670 Lovelace directed that the Church at Albany (Reformed) should be maintained “as the established Church,” and guaranteed support to any minister who would come over as assistant to Domine Drisius. This brought over William Nieuwenhuysen, to whom the promise of maintenance was not well kept.³ In 1671 Lovelace wrote to the minister and Church of Southold a letter of reproof for having distressed a Mr. Booth for rates. In so doing the Church and town magistrates were clearly within the law requiring every inhabitant to contribute to Church support. But this Booth was an Episcopalian, in whose defence the governor was willing to wrest the law, and to upbraid the Church with their “misuse of the liberty given to their opinion,” threatening them also with the loss of that liberty.⁴ This was the first recorded instance of gubernational perversions of law in favor of episcopacy, which were quite frequent during the English sway.

It would be tedious, and is altogether needless, to recite all the instances of interference by the New York governors with the affairs of the ministry and the Churches, or of their action against the law in favor of their own preferred Church order. Sufficient witness of these things will appear in the more important incidents which illustrate the ruling principle of the government on religious matters.

The reappearance of English power in 1674 was with the proclamation of the broadest kind of liberty of opinion. James’s instructions to Governor Andros ran, “You shall permitt all persons of what Religion soever, quietly to inhabitt within the precincts of your jurisdiccôn, without giveing them

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any disturbance or disquiet whatever for, or by reason of, their differing opinions in matters of Religion: Provided they give noe disturbance to ye publique peace, nor doe molest or disquiet others in the free exercise of their religion.”¹

This breadth of toleration has frequently been cited against the memory of James, as something arguing a specious and deceptive intent, in like manner that his efforts toward toleration in England have been charged to an innate falsehood of mind. It is remembered that James was a Romanist, and supposed that he was a bigoted one at that, from which the usual conclusion has been made that this proclamation of liberty of conscience was a mere blind; that under the cover of it he might make an asylum for distressed Catholics in his new dominions. This conclusion drew with it the inference that, when the Catholic representation in the colony should become large enough to permit, he would turn the government into “papistical” hands and withdraw the ordinance of toleration.

All of which supposition may be true, as an outline of the duke’s desire. At the same time, it is not a matter of record and is nothing more than a supposition of what might have taken place on the possible occurrence of a situation which was never reached. James made no expression, at least as preserved to us, indicating any such treacherous purpose. What he said and did in the matter was altogether honorable, and far in advance of the toleration accorded by his son-in-law, William, the idol of seventeenth century Protestantism.

Certainly, it is not to be charged to him as a crime or as a proof of treacherous intent, that he sought to make a safe retreat for the oppressed followers of the Church of Rome. Himself a devout Catholic, it would have been strange, and would have been just cause for reproach, if, with this authority over a princely domain, he had not bethought him of the opportunity to afford his co-religionists an asylum. It would not redound to his honor, if he, a Catholic prince, had

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put into the charter of New York liberties the words, “except Papists,” so common with the men of the day, who were loudest in their demands for freedom of conscience. The last of the Stuart kings has enough to answer for at the bar of history, without depriving him of the honorable record made by all his actions in regard to religious freedom in his province of New York, notwithstanding its unlikeness to other portions of his record.

Almost at once that Andros assumed his government in New York, he found occasion to exercise his supposed right of presentation and that in the Reformed Church.¹ A certain Nicholas van Rensselaer, a native of Holland and licentiate of the classis of Amsterdam, but whether related or not to the patroon of Rensselaerwyck does not appear, went to London in the train of Charles II. at the time of the Restoration. He was permitted to preach in London and was ordained a deacon by the bishop of Salisbury. He did not appear in New York until 1674, when, it is probable, he came over with Governor Andros, bringing with him a recommendation from the Duke of York to some “benefice” in the province. He was sent by Andros to Albany as colleague to the minister there, with a somewhat peremptory command to receive him as a co-pastor. The governor wrote to the Church that Van Rensselaer had “made his humble request whereunto I have consented. I do hereby desire you to signify the same unto the Parishioners . . . wherein I shall looke upon their compliance as a mark of their respect and good inclinations towards me. 23 July, 1674.”

This was a sufficiently imperious message to begin with, at the opening of his administration, in dealing with a Church which had prided itself on submitting to even the Dutch governors only as they were themselves supposed to be submissive to the classis of Amsterdam. The Albany Church declined to receive the candidate, in which refusal minister,

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magistrates, and people were agreed. It was denied that he had a right to administer the sacraments in their Church, because he had been episcopally ordained; and he was not permitted to even preach until he promised to submit to the classis.

