most imperious and offensive manner. The governor told the assembly that he had the king's instructions for a law rendering the provision for the support of government permanent; and the house calmly replied, that they would never recede from the method of an annual support. The governor then went so far as to deny their authority to act, except by the royal commissions and instructions, alterable at the king's pleasure, and subject to his limitations; and that there was a power able to punish them, and would punish them, if they provoked it by their misbehaviour. He proceeded to such extremities that the assembly, without swerving in the least from their determined purpose, declared his conduct to be arbitrary, illegal, and a violation of their privileges."

It would be difficult to find in any of the legislative records of this country, a clearer sense of right, or a better spirit to defend it. There were also considerations arising from the peculiarity of their local condition, which serve greatly to elevate the character of our colonial ancestors.

Whenever war existed between Great Britain and France, the province of New-York was the principal theatre of colonial contest. It became the Flanders of America, and it had to sustain, from time to time, the scourge and fury of savage and Canadian devastation. We need only cast an eye upon our geographical position, and read the affecting details of the formidable expeditions, and the frightful incursions which laid waste our northern and western frontiers, between 1690, and the conquest of Canada, in 1760, to be deeply impressed with a sense of the difficulties which this colony had to encounter, and of the fortitude and perseverance with which they were overcome. The leading men, who swayed the house of assembly, or directed the popular voice, never wanted valour and virtue adequate to the crisis.

But I hasten to cast a rapid glance over the great events in our domestic history, subsequent to the peace of 1763.

The colony took an early and distinguished stand against the claims of the British parliament, to raise a revenue from their American colonies without their consent. If she was not in advance, New-York was at least equal in point of time, in point of spirit, and in point of argument, to any of the colonies, in the use she made of the monitory language of remonstrance. In March, 1764, the English house of commons passed a declaratory resolution, that it would be proper to impose certain stamp duties in the colonies for the purpose of raising revenue, and other resolutions passed at the same time, laying new duties

• Smith's Hist. of New-York, vol. ii. 106-110. Colony Journals, vol. ii. 244-274.

upon the trade of the colonies. In October, 1764, the house of assembly of this colony, addressed the king and each house of parliament against all such schemes of taxation. They contended that the power of taxing themselves was interwoven fundamentally in their constitution, and was an exclusive and inextinguishable right; and that the people of the colony could. not be rightfully taxed without their consent, given by their representatives in general assembly. They declared that they received with the bitterness of grief, the intimation of a design in the British parliament to infringe that inestimable right. They complained also of the extension of the powers of the Vice-Admiralty courts, which led to a dangerous diminution of trial by jury. The assembly reasoned the question of taxation, with the British parliament, in the most eloquent and masterly manner; they declared that the people of the colony nobly disdained to claim exemption from foreign taxation as a privilege; they challenged it, and gloried in it as a right. It was a right enjoyed by their fellow-subjects in Great Britain, and was the grand principle of the independence of the British house of commons; and they very significantly asked, "Why such an odious discrimination? Why should it be denied to those who submitted to poverty, barbarian wars, loss of blood, loss of money, personal fatigues, and ten thousand unutterable hardships, to enlarge the trade, dominion, and wealth of the nation ?"

In October, 1765, the house of assembly were represented by a select committee, in a congress of the northern colonies, which met in this city, on the subject of the grievous claims and laws of the British parliament. The chairman of that committee was Judge Livingston, the father of the late Chancellor of that name; and he reported to the house the proceedings of the congress, and the house approved of the conduct and services of the committee. They then united in fresh remonstrances to the king, and each house of parliament, against the stamp act and other statutes imposing taxes upon the colonies without their consent, and against the unwarrantable jurisdiction of the Vice-Admiralty courts. They declared that they were not, and could not, be represented in parliament; and their addresses were spirited and determined, and they certainly were urged with weighty and pathetic exhortation.

At the close of the year 1768, the house of assembly again remonstrated in the most decided style, and in animated addresses to the king and parliament, against the claims of the British government. They specified their essential rights, and enumerated their grievances. They complained of the recent statutes imposing duties and raising revenue from the colonies without their consent, as being utterly subversive of their constitutional rights. They insisted that the authority of the colo

nial legislatures could not lawfully be suspended, abridged, or abrogated; and they considered the suspension of their legislative power, until they should have made provision for the accommodation of the king's troops, as a most dangerous assumption of unlawful power. They strongly urged their complaints of the erection of courts dependent upon the will of a royal governor; of Admiralty courts in which they were deprived of trial by jury, so deservedly celebrated by Englishmen, in all ages, as essential to their safety; and of the parliamentary claim of a right to give away their estates, and bind them in all cases whatsoever. They asserted, in the most manly terms, their claim to a participation in those rights and liberties, which had been declared by Magna Charta, and re-asserted in the petition and bill of rights, and confirmed at the accession of the house of Orange; and they reminded the king and parliament of their former loyalty and services, and how often it had been confessed that their zeal had carried them to make contributions beyond their proportion, and that the excesses had been reimbursed.

These state papers were produced in December, 1768, and they resemble very much in matter, spirit, and style, the resolutions and addresses of the first continental congress, in 1774, and they rival them in dignity and value. They were forwarded to the colonial agent at the court of Great Britain, and that agent was Edmund Burke. And yet for those very proceedings, the assembly was severely rebuked by the governor, Sir Henry Moore, and the legislature was dissolved.

