WEBVTT NOTE 61. The Aftermath of Bellomont 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.800 Volume 1, Chapter 61, The Aftermath of Bellamont 2 00:00:05.800 --> 00:00:13.120 The sudden death of Lord Bellamont in March 1701 ended the liberal interlude in the northern 3 00:00:13.120 --> 00:00:20.260 royal colonies just as it was getting underway. A power vacuum immediately followed in each 4 00:00:20.260 --> 00:00:27.200 of the colonies, and competing groups rushed in to try to fill it. In Massachusetts, Lieutenant 5 00:00:27.200 --> 00:00:34.560 Governor Staunton happily prepared to re-assume power. By this time, ordinary conditions were 6 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:41.760 reversed in the colony. The council was liberal, while the House of Representatives had a majority 7 00:00:41.760 --> 00:00:48.520 for the royal oligarchy. Staunton tried to dissolve the general court and rule alone, 8 00:00:48.520 --> 00:00:54.800 but the council was able to force him to call a special session quickly. In that session, 9 00:00:54.800 --> 00:01:01.660 The Staunton-dominated lower house voted to ask the king to promote Staunton to governor, 10 00:01:01.660 --> 00:01:05.540 but the council angrily defeated the plan. 11 00:01:05.540 --> 00:01:12.740 By late spring 1701, the succession crisis was becoming ever more acute, for the venerable 12 00:01:12.740 --> 00:01:15.300 Staunton was dying. 13 00:01:15.300 --> 00:01:20.500 Councilor Waite Winthrop, assuming leadership of the liberal camp, was appointed chairman 14 00:01:20.500 --> 00:01:26.740 of a Joint Committee of the General Court. Making a last try for resumption of self-government 15 00:01:26.740 --> 00:01:33.460 unencumbered by the Crown and its oligarchy, Winthrop's committee recommended to the King 16 00:01:33.460 --> 00:01:39.740 a petition for restoration of an elected governor and other elected executive officials to the 17 00:01:39.740 --> 00:01:45.780 colony. The Council warmly approved, but again the House of Representatives rejected the 18 00:01:45.780 --> 00:01:46.780 plan. 19 00:01:46.780 --> 00:01:52.460 When Stoughton died in July, Winthrop, as the senior counselor, functioned as the chief 20 00:01:52.460 --> 00:01:59.260 executive of the colony. The council, moreover, elected him to succeed Stoughton as chief 21 00:01:59.260 --> 00:02:06.260 justice of the superior court. In the council, Elisha Cook was Winthrop's chief supporter, 22 00:02:06.660 --> 00:02:13.460 while former speaker Nathaniel Byfield led the opposition. Massachusetts then decided 23 00:02:13.460 --> 00:02:19.740 to send Winthrop as its agent to England, but when he prepared to ask bluntly for resumption 24 00:02:19.740 --> 00:02:26.980 of the old Massachusetts Charter, the House of Representatives again vetoed the plan. 25 00:02:26.980 --> 00:02:33.140 Wait Winthrop's little moment of glory disappeared all too quickly. A furious struggle raged 26 00:02:33.140 --> 00:02:40.420 in England. Massachusetts agent and friend of Winthrop, the liberal Sir Henry Asherst, 27 00:02:40.420 --> 00:02:46.420 was trying desperately to block Joseph Dudley's appointment as governor. Ashhurst, who had 28 00:02:46.420 --> 00:02:52.340 helped increase Mather try to restore the old charter a decade before, suggested that 29 00:02:52.340 --> 00:02:58.780 Winthrop be appointed to succeed Staunton. Ashhurst, however, was undercut by the unseemly 30 00:02:58.780 --> 00:03:04.900 haste of the general court in dumping him as its agent and naming one of the Jacobite 31 00:03:04.900 --> 00:03:14.860 It is true that the court did this after hearing in September of Dudley's appointment. 32 00:03:14.860 --> 00:03:19.820 Aschurst, though, would have had a good chance of having the appointment cancelled. 33 00:03:19.820 --> 00:03:26.180 Furthermore, Winthrop ruined his chance for a royal appointment by repeating his old call 34 00:03:26.180 --> 00:03:29.420 for resumption of the old charter. 