Andros was incensed, and summoned Nieuwenhuysen, the Albany minister, to answer before him, for contempt, with the result of arousing great public indignation both at Albany and at New York. Meanwhile Van Rensselaer preached at Albany and was thrown into jail by the magistrates, for “several dubious words” in his sermon, and thereupon the governor felt still more outraged and issued warrants for the arrest of the magistrates and to put them under £5000 bonds to show cause for their conduct. The celebrated Leisler took part with the offending officers and was imprisoned by order of Andros.

But the governor could not enforce his will. After much commotion he gave up the case altogether, “referring” it, for form’s sake, “to the Consistory of the Church of Albany.” Inasmuch as the said consistory had already made its opinions very clearly known, this reference was but a euphemism to signify the striking of the governor’s flag of presentation to a Reformed Church. So fared the first conflict of an English governor with a Dutch Church, in the complete victory of the latter. As to Van Rensselaer, he was not worth the struggle, and after a year’s time the governor compelled him to depart, “for scandalous conduct.”

Another ecclesiastical mandate of Andros met with a greater success in 1679, when he authorized and directed the Dutch clergy of New York to ordain Tesschenmacker to the ministry.¹ In respect to ecclesiastical polity, this demand made the highest flight of spiritual supremacy ever attempted by a colonial governor. It was an attempt to create an ordaining power, which in a colony under the Church of England establishment could only be equalled by the appointment

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of a bishop, a peculiar prerogative of the crown. For in the polity of the Reformed Church, as in the Anglican, the power of ordination was not resident in the clergy as such. In the Anglican Church only a bishop could ordain, while in the Reformed Church the power belonged to a convened body of ministers and elders, called a classis, formally organized for that purpose and for the care of the Churches.

But in the time of Andros there was no such “Reverend Body” in New York. The care of the Churches in New Netherland had been committed by the states general and the West India company to the classis of Amsterdam. To that body belonged ordination for the Dutch Reformed Church in America; for which rite any man of those Churches, desiring ordination, was forced to go in person to Holland. A like hardship was experienced by the American candidates for Episcopal ordination, who, until after the Revolution, were compelled to voyage to England for the imposition of a bishop’s hands.

The singularity, then, and arrogance of Andros’s demand were in the attempt to create a spiritual body for the discharge of the highest office in the power of the Church! It is hardly to be supposed that the governor was at all aware of the real gravity of his command. He probably only looked upon it as a matter of convenience, which he as governor had every right to direct. In reality, he could not have presumed much further, unless he had undertaken to ordain the candidate himself.

A still more singular thing about the incident was the complaisance of the Dutch clergy. They, unlike Andros, perfectly well understood the nature of the demand, and that it was a preposterous invasion of one of the Church’s most sacred rights. They knew that they could not ordain as clergy; and could not organize themselves into a classis, without express authorization from their superior at Amsterdam; and that any action, which they as a pretended classis might take, would be irregular and void. At the same time,

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they complied with Andros’s demand, organized themselves into a classis, and ordained Tesschenmacker! It is worthy of note that, on report of this action to the classis of Amsterdam, that body, for the sake of peace, ratified the ordination, but did not legalize the classical organization at New York.

So Andros carried his point, and won the greatest (theoretical) ecclesiastical victory ever gained by a colonial governor, with which his success in securing rights of Episcopal worship in Boston is not to be compared. Doubtless, the record of this incident emboldened Governor Nicholson, thirty years later, to demand the ordination of Van Vleck at the hands of Dubois and Antonides, Dutch ministers in his time at New York. But these men were either wiser or less pressed by circumstances than their predecessors, and flatly refused to do the governor’s bidding. The governor was sensible enough not to press the matter.¹

The assembly of 1683,² the first after the coming of Governor Dongan, adopted a “Charter of Liberties,” in which it was ordained that, “No person professing faith in God by Jesus Christ is to be molested or called in question for any difference of opinion in matters of religion.” This is substantially in the language of the duke’s instructions to Andros in 1674. The “Charter” goes on to say that “the Churches already in New York do appear to be privileged Churches,” their privileges confirmed by the past government

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and by the later surrender confirmed again, “Provided also that all other Christian Churches, that shall hereafter come and settle in the province, shall have the same privileges.”

There can be no exception taken to such an ordinance. It distinctly declared the mind of the colonists as opposed to any legal preference of any particular Church. Though the great majority of the people were attached to the Reformed Church, they desired that all Churches should be on a level before the law — a thing worthy of all honor, as showing that the Dutchmen of New York had not lost the tolerant spirit which their fathers had brought from Holland.

