Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/77

-i69i] Overthrow of Leister. 45 that he had received a commission as lieutenant-governor. At the same time he contrived for a while to keep the home government in the dark by representing himself as chosen by popular election, by intercepting letters which would have undeceived them, and by im- prisoning and brutally maltreating the writers of such letters. In the meantime some of the settlers at Schenectady, a settlement on the upper Hudson, had been massacred in an Indian raid. This was largely due to the fact that Leisler's attitude towards Albany had made united action impossible. This event contributed largely to undermine Leisler's position. For nearly two years the English government with incredible apathy suffered the colonists to be the victims of a blundering and ineffective tyrant. In spite of Leisler's merciless suppression of free speech, it is clear that complaints reached England; and the King and his counsellors must at least have known that the colony was in the hands of one with no proved fitness for the post. At length, in 1690, a governor was appointed and sent out with a small military force. Fortune granted Leisler a respite, since the governor, Colonel Sloughter, was delayed on the voyage. When his second in command, Richard Ingoldsby, arrived, Leisler refused to resign his authority. Ingoldsby's course was an obvious one. " Where was Leisler's commission ? " No commission could be produced, and Leisler stood in the position of an avowed rebel. He held the fort and fired on the English soldiers, killing two; but the arrival of Sloughter, though it did not influence the attitude of Leisler himself, was the signal for the general collapse of his party, and his supporters laid down their arms. The ringleaders were tried for high- treason and found guilty, but the extreme penalty was put in force only against Leisler himself and his chief supporter Jacob Millborne. As we have seen, the government of James II had virtually left New York without a constitution. The defect was supplied by the instruc- tions given to successive governors, whereby certain methods acquired the authority of precedent and usage. The Assembly endeavoured to define the future constitution by a declaratory Act passed May 13, 1691, shortly after the arrival of Sloughter. His instructions had provided for a council nominated by the Crown, and an assembly elected by the freemen. The Act just mentioned filled in this outline by requiring annual elections, limiting the franchise to freeholders of forty shillings a year, and apportioning the colony into constituencies. A declaration was permitted instead of an oath ; and freedom of conscience was secured to all Christians, Papists excepted. No tax might be imposed but by the governor and the two Houses; and soldiers could not be billeted upon any inhabitant without his own consent. The Bill was vetoed by the Crown, owing, it is said, to the last clause ; and the colony was left without a defined constitution. CII. I.