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 attacks had at the same time been directed against New England, and to meet the dangerous situation Leisler performed the one statesmanlike act of his public career, notable in American history as the first step toward the union of the colonies. At his call, delegates from Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and Maryland met in New York City with delegates from New York on the 1st of May 1690 to consider concerted action against the enemy, and although the expedition which they sent out was a failure it numbered 855 men, New York furnishing about one-half the men, Massachusetts one of the two commanders and Connecticut the other. Leisler had proclaimed the new monarchs of Great Britain and had declared that it was his purpose only to protect the province and the Protestant religion until the arrival of a governor appointed by them; but he was enraged when he learned that he had been ignored and that under the new governor, Colonel Henry Sloughter, his enemies, van Cortlandt and Bayard, had again been appointed to the council. When Major Richard Ingoldsby arrived with two companies of the king’s soldiers and demanded possession of the fort, Leisler refused although he still professed his willingness to deliver it to Sloughter. On the 17th of March 1691 Leisler’s force fired on the king’s soldiers, killing two and wounding several. Governor Sloughter arrived two days later, and the revolt terminated in the arrest of Leisler and his chief followers. Leisler and Jacob Milborne, his son-in-law, were pronounced guilty of treason, and were executed on the 16th of May. The execution was regarded even by many who had been indifferent to Leisler’s cause, as an act of revenge. The case was carried to England, where in 1605 parliament reversed the attainders of the victims, and for many years the province was rent by the Leislerian and anti-Leislerian factions.

Governor Sloughter, as his commission directed, re-established in 1691 the assembly which James II. had abolished in 1686, and throughout the remainder of the colonial era the history of the province relates chiefly to the rise of popular government and the defence of the northern frontier. At its first session the assembly passed an act declaratory of the rights and privileges of the people, and much like the charter of liberties and privileges enacted in 1683, except that annual instead of triennial sessions of the assembly were now requested and, as was also provided in Sloughter’s commission and instructions, religious liberty was denied to Roman Catholics. This act was disallowed by the crown in 1697, and until Governor Cornbury’s administration (1702–1708) both the Leislerians and the anti-Leislerians repeatedly bid for the governor’s favour by supporting his measures instead of contending for popular rights. But Cornbury’s embezzlement of £1500, appropriated for fortifying the Narrows connecting Upper and Lower New York Bay, united the factions against him and started the assembly in the important contest which ended in the establishment of its control over the public purse. In 1706 it won the right to appoint its own treasurer to care for money appropriated for extraordinary purposes, and eight years later the governor assented to an act which gave to this officer the custody of practically all public money. Until 1737 it had been the custom to continue the revenue acts from three to five years, but thereafter the assembly insisted on annual appropriations.

The first newspaper of New York, the New York Gazette, was established in 1725 by William Bradford as a semi-official organ of the administration. In 1733 a popular organ, the New York Weekly Journal, was established under John Peter Zenger (1697–1746), and in 1735 both the freedom of the press and a great advance toward the independence of the judiciary were the outcome of a famous libel suit against Zenger.

Between the administration of Governor Montgomerie (1728–1731) and Governor Cosby (1732–1736) there was an interregnum of thirteen months during which Rip van Dam, president of the council, was acting-governor, and upon Cosby’s arrival a dispute arose between him and van Dam over the division of the salary and fees. Both appealed to the law, and when the chief-justice, Lewis Morris, refused Cosby’s request to have the court proceed in equity jurisdiction, and denied the right of the governor to establish courts of equity, he was removed from office. Not long afterwards there appeared in the Weekly Journal some severe criticisms of the administration. For printing these Zenger was arrested for libel in November 1734. The case was not brought to trial until August 1735, and in the meantime Zenger was kept in jail. Originally he had for counsel two of the most able lawyers in the province, James Alexander (1690–1756) and William Smith (1697–1769), but when they excepted to the commissions of the chief-justice, James de Lancey (1703–1760) and one of his associates, because by these commissions the justices had been appointed “during pleasure” instead of “during good behaviour,” the chief justice disbarred them. Their places, however, were taken by Andrew Hamilton, speaker of the Assembly of Pennsylvania and a lawyer of great reputation in the English colonies. The jury quickly agreed on a verdict of not guilty, and the acquittal was greeted by the populace with shouts of triumph. The further independence of judges became a leading issue in 1761 when the assembly insisted that they should be appointed during good behaviour, and refused to pay the salaries of those appointed during pleasure; but the home government met this refusal by ordering that they be paid out of the quit-rents.

The defence of the northern frontier was a heavy burden to New York, but by its problems the growth of the union of the colonies was promoted. From the destruction of Schenectady to the Peace of Ryswick (1697) hostilities between the French and the English in the New World took the form of occasional raids across the frontier, chiefly by the Indian allies. The main effort of the French, however, was, by diplomacy, to destroy the English-Iroquois alliance. This rested on the fear of the Iroquois for the French and their hope of protection from the English. Therefore, in response to their repeated complaints of the weakness of the English arising from disunion, Governor Fletcher, in 1694, called another intercolonial conference consisting of delegates from New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, and urged the necessity of more united feelings. Open hostilities were interrupted for a few years by the Peace of Ryswick and for a longer period by the Peace of Utrecht (1713), but French priests continued to dwell among the Iroquois, teaching them and distributing presents, and of the success of this diplomacy the English were ever in danger. To counteract it they, in 1701, prevailed upon the chiefs to deed their territory, said to be 800 m. in length and 400 m. in breadth, to the king of England. The English, also, frequently distributed presents. But the success of the French at the close of the 17th century and the early portion of the 18th was prevented only by the ceaseless efforts of Peter Schuyler (1657–1724) whose personal influence was for years dominant among all the Iroquois except the Senecas. When they had assumed a neutral attitude, he persuaded a number of them to join troops from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in the unsuccessful expeditions of 1709 and 1711 against the French at Montreal. The English had a decided advantage over the French in that they could furnish goods for the Indian trade much cheaper than their rivals, and when Governor Burnet saw that this advantage was being lost by a trade between Albany and Montreal he persuaded the assembly to pass an act (1720) prohibiting it. Pursuing the same wise policy he established a trading post at Oswego in 1722 and fortified it in 1727, and thereby placed the Iroquois in the desirable position of middlemen in a profitable fur trade with the “Far Indians.” London merchants, in their greed, brought about the repeal of the prohibitory act in 1729, but its effects were only in part destroyed. At another intercolonial conference at Albany, called by Burnet, a line of trading posts along the northern and western frontiers was strongly recommended. But neither the other colonies nor the home government would co-operate, and the French were the first to accomplish it. In King George’s War the co-operation of all the northern colonies was sought, and New York contributed £3000 and some cannon toward New England’s successful expedition against Louisburg. But it was left alone to protect its own frontier against the French, and while the assembly was wrangling with Governor Clinton