The broad terms of this charter were approved by the duke of York, but when he became king and the titular head of the Church of England this approval was recalled, and the attempt was made to establish that Church as the State-Church in New York. Thus, James’s instructions to Governor Dongan in 1686 said:¹ “You shall take care that God Almighty bee devoutly and duely served throughout your Government, the Book of Common Prayer read each Sunday and Holy day, and the Blessed Sacrament be administered according to the Rites of the Church of England.” Various prescriptions were made about Church buildings and ministers, and each one of the latter was to have assigned to him “a competent Proportion of Land for a Glebe and exercise of his Industry.” The parishes were “to bee so limited and setled as you shall find most convenient for ye accommodating this good work.” The ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the province was lodged in the archbishop of Canterbury, while the governor was vested with the powers of presentation and immediate discipline and removal of the clergy. The governor was forbidden to prefer any minister “to any benefice” without a certificate from the archbishop that he is of the Church of England; and he was empowered to remove any “scandalous” minister and to fill the vacancy at his “discretion.”

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These provisions in preference of the Church of England, forced upon James by his accession to the throne, were not designed to act in exclusion of other Churches. Nothing was said toward modifying the liberty granted in the former instructions. This was again allowed, and the door was intentionally left open to the followers of differing forms of religion, “provided they make no disturbance of the public peace. Through this open door various religionists entered the colony and settled without hindrance. Among them were a number of Romanists. Three Jesuit priests are said to have been in New York during Dongan’s administration, one of whom is thought to have been teacher of the Latin school opened by the governor.¹

Dongan’s “Report on the State of the Province,”² 1687, in reference to religious matters, said: “Here bee not many of the Church of England; few Roman Catholics; abundance of Quaker preachers, men and Women especially; Singing Quakers; Ranting Quakers, Sabbatarians; Anti-Sabbatarians; some Anabaptists; some Independents; some Jews in short, of all sorts of opinions there are some, and the most part of none at all. The most prevailing opinion is that of the Dutch Calvinists. . . . It is the endeavor of all persons here to bring up the children and servants in the opinion which themselves profess; but this I observe, that they take no care of the conversion, of their Slaves. . . . As for the King’s natural born subjects that live on Long Island, and other parts of the Government, I find it a hard task to make them pay their Ministers.”

There are no records of serious interference with ecclesiastical affairs on the part of Dongan. Though an avowed Catholic, he showed no strong desire to build up any Church, but devoted himself to his civil duties, in which he proved to be one of the very best of the governors in the province. During his term the influx of Romanists could not have been

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large, but those who did come were the recipients of his favor. Some of the public officials professed attachment to Rome, and many of “the people trembled for the Protestant cause.”¹

This fear found expression on the fall of James II. and the usurpation by Leisler of the government in New York.² On receipt of the news of the Revolution in England, the council at once resolved to “suspend all Roman Catholics from Command and Places of Trust.” This resolution turned out just two officers, Major Baxter and Ensign Russell, — not a very formidable number, — who left the province. Leisler ordered the arrest of all “reputed Papists,” and forbade the franchise to others than Protestant freemen. The effect of this, however, was only an expression of opinion and desire, for Leisler and his government soon came to ignominious disaster.

In 1689 Governor Sloughter came to New York with instructions from William and Mary, which repeated in regard to Church matters the provisions in James’s orders to Dongan, except that the jurisdiction of the colonial Church was transferred from the see of Canterbury to that of London. They were made also in the light of the great toleration act of 1689, which was intended to have force in all the English dominions, and which excluded from favor both Unitarians and Romanists.³ The like instructions were given to Colonel Fletcher in 1692, when he succeeded to Sloughter, with the addition that he was authorized “to Colate any Person or Persons to any Churches, Chapells, or other Ecclesiastical Benefices . . . as often as any of them shall happen to be void.”⁴ Like instructions, with scarcely a variation, were given to the successive governors down almost to the Revolution. James set the model for his followers on the throne,

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none of whom ever detected the folly of supposing the Church of England to be established in New York.¹

Governor Sloughter’s administration does not appear to have interested itself in the advancement of the Church of England, or in religious matters at all; unless we may take as an indication of the latter the expulsion from the assembly of 1691 of two members from Queens, on the ground that they were Quakers.² Though the royal instructions insisted on the recognition of the English Church and its orders, its establishment in the colony could not be effected without the formal action of the colonial legislature, which action Sloughter made no effort to procure. The only official representation of the Church was in requiring from all office holders the test oath prescribed by the parliament. This involved the oath of allegiance and supremacy, partaking the sacrament “according to the rites of the Church of England,” and signing a declaration against the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation. The application of this oath was enough, without any movement of the governor, to cause the exclusion of Quakers from the legislature and all office.