As the disputes between the mother country and the colonies grew more serious, and were evidently approximating to an appeal to arms, the house of assembly began to pause in its career. The influence of the crown upon the legislature of the colony was sensibly felt, and it tended, in a considerable degree, to damp their future zeal, and neutralize their measures. But the spirit of the people kept equal pace with the views and wishes of their brethren in the other colonies; and the prominent and splendid luminaries in the great scenes of the revolution, now began to ascend above the horizon. The names of Philip Schuyler and George Clinton, appear on the journals of the colony assembly, as members of the house during those noble efforts in the year 1768; and they were constantly maintained in that station, by their constituents of Albany and Ulster counties, from that year down to the termination of the existence of the colony legislature in April, 1775. The Dutch family of Schuyler stands conspicuous in our colonial annals. Colonel Peter Schuyler was mayor of Albany, and commander of the northern militia, in 1690. He was distinguished for his probity, and activity in all the various duties of civil and military life. No man understood better the relation of the

colony with the Five Nations of Indians, or had more decided influence with that confederacy. He had frequently chastised the Canadian French for their destructive incursions upon the frontier settlements; and his zeal and energy were rewarded by a seat in the provincial council; and the house of assembly gave their testimony to the British court of his faithful services and good reputation. It was this same vigilant officer who gave intelligence to the inhabitants of Deerfield, on the Connecticut river, of the designs of the French and Indians upon them, some short time before the destruction of that village, in 1704.* In 1720, as president of the council, he became acting governor of the colony for a short time, previous to the accession of Governor Burnet. His son, Colonel Philip Schuyler, was an active and efficient member of assembly, for the city and county of Albany, in 1743. But the Philip Schuyler to whom I particularly allude, and who in a subsequent age shed such signal lustre upon the family name, was born at Albany in the year 1733, and at an early age he began to display his active mind, and military spirit. He was a captain in the NewYork levies at Fort Edward, in 1755, and accompanied the British army in the expedition down lake George, in the summer of 1758. He was with Lord Howe when he fell by the fire of the enemy, on landing at the north end of the lake; and he was appointed (as he himself informed me) to convey the body of that young and lamented nobleman to Albany, where he was buried, with appropriate solemnities, in the Episcopal

church.

We next find him, under the title of Colonel Schuyler, in company with his compatriot George Clinton, in the year 1768, on the floor of the house of assembly, taking an active share in all their vehement discussions. Neither of them was to be overawed or seduced from a bold and determined defence of the constitutional rights of the colonies, and of an adherence to the letter and spirit of the councils of the union. The struggle in the house of assembly, between the ministerial and the whig parties, was brought to a crisis in the months of February and March, 1775; and in that memorable contest, Philip Schuyler and George Clinton, together with Nathaniel Woodhull, of Long Island, acted distinguished parts. On the motions to give the thanks of the house to the delegates from the colony in the continental congress of September, 1774; and to thank the merchants and inhabitants of the colony, for their adherence to the non-importation and the association recommended by con

Smith's History of New-York, vol. i. 92. 94. 137, 138. Hoyt's Indian Wars, p. 185. + Colony Journals, vol. i. 438.

gress, those patriots found themselves in the minority. But their courage and resolution gained strength from defeat. On the 3d of March, Colonel Schuyler moved declaratory resolutions that the act of 4 Geo. III. imposing duties for raising a revenue in America; and for extending the jurisdiction of Admiralty courts; and for depriving his majesty's subjects in America of trial by jury; and for holding up an injurious discrimination between the subjects of Great Britain and those of the colonies, were great grievances. The government party seem to have fled the question, and to have left in the house only the scanty number of nine members, and the resolutions were carried by a vote of seven to two. But their opponents immediately rallied, and eleven distinct divisions, on different motions, were afterwards taken in the course of that single day, and entered on the journal; and they related to all the momentous points then in controversy, between Great Britain and the United Colonies. It was a sharp and hard-fought contest for fundamental principles; and a more solemn and eventful debate rarely ever happened on the floor of a deliberative assembly. The house consisted on that day of twenty-four members, and the ministerial majority was exactly in the ratio of two to one; and the intrepidity, talent, and services of the three members I have named, and especially of Schuyler and Clinton, were above all praise, and laid the foundation for those lavish marks of honour and confidence which their countrymen were afterwards so eager to bestow.

The resistance of the majority of the house was fairly broken down, and essentially controlled by the efforts of the minority and the energy of public opinion. A series of resolutions, declaratory of American grievances, were passed, and petitions to the king and parliament adopted, not indeed in all respects such as the leaders of the minority wished, (for all their amendments were voted down,) but they were nevertheless grounded upon the principles of the American revolution. They declared that the claims of taxation and absolute sovereignty, on the part of the British parliament, and the extension of admiralty jurisdiction, were grievances, and unconstitutional measures; and that the act of parliament, shutting up the port of Boston, and altering the charter of that colony, was also a grievance.

These were the last proceedings of the general assembly of the colony of New-York, which now closed its existence for ever. More perilous scenes, and new and brighter paths of glory, were opening upon the vision of those illustrious pa

triots.

The delegates from this colony to the first continental congress in 1774, were not chosen by the general assembly, but by