New Bloggod, 1673

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.

IV. New Amsterdam becomes New York: The Beginning of English Rule. 1664-1674.
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"In July, 1673, a Dutch squadron under two grim old sea-dogs, Admirals Evertsen and Binckes, suddenly appeared in the lower bay. The English commander in the fort endeavored to treat with them; but they would hearken to no terms save immediate surrender, saying that “they had come for their own, and their own they would have.” 

The Dutch militia would not fight against their countrymen; and the other citizens were not inclined to run any risk in a contest that concerned them but little. Evertsen's frigates sailed up to within musket-shot of the fort, and firing began on both sides. 

After receiving a couple of broadsides which killed and wounded several of the garrison, the English flag was struck, and the fort was surrendered to the Dutch troops, who had already landed, under the command of Capt. Anthony Colve. So ended the first nine years of English supremacy at the mouth of the Hudson.    10

  The victors at once proceeded to undo the work of the men they had ousted. Dutch was once more made the formal official language (though it had never been completely abandoned), and the whole scheme of the English government was overturned.

 In the city itself the schepens, burgomasters, and schout again took the place of sheriff, mayor, and aldermen. There was very little violence, although one or two houses were plundered, and a citizen here and there insulted or slightly maltreated by the soldiers,—much as had happened after the original conquest, with the important exception that it was now the Dutch who did the maltreating, and the English who were the sufferers.    11

  When the province was lost it was a mere proprietary colony of the West India Company; but this corporation had died prior to 1673, and the province was regained by the victory of a national Dutch force, and was held for the whole nation.

 Evertsen, acting for the home government, made Colve the director of the province. Colve was a rough, imperious, resolute man, a good soldier, but with no very great regard for civil liberty. The whole province was speedily reduced. The Dutch towns along the Hudson submitted gladly; but the Puritan villages on Long Island were sullen and showed symptoms of defiance, appealing to Connecticut for help.

 However, Colve and Evertsen, backed up by trained soldiers and a well
-equipped squadron, were not men to be trifled with. They gave notice to the Long Islanders that unless they were prepared to stand the chances of war they must submit at once; and submit they did, Connecticut not daring to interfere. The New Englanders had been willing enough to bid defiance to, and to threaten the conquest of, the New Netherlands while the province was weakly held by an insufficient force; but they were too prudent to provoke a contest with men of such fighting temper and undoubted capacity as Evertsen and Colve, and the warhardened troops and seamen who obeyed their behests.    12

  Colve ruled the internal affairs of the colony with a high hand. He made the citizens understand that the military power was supreme over the civil; and when the council protested against anything he did, he told them plainly that unless they submitted he would summarily dismiss them and appoint others in their places. 

Military law was established, and heavy taxes were imposed; moreover, as the taxes took some time to collect, those who were most heavily assessed were forced to make loans in advance. Altogether the burghers probably failed to find that the restoration of Dutch rule worked any very marked change in their favor.    13

  This second period of Dutch supremacy on Manhattan Island lasted for but a year and a quarter. Then in November, 1674, the city was again given up to the English in accordance with the terms of peace between the belligerent powers, which provided for the mutual restitution of all conquered territory. With this second transfer New Amsterdam definitely assumed the name of New York; and the province became simply one of the English colonies in America, remaining such until, a century afterward, all those colonies combined to throw off the yoke of the mother country and become an independent nation.

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Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.

IV. New Amsterdam becomes New York: The Beginning of English Rule. 1664-1674.