When Fletcher came to the government in 1692, he brought with him either emphatic orders from his superiors, or a determined purpose of his own, to procure the formal establishment of the Church by a colonial statute. His own zeal, indeed, was sufficient to urge him to the effort. His religious bigotry was only equalled by his vain love of power and by a lust for money, which made his government the most corrupt in the annals of the province.³ The story of his struggles with the assembly is notable as illustrating both his temper and the spirit of the Dutchmen, whom he attempted to coerce. It is also a peculiar instance of that ecclesiastical arrogance which has often made no scruple about grasping more “than the law allows.”

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To the first legislature of his term (1692) Fletcher issued a demand that they take the requisite action to “settle the ministry,” using that term to involve the establishment of the Church of England.¹ The assembly, however, did nothing in the matter, greatly to the wrath of the governor, who berated them roundly, and declared that “the same law, which established your privileges, provided for the religion of the Church of England.” To the next assembly Fletcher presented the same demand, saying, “I recommended to the former assembly the settling of an able ministry, that the worship of God may be observed among us, for I find that first and great duty very much neglected.” This assembly of 1693, more complaisant than the last, relaxed something of its opposition. Unwilling, however, to yield all that the governor wanted, they appointed a committee of eight to devise a scheme, which might possibly satisfy Fletcher and yet avoid the establishment demanded. The result of the committee’s labor was a bill for a religious establishment of an entirely nondescript character, the like of which is not to be found elsewhere. The bill was reported to the assembly and became law on the 23d of September, 1693.²

The significant portions of the Act are as follows: “In Each of the respective Cities and Counties hereafter mentioned there shall be called, inducted, and established a good, sufficient, Protestant Minister.” . . . In the City of New York one: in the County of Richmond one; in the County of Westchester two, one to have care of West Chester, East Chester, Yonkers, and the Manor of Pelham, and one to have the care of Rye, Mamaroneck, and Bedford; and in Queens County two, one for Jamaica and “adjacent towns and farms,” and the other for “Hamstead” and adjacent towns. The law also ordained that in the Churches named there should be

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“Wardens and a Vestry,” to be chosen by the freeholders summoned by the justices: and that the ministers should be supported by public tax. This act is remarkable for both its requirements and its omissions. There is not a word in the act referring to the Church of England, or to the book of common prayer; there is no requirement of services “according to the rites” of the English Church, nor any acknowledgment of the supremacy of the crown, nor any allowance of patronage to the governor. At the same time, the act restricts its operation to the four counties named, and does not apply to Kingston, Albany, or any part of the province outside of those counties. Nor in those counties does it make the establishment universal. What in legal construction it did, was to establish, not a Church at all, but six Protestant Ministers in places named, and these ministers of no specified denomination, save that they must be Protestant. In other towns of these counties and in the case of other ministers needed in these towns, the act did not apply. Thus, while the act did create a Church establishment in the places noted, it yet established neither any Church for the province at large, nor any particular Church for the localities specified. The Reformed Church had as good a legal right to claim the establishment as had the Church of England. This was practically acknowledged at the time by Colonel Lewis Morris, himself a strong Church of England man, in a letter written in 1711.¹ The act, he wrote, “is very loosely worded. The Dissenters claim the benefit of it as well as we: and the Act without much wresting will admit a construction in their favor as well as ours.” In fact, it belonged to neither. The only named Church that was ever “established” on the soil of New York was the Reformed Church, which fell with the Dutch power. The arrogant assumption of English cabinets and governors that the Church of England was established in New York, and the common supposition, even to this day, that the Episcopal Church was ever a State-Church

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in the province, are alike unwarranted by the facts.¹

At the time of the passage of the act Governor Fletcher was well aware of its deficiencies. He returned it to the assembly with instructions to amend, by inserting a clause investing the governor with the right of induction. He suggested that the act should require that ministers be “presented to the governor to be approved and collated.” But the assembly thought that they had yielded enough and refused the amendment; whereupon the governor prorogued them, saying, “if you seem to understand that none can serve without your collation or establishment, you are far mistaken; for I have the power of collating or suspending any minister in my government by their majesties’ letters patent: and whilst I stay in the government, I will take care that neither heresy, sedition, schism, nor rebellion be preached among you.” But neither anger nor argument could bend the legislature to the governor’s will, and he was forced to content himself with the act as it stood.