35 00:03:29.420 --> 00:03:35.900 and his friend Asherst, a moderate liberal after all, would not go that far. 36 00:03:35.900 --> 00:03:42.660 As it was, Dudley, backed by the Board of Trade and letters from his Massachusetts supporters, 37 00:03:42.660 --> 00:03:49.420 including the Mathers, now apparently willing to bow to whoever was successfully in power, 38 00:03:49.420 --> 00:03:55.300 finally received the appointment as Governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire in December 39 00:03:55.300 --> 00:03:57.340 1701. 40 00:03:57.340 --> 00:04:04.560 The collapse of the liberal opposition, particularly in the democratically elected House of Representatives, 41 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:10.720 and the supine acceptance of the same Dudley, whom the colony had happily imprisoned a dozen 42 00:04:10.720 --> 00:04:17.580 years before, were signs of the new spirit that had come to rule over Massachusetts. 43 00:04:17.580 --> 00:04:25.000 It was a spirit of resignation to the royal oligarchy and placement, and a shift from 44 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:30.400 Opposition to those attempting to get on the gravy train. 45 00:04:30.400 --> 00:04:36.980 No better sign of this shift was the action of Waite Winthrop, a would-be liberal crusader 46 00:04:36.980 --> 00:04:38.900 in 1701. 47 00:04:38.900 --> 00:04:45.760 The aging Winthrop was happy to become Dudley's pliant henchman in 1708. 48 00:04:45.760 --> 00:04:51.700 But while Dudley was to rule Massachusetts and New Hampshire for over a decade, he did 49 00:04:51.700 --> 00:04:57.660 It succeeded, at least, in reinvigorating a liberal opposition in its traditional home, 50 00:04:57.660 --> 00:04:59.740 the lower house. 51 00:04:59.740 --> 00:05:05.220 The ever despotic Dudley moved determinedly to crush the will of the council and mold 52 00:05:05.220 --> 00:05:07.100 it as his creature. 53 00:05:07.100 --> 00:05:12.700 For example, the secret ballot was now prohibited in council meetings. 54 00:05:12.700 --> 00:05:17.660 Dudley also tried to dictate to and bully the house, but the representatives holding 55 00:05:17.660 --> 00:05:20.340 the purse fought back. 56 00:05:20.340 --> 00:05:26.400 For example, they kept Dudley on an annual salary of less than 300 pounds. There was 57 00:05:26.400 --> 00:05:33.400 thus formed a liberal opposition to the depredations of the royal governor and his allied oligarchy. 58 00:05:35.100 --> 00:05:42.100 The pattern of 18th century politics in the royal colonies in America had been woven in 59 00:05:42.500 --> 00:05:47.820 Massachusetts. In New Hampshire, the hated John Usher was appointed lieutenant governor 60 00:05:47.820 --> 00:06:17.820 The assembly expressed its opposition to Usher by failing to vote him a salary. The Allen proprietary claims were pushed in the courts by Usher. But not only did the juries rule against them, even Dudley threw his weight against the feudal proprietary. Dudley thought it better to throw in his lot with the leading merchant oligarchs of the province, with the Waldrens and the Hinks. The proprietary claims were 61 00:06:17.820 --> 00:06:22.700 to be lost in the courts, and the people of New Hampshire were finally able to get rid 62 00:06:22.700 --> 00:06:30.060 of Osher when he was removed as lieutenant governor in 1715. The death of Lord Bellamont 63 00:06:30.060 --> 00:06:37.420 threw the colony of New York into a turmoil. His lieutenant governor was John Nanfan, 64 00:06:37.420 --> 00:06:44.380 a cousin of Bellamont's wife, who would be expected to carry on the old governor's policies. 65 00:06:44.380 --> 00:06:48.060 But Nan Fan happened to be in Barbados at the time. 66 00:06:48.060 --> 00:06:54.500 The Council was now in charge, and the Council had a Lislarian majority. 67 00:06:54.500 --> 00:07:00.020 But the Senior Councilor, and therefore its President, was William Smith, one of the most 68 00:07:00.020 --> 00:07:05.020 implacable of the anti-Lislarian oligarchy. 