and zealous for the welfare of the province. But in spite of political turmoil the growth of the colony was rapid and uninterrupted. In 1720 the population consisted of 31,000 whites and 4000 negroes; in 1756 it comprised 83,000 whites and 13,000 negroes, and in 1771 168,000 whites and negroes. The first newspaper, the Gazette, a Government organ, was published in 1725, and the second, the Weekly Journal, an opposition sheet, appeared in 1733. For his criticism of the Governor's conduct the editor of the Weekly Journal, John Peter Zenger (q.v.) was brought to trial for libel in 1734, but, supported by the people and the Assembly, he won his case and vindicated the freedom of the press in New York. In 1746 the Assembly appropriated £250 toward the foundation of King's College. The people who fought for the freedom of the press and established King's College were the same who in 1741, thrown into a paroxysm of fear by the baseless rumors of a negro insurrection, murdered 31 negroes and drove out 71 others by due process of the law. In the early French and Indian wars New York suffered heavily, for, owing to the factious disputes between the Governor and the Assembly, the border was left without any troops and the frontier settlements were swept clean by the French and their Indian allies. In 1690 Schenectady was destroyed. Sir William Johnson kept the Iroquois friendly to the English, and the alliance with them was strengthened at the Albany Convention of 1754 (q.v.). By the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 a definite line of delimitation between the English and the Indian territory was traced.
As early as 1762 petitions and remonstrances against the oppressive commercial laws had been submitted to Parliament and the King. In 1764 the Assembly appointed a committee to correspond with the other provinces concerning the common cause, and in October, 1765, a colonial Congress assembled at New York. The imposition of the stamp duty was followed by the outbreak of disorder, in which the Sons of Liberty (q.v.) were prominent, and non-importation agreements were entered into by the people. Though the commercial interests of the colony suffered greatly, the Assembly refused to vote supplies for the troops, and on January 18, 1770, the Sons of Liberty and the British soldiers fought the battle of Golden Hill on John Street in the city of New York. There was peace till 1773, when the arrival of tea ships aroused the Sons of Liberty to renewed activity. By 1775 the Provincial Assembly had become devotedly Tory, and unrepresentative of popular opinion. Its last session occurred on April 3d. On April 20th a Provincial Congress, comprising representatives of seven counties outside of New York City, met at New York, and elected delegates to the Continental Congress. Upon the news of the battle of Lexington a committee of 100, in which the more conservative element among the revolutionists predominated, took possession of the Government and issued a call for a provincial convention, which assembled July 10, 1776. at White Plains, and subsequently removed to Kingston, where it adjourned April 20, 1777, after drawing up a constitution for the State of New York. For military events during the War of the Revolution, see United States.
The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1778. Two years later New York ceded its public lands in the West to Congress, and in 1786 it terminated its dispute with Massachusetts by granting it the right of preëmption to about 6,000,000 acres of land in the western part of the State. Of this vast tract more than 3,500,000 acres came by purchase into the possession of Robert Morris (q.v.), who disposed of a large area, embracing a considerable part of that section of the State, to a number of citizens of Amsterdam, who in 1798 were authorized by the Legislature to hold land within the State. This tract came to be popularly known as the Holland Purchase. Land speculation was entered into on an extensive scale, and the region filled up rapidly with immigrants from New England. The dispute regarding the possession of Vermont, to which New York laid claim, was settled by the erection of an independent State, Vermont being admitted into the Union in 1791. The fear of too strong a central government and the desire to retain possession of its rich custom-house made New York ill-inclined toward the newly framed Federal Constitution. Two of its three delegates withdrew from the Federal convention, and only after ten States had adopted the Constitution did a State convention ratify it, by 30 votes to 27 (July 26, 1788). From the very outset party lines were sharply drawn in the State. The Federalists were led by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and General Schuyler. Among the leaders of the various factions of the Republicans were the two Clintons—George, and after him De Witt—the Livingstons, and Aaron Burr. Federalist from 1795 to 1800, the State became Republican after that year, and passed under the domination of De Witt Clinton, who remained in power till 1822 except for a brief period of eclipse between 1815 and 1817. Politics during this period were venal, and personal ambitions determined the attitude of factions. The followers of the ascendent faction were rewarded with the grant of bank charters and valuable franchises, and, favored by the provisions of the Constitution, which gave the power of appointment to office and removal to a council of appointment (in 1821 there were 15,000 offices, military and civil, at its disposal), the spoils system was developed to perfection and was introduced later by Van Buren into national politics. To De Witt Clinton is due the rise of the canal system which brought such prosperity to the State. The project of an Erie Canal had been discussed by Gouverneur Morris in 1777; it was revived by Clinton in 1810, and work on the Erie Canal was begun in 1817 and terminated in 1825. The success of the undertaking brought about Clinton's election to the Governorship in 1824 and 1826, though his political following had really been shattered.
Clinton was succeeded in power by the Albany Regency (q.v.), a group of men headed by Martin Van Buren, Silas Wright, William L. Marcy, and John A. Dix, who made machine politics an exact science. Personal rivalries and short-lived popular movements determined the general course of events. From 1836 to 1842 the anti-Masonic agitation (see Anti-Masons), assiduously fanned into life by Thurlow Weed, was powerful enough to decide the outcome of State elections. The anti-rent troubles originating in the grievances of the farmers against their landlords—the successors of the patroons and the great land companies—lasted from 1836 to 1846, when feudal tenure was abolished by the new