Almost immediately there arose two occasions which gave the assembly opportunity to construe their own act. In 1694 the Rev. John Miller, chaplain to the English soldiers, claimed the benefit of support under the act, on the ground that he was a clergyman of the Church of England stationed in New York. Fletcher at once allowed the claim, but the legislature would not permit. Again, in the following year, it was questioned whether any of the Churches named were restricted in their choice of ministers to clergymen of the Church of England. Five wardens and vestrymen in the city of New York petitioned the legislature on the subject, and the house resolved: “That, the vestrymen and Church wardens have power to call a dissenting protestant minister, and that he is to be paid and maintained as the act directs.” This was not pleasing to Fletcher, who argued the absurdity of such opinion on the ground that “there is no Protestant

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Church admits of such officers as Church-wardens and Vestry-men but the Church of England.” He could not comprehend that the legislature had created an establishment of their own, and had borrowed these terms to hoodwink him; or that considerably more than the titles of local Church officers were needed to constitute a branch of the Church of England. It was only by indirection, and also by many false statements, that the impression took form that the act of 1693 established the Church of England. Fletcher himself knew to the contrary, but he always afterward talked and acted as though he had gotten the establishment he desired. The course of government likewise, on both sides of the sea, always assumed that the Anglican Church had been established. The ministers and members of the Episcopal Church in New York acted on the same assumption — a most unwarranted perversion of the facts in the case; for the reason that it is perfectly clear, from the succession of events, that the establishing of the Church of England was precisely that thing which the legislature was determined not to do. Owing to this perversion, the assembly made many efforts to repeal the act, but were opposed by the governor and council, so that the law remained in force until the Revolution.¹

As though prompted by the passage of the “Ministry Act” and the construction which the governor seemed determined to put upon it, the consistory of the Reformed Church in New York applied for and obtained in 1696 a charter, confirming the privileges stipulated in the articles of surrender in 1664. Beyond doubt, it was a recollection of those stipulations, together with a desire to propitiate a public indignant at his effort to force the English Church upon the colony, that moved the governor to grant the charter.²

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Other Dutch Churches in New York and New Jersey received charters in the following year, but such incorporation was consistently refused to all other Churches except the Episcopal. Thus — to anticipate in our narrative — the Presbyterian Church in New York applied for a charter in 1719.¹ The application to the governor was opposed by Trinity Church, and was referred to the board of trade to meet a denial. In 1763 the Lutheran Church in New York made a similar application, which was approved by the council, but was referred by the governor to the home government, with “several from Dissenting Congregations for like privileges.” What these other Churches were does not appear, but they were all denied, “as his Majesty saw no reason which rendered it necessary.”² In 1766 the Presbyterian Church renewed its request for a charter by way of petition direct to the king. The action in response to this petition took a curious course.³ It was referred by the king to the board of trade, and the board sent it back to America, inquiring if there were any objections to the petition, “which in the general and abstracted view of it appears to us to be no ways Improper or unreasonable.” Thus the request came up in the provincial council, which body, less anti-Anglican than formerly, resolved, that a judicial decision must first be obtained as to whether “the old English statutes of Uniformity extend to America” , and stated, “Except the charters granted to the Church of England, all the instances of such Incorporations within this province (four only in number) are confined to the Dutch, whose claims to this Distinction are grounded on one of the Articles of Capitulation.” In the next year the king in council took order dismissing the petition, on the ground that it was “against the king’s

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coronation oath to preserve the Church of England,” and that it was “not expedient upon Principles of General Polity to comply with the Prayer of this Petition, or to give the Presbyterian Church in New York any other Privileges or Immunities than it is entitled to by the Laws of Toleration.” The Presbyterians undiscouraged renewed their request in 1775, only to be again refused, though less brusquely.¹

The whole story of these applications is but one among many illustrations of the perverse tenacity which clung to the false assumption of an Anglican establishment in New York. This assumption is most strikingly exhibited in the charter of Trinity Church. That Church, as though startled by the incorporation of the Dutch Collegiate Church in 1696, and as though having some suspicions of its boasted establishment, in the next year made application for a charter, in which application, as also in the charter itself, the assertion is many times repeated that the act of 1693 had established the Church of England.² Not for lack of assertion was the misstatement to fail of credence.

The administration of Bellomont did not concern itself very greatly in ecclesiastical matters. This was probably through lack of opportunity, if we may judge from one recorded instance of zeal for the Church of England his veto of a bill for the settlement of a minister, on the ground that he was a dissenter.³ His lordship’s successor, Lord Cornbury, more than made up for the lack, filling his term with much activity in the cause of the Church and that in ways of most offensive annoyance and oppression. “Educated at Geneva, he yet loved episcopacy as a religion of the State subordinate to the executive power.”⁴ A cousin of Queen Anne, to whom he bore a strong resemblance of feature,

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he prided himself on the relationship and deemed that it conferred upon him more imperial powers than other governors possessed, especially with regard to Church affairs. His zeal carried him to very extreme actions, and, as though dissatisfied with the already defined powers of his office, led him to forge instructions from England for the purpose of increasing his ecclesiastical prerogatives. (Bancroft.)