69 00:07:05.020 --> 00:07:10.740 Smith now claimed that all the Governor's powers devolved on him alone, rather than 70 00:07:10.740 --> 00:07:13.580 on the Council as a body. 71 00:07:13.580 --> 00:07:19.820 The Lisslerian Council quickly overruled Smith, and the latter had to bow to its decision, 72 00:07:19.820 --> 00:07:24.220 a decision that was later to be vindicated by the Crown. 73 00:07:24.220 --> 00:07:29.860 Their first attempt to take power having failed, the counter-revolutionaries saw that their 74 00:07:29.860 --> 00:07:36.780 only hope for power lay in England, and so they began to pepper the Crown with requests 75 00:07:36.780 --> 00:07:38.180 and advice. 76 00:07:38.180 --> 00:07:44.920 The highly reactionary Nicholas Bayard tried to whip up nationalistic prejudices by complaining 77 00:07:44.920 --> 00:07:48.420 that Bellamont had favored the Dutch element. 78 00:07:48.420 --> 00:07:55.700 Livingston, Smith, and Schuler wrote lengthy letters complaining of the regime. 79 00:07:55.700 --> 00:08:01.140 When Lieutenant Governor Nanfan returned to New York in May, he effectively placed his 80 00:08:01.140 --> 00:08:05.120 prestige on the Leslyrian side. 81 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:11.860 The heated spring elections of 1701 strengthened Leslyrian control of the assembly, which was 82 00:08:11.860 --> 00:08:18.880 enhanced by the overthrow by the people of Albany of its local oligarchy. 83 00:08:18.880 --> 00:08:25.700 The Leslyrians now passed a bill to compensate Jacob Leisler's son and moved against the 84 00:08:25.700 --> 00:08:32.860 landed monopolist by ordering the payment of taxes and quit rents on all unimproved, 85 00:08:32.860 --> 00:08:35.860 Arbitrarily Granted Land 86 00:08:35.860 --> 00:08:42.900 However, the Lislarians alienated the merchants still further by financing compensations through 87 00:08:42.900 --> 00:08:49.860 raising duties on imports. Some Lislarian leaders also succumbed to the temptations 88 00:08:49.860 --> 00:08:56.380 of power by violating their own principles and granted themselves substantial tracts 89 00:08:56.380 --> 00:09:10.020 The degree of land plunder was, however, very small compared with that of previous grants. 90 00:09:10.020 --> 00:09:14.940 The assembly also proceeded to confiscate the property of Livingston and part of the 91 00:09:14.940 --> 00:09:20.980 estate of Van Cortland for misappropriation of public funds while in power. 92 00:09:20.980 --> 00:09:27.280 Dan Fann cheered the Lycelerian reformers on, and Chief Justice William Atwood, newly 93 00:09:27.280 --> 00:09:34.640 arrived from England, set himself squarely on the Lycelerian side. But this idol of liberal 94 00:09:34.640 --> 00:09:43.440 reform was not to last. By the end of 1701, the New Yorkers heard with dismay of the appointment 95 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:51.040 of Lord Cornberry as new governor. He was known to be partial to the Tory oligarchy 96 00:09:51.040 --> 00:09:57.060 and was coming over with the hated Richard Ingelsby and with the former private secretary 97 00:09:57.060 --> 00:10:03.440 of Benjamin Fletcher. Rumor had it that the newly appointed councillors were all to be 98 00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:11.540 hard-line anti-Leslyrians. The Tory reaction involved in the choices of Dudley, Usher and 99 00:10:11.540 --> 00:10:23.740 In England, Toryism was again dominant by 1701, and the Tories were able to strengthen 100 00:10:23.740 --> 00:10:30.560 their dominance with the accession to the throne of Queen Anne in 1702. As an English 101 00:10:30.560 --> 00:10:38.220 friend wrote jubilantly to Livingston toward the end of 1701, Most or all of the not of 102 00:10:38.220 --> 00:10:45.620 of Lords, whereof the Lord of Belmont was one, are removed and dead. But the Lycelerians 103 00:10:45.620 --> 00:10:52.100 were determined that if they must go out, they would do so with a bang, not a whimper. 