He arrived at New York in 1701 and at once proceeded to the exercise of episcopal powers, in a way which none of his predecessors had attempted. They had respected that limitation of the ministry act which had confined its nondescript Church to the four counties of New York, Westchester, Queens, and Richmond. But Cornbury chose to consider that it covered the province. Thus, about the time of his arrival the Church (Reformed) of Kingston became vacant, and the governor undertook to induct there a Mr. Haburne, a Church of England minister, whom he sent to Kingston with order that the people receive him as their minister and provide him with a good house.¹ To these orders the Kingston Church paid small attention.

The next year, Cornbury, to his great indignation, learned that a certain Paul van Vleck had been preaching about the country, “notwithstanding that he had been forbid by his Excellency”; and that he had been called by the Church (Reformed) of Kinderhook, “without any License” to the Church permitting the call. The governor at once ordered the “High Sheriff” of Albany to arrest Van Vleck, and bring him to New York. Four members of the Kinderhook Church having presumed to interfere with a certificate in favor of the candidate, they were included in the order for arrest. The party appeared before the governor in March, 1703, and, not having the stuff that martyrs are made of, “acknowledging their error & submitting themselves thereon, were discharged with a caution to be more careful in future.”²

About the same the Lord Cornbury appeared as a defender

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of the faith against heresy. John Tallman, one of the justices of Queens county was reported to have said that, “the Scriptures were not the rule, they being wrote by sinful men of like passions as we are; and that the holy Scriptures was a rule, but not the rule we should go by.” Affidavits of these heretical words were laid before the governor’s council and it was ordered that Tallman be removed from office and be prosecuted by the attorney-general.¹

It were tedious to here recount all the instances of Cornbury’s impudent interference with Church affairs and the liberty of religion. His administration was rendered famous by three great cases. These were the celebrated Mackemie case, which came to issue and quick decision in 1707; the Jamaica Church case, and that of Freeman and Antonides, both of which began in 1702 and left a legacy of much annoyance to Cornbury’s successors. The main features of each must be briefly noted.

The case of the Jamaica Church was one of barefaced spoliation. The town had been settled in 1656, mainly by English people with Presbyterian preferences. They had been made welcome by the Dutch, and by the English conquerors were not disturbed until after the passage of the ministry act.² They had set apart land for a glebe and made a parsonage for a minister, and in 1699 had built a fine stone Church, the expense of which was raised by public tax. Meanwhile there had come to the town a number of people of the Church of England, whose cupidity was excited by the fine Church property of their Presbyterian neighbors, an opportunity of securing which for themselves seemed to be offered by the ministry act.

On the passage of that act the organization of the Jamaica Church was so far changed as that its officers (all dissenters) took the names of Wardens and Vestrymen. As such they called and settled Mr. Hubbard,³ who at the time of the Opening

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of the trouble was the pastor of the Church and in quiet possession of the parsonage and glebe. In pursuance of the Episcopal desires a Mr. Bartow, a missionary of the “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,” came to Jamaica in 1702 or 1703, and concerted measures by which the Episcopal minority might obtain possession of the Church property.¹ On a Sunday, after Hubbard had preached in the morning, Bartow and his followers slipped into the Church, held service, and claimed the building for the use of the Church of England. This was the occasion of what is noted in the records as the Jamaica Riot; for the majority of the town did not choose to submit to the robbery and expelled the intruders by force.

This reclamation of their own was regarded by Cornbury as unlawful violence, and he interfered with his authority to confirm the property in the hands of the Episcopalians. He forbade Hubbard to preach in the Church again, “for in regard it was built by a public tax, it did appertain to the Established Church.” This language of Cornbury is a curious specimen of his perversity of opinion — for as matter of fact, under the ministry act, the Church with Hubbard as its pastor was already part of the provincial establishment. Of course, Cornbury’s false premise was, that the establishment was Anglican, coupled with another equally false, that any property for religious purposes, paid for at any time by tax, must belong to the Church of England. This latter claim finds place in a memorial from the New York Episcopal clergy to the bishop of London in 1711. They therein allege the public tax as a ground for seizure of the Jamaica Church, while they admit that the great majority of the inhabitants, who paid the tax, and all the vestrymen were “dissenters” and opposed to the perversion of the property.²

The governor’s measures were prompt and sharp, at once that he heard that the “dissenters” had reobtained their

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building. “A representation,” wrote Colonel Morris, “was made to my Lord Cornbury that the Jamaica Church and house, being built by publick Act, could belong to none but the Church of England; my Lord gives his Warrant to dispossess the Dissenters, which immediately by Force was done without any Procedure at Law.”¹ He also ordered Mr. Hubbard to vacate the parsonage, and, on his declining to move out, the sheriff was ordered to eject him. At the same time he ordered the wardens and vestrymen to secure the glebe for the benefit of the Episcopal minister, and the justices to levy a tax for his support. Cornbury completed his work by inducting a Mr. Urquhart into the violently vacated charge.² Well might Mr. Urquhart write to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel that the governor was “a true nursing father to our infancy here.”³

This opinion was echoed by all the Church of England clergy in the province, who in their convention of 1704, making report to the bishop of London, remark of Jamaica affairs, “There is a Church of Stone, built by a tax levied on the inhabitants by act of Assembly; and a house and glebe formerly in the possession of the Independent minister, but now in the possession of the present Incumbent by Lord Cornbury’s favor.”⁴ The same report notes with satisfaction that a dissenting Church at New Town, the minister of which had gone away, had been given by the governor to the Episcopalians!

Urquhart remained in possession of the parsonage and use of the Church for six years, though not without much trouble and popular discontent. At the end of that period he died, leaving in the possession of the house his widow and daughter, the latter of whom married McNeish, a “dissenting” minister, who at once took residence in the parsonage and was called to the pastorate of the Church by the wardens and Vestrymen, not one of whom was an Episcopalian.⁵ Thus

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the property came again into Presbyterian possession, and there remained.

Their tenure, however, was not without opposition from the Church of England party. In 1710 Governor Hunter gave the living to Rev. Mr. Poyer, one of the missionaries of the society, but the new rector was unable to obtain either Church or house, or yet his salary. The governor wrote to Chief Justice Mompesson to put Mr. Poyer into possession by an order from the court, but the judge replied that possession could not be given “otherwise than by due process of law, without a high crime and misdemeanor.” Hunter then urged Poyer to carry the case into court,¹ offering his own purse to meet the costs. But this the minister and his associates were unwilling to do, alleging as their reason that “most of the judges were dissenters.” To counterbalance such weight of dissent on the bench, a notable scheme was devised, which took form in a memorial to the queen from the society in London,² praying for an order in council, allowing appeals by the clergy from colonial courts, on account of their bias toward dissent, to the governor and council and thence to the queen and privy council. This petition was granted, February 6, 1712/3. On this the missionary was directed by the society to go into court. The issue after many delays was a defeat, for the court confirmed the property in Presbyterian hands. This final decision was recorded in 1731, and Governor Cosby intimates that it was procured by bribery of Chief Justice Morris,³ an altogether gratuitous slander. It does not appear that the Episcopal party made use of appeal to England, and they finally reconciled themselves to the necessity of building a Church of their own at Jamaica. So ended Lord Cornbury’s famous attempt to pervert a Presbyterian Church by violence into the possession of the Church of England, after a bitter struggle of thirty years.

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The second question, on which he put his ecclesiastical power to proof, was that of patronage. The case is chiefly notable for the bold insistence by one of the parties that the governor had no power of induction among the Dutch Churches. It began in 1702 and with frequent orders, petitions, and counter petitions, filling many pages of the public documents, lasted for twelve years.

In the year noted some of the elders in the Dutch Churches of Brooklyn, Flatbush, Flatlands, and New Utrecht, in which Churches, as a joint pastorate, Domine Antonides was already laboring, petitioned Lord Cornbury for permission to call the Rev. Bernardus Freeman of Schenectady.¹ This petition at once aroused great opposition among the other elders and the congregations, on the ground, as was reported to Cornbury, that he “had nothing to doo with it, and it was their privilege to send for what Minister they please, without your Excellency’s leave.” A town meeting was held and the three petitioning elders were put out of the consistory for applying to the governor. Cornbury then obtained an order of council for the petitioners to appear, and also for the town clerk with the record of the above action.

In the hearing the governor seems to have learned something to the prejudice of Freeman, for he issued an order forbidding a call to him, because he “has misbehaved himself by promoting and encouraging the unhappy divisions.” He declared the call of Freeman “not consistent with her Majesty’s service”; for which reasons “the said petitioners are hereby required not to call him; but they are left at liberty to send for such Minister as they shall think fitt from Holland or any other place, as hath been customary.” This order anticipated a petition from the Schenectady Church, praying the governor not to allow Freeman to be called away.

But, notwithstanding the prohibition of the governor and the desires of the Schenectady Church, Freeman came to New York with a view to labor in the Churches named, and

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by some undisclosed means succeeded in disarming Cornbury’s prejudice and in securing from him a license to preach in the said Churches, “for & during So Long Time as to me shall Seem meet, and all P’sons are hereby Required to Take Notice hereof accordingly.”

With this license Freeman began preaching at New Utrecht and presently made occasion for his elders to petition the governor that he would compel Antonides to surrender the property and books of the Churches, “whereof Mr. Freeman is Minister by License from your Excellency.” In response to this prayer Cornbury issued an order to Antonides for the “delivery of House, Land, Stock, and Books. . . . Whereas I have licensed, authorized, and appointed Mr. Bernardus Freeman.

Out of such a situation grew a long-drawn, quarrel between the party of Freeman and the party of Antonides. The former distinguished themselves by the most obsequious submission to the governor’s right of induction and ecclesiastical control, and went so far as to say in one of their petitions, “Your Excellency’s petitioners are humbly of opinion that all Ecclesiastical affairs And the Determination of all things relating thereto in this Province lies solely before your Lordpp.” This they declared to Cornbury, and after Cornbury’s departure from New York they solicited Lieutenant Governor Ingoldsby, “that your Honour will be pleased, as has been usual, to order that no Dutch Minister shall preach or exercise his Ministerial ffunctions in this County, besides Mr. Freeman, until further orders from Yo^r Hon^r.”

The opposing attitude of Antonides and his party was that of stout denial of any ecclesiastical power of the governor over the Dutch Church and its ministry, declaring that Antonides held his position by the authority of the classis of Amsterdam, “according to the laws and customs of the Dutch Church,” and “that no such lycense or the other orders (Cornbury’s) were, nor yet are, of any force or validity

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in the Dutch Churches of this Province, but Tended to the ruin of the liberty of the said Churches in this Country.” In the exercise of such liberty, and such contempt for governmental interference, Antonides boldly disregarded an order not to ordain elders in the Churches, informing the governor that “he can not comply with the order, unless he breaks through the Rules and Discipline of the Dutch Reformed Protestant Church.”

Had Cornbury remained in the government such language might have brought the bold minister into bonds, but his successors were of different mind. The term of Lovelace was too short for much service, giving place after a few months to Robert Hunter, who, while a sincere Church of England man, was liberal of mind and of placable disposition. Instead of taking up his predecessor’s quarrel, or insisting on any superior ecclesiastical authority, he attempted to exert a moral influence, rather than official power, in establishing peace between the contending factions. This he succeeded in effecting by persuading all the Churches involved to call both Antonides and Freeman to a collegiate pastorate,¹ in 1714.

The most celebrated action of Cornbury against the liberty of worship was his prosecution of Francis Mackemie, the Presbyterian minister whose settlement and service in Virginia have already been noted in the chapter on that colony. In January, 1707, he with another minister, John Hampton, appeared in New York and did his great work therein in the cause of religious liberty.² On arrival in New York Mackemie

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either sought and obtained permission, or was invited by the Dutch Minister, to preach in the Reformed Church. But Cornbury forbade the service, and the preacher, not insisting on the use of the Church, held service and preached in the house of William Jackson, “with open doors.” Hampton preached also on the same Sunday, January 20th, at Newtown.

So bold a defiance aroused the wrath of the governor, who on the 24th of the month issued a warrant for the arrest of both the men, “who have taken upon them to preach in a private house, without having obtained any License for so doing . . . they are gone into Long Island with intent there to spread their pernicious Doctrines and Principles, to the disturbance of the Church by Law established and of the government of this Province.”

The warrant was executed and the culprits were brought for examination before the governor, when Mackemie defended his liberty on the toleration act of England. This act Cornbury declared to be without any force in his government, and required the prisoners to give bonds for good behavior and to promise not to preach in New York or New Jersey. Mackemie was willing to give bonds, but refused the promise, and both men were put in jail, where they remained six weeks and four days, during the absence of Chief Justice Mompesson. On the return of the judge they were brought before him on a writ of habeas corpus. Hampton was discharged without trial, as “a man of less interest,” while Mackemie was liberated under bonds to appear for trial at the next session of the court, the grand jury having found a true bill against him, that “he did take upon him to preach . . . in a Conventicle and Meeting not permitted or allowed by law, under color or excuse of Religion in other manner than according to our Liturgy and practice of the Church of England.” On the trial the prosecution relied on the royal instructions to Cornbury, rather than on the ministry act, as though conscious that said act, while establishing a Church, yet inflicted no penalties for non-conformity. Mackemie

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defended himself, producing licenses from the governors of Virginia and Maryland, contending that there was nothing in the English common or statute law to hold him, and nothing in the laws of New York against the liberty he had exercised. As to the governor’s ecclesiastical