104 00:10:52.100 --> 00:10:58.220 They determined to leave in a blaze of revenge. The arch-reactionary Nicholas Bayard, on hearing 105 00:10:58.220 --> 00:11:04.960 of Cornberry's appointment, was impudent enough not to conceal his jubilation. He promptly 106 00:11:04.960 --> 00:11:11.460 They sent Kornberry a congratulatory address signed by 800 New Yorkers. Bayard's address 107 00:11:11.460 --> 00:11:17.160 contained bitter indictments of the existing government, including charges of corruption, 108 00:11:17.160 --> 00:11:24.160 injustice and, most serious of all, the willingness to grant the vote to non-freeholders and 109 00:11:24.160 --> 00:11:31.120 to attack the foundation's property by annulling the privileged land grants. Now the Lycelerians 110 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:36.680 Mises had the chance to pay back Bayard with some of his own favorite coin, noting that 111 00:11:36.680 --> 00:11:43.200 many soldiers had been induced to sign the petition. The Council indicted Bayard and 112 00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:50.520 his aide William Hutchins, New York City alderman and tavern keeper, for treason and conspiring 113 00:11:50.520 --> 00:11:57.040 to raise sedition and mutiny. The indictment came under the very law of treason of 1691 114 00:11:57.040 --> 00:12:05.740 Bayard had helped frame and used so devastatingly against the Leslarians. It soon became known, 115 00:12:05.740 --> 00:12:10.780 by the way, that the soldiers knew little of the contents of the petition but were attracted 116 00:12:10.780 --> 00:12:18.220 by free beer or promises provided by Alderman Hutchins. The trial was arranged quickly, 117 00:12:18.220 --> 00:12:25.080 with Atwood as judge and the Leslarian leader, counselor Thomas Weaver, as prosecutor. In 118 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:32.520 In imitation of the trial of Jacob Laszler, the jury was packed, this time against Bayard. 119 00:12:32.520 --> 00:12:39.080 The foreman, for example, was a brother of Abraham de Peister, a leading leserian. Bayard, 120 00:12:39.080 --> 00:12:46.080 a Dutchman himself, also protested because the jurors were Dutch and relatively poor. 121 00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:51.480 Judge Atwood concluded the trial by virtually demanding a verdict of guilty, which was duly 122 00:12:51.480 --> 00:13:00.480 Convicted of treason, Bayard was sentenced in March 1702 to death. His property was to be confiscated. 123 00:13:00.480 --> 00:13:13.480 John Nanfan, however, did not wish to go too far. Having made his point forcefully, he reprieved Bayard in exchange for the prisoners expressing sorrow for the crime for which he was convicted. 124 00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:20.320 Convicted, a roundabout confession of guilt. Expecting Kornberry to arrive at any time, 125 00:13:20.320 --> 00:13:26.400 Bayard refused to make a direct confession. Hutchins was also tried and convicted for 126 00:13:26.400 --> 00:13:33.880 treason and won his reprieve in the same way. Other leading anti-Leslarians, in a panic, 127 00:13:33.880 --> 00:13:40.720 fled the colony, vowing vengeance against Atwood. Two of the émigrés, Thomas Wenham 128 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:47.280 and Philip French had been indicted for complicity in treason and were now outlawed. They were 129 00:13:47.280 --> 00:13:53.840 joined in flight by the Reverend Mr. Vessey, who had propagandized widely against the regime, 130 00:13:53.840 --> 00:13:59.840 even though amnesty had been promised to all but one of the exiles. And even Bayard and 131 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:05.680 Hutchins received the benefit of a letter to the Crown from Nanfan, asking for a royal 132 00:14:05.680 --> 00:14:13.680 The prosecutions were never to go beyond giving Bayard and the oligarchs a sampling of their own medicine. 133 00:14:13.680 --> 00:14:23.680 The last great gesture of the Belomont-Nanfan regime was Nanfan's ouster of Robert Livingston from the Council at the end of April. 134 00:14:23.680 --> 00:14:28.680 The very least punishment, remarked Atwood, that Livingston deserved. 135 00:14:28.680 --> 00:14:32.680 But the shades of night were approaching fast. 136 00:14:32.680 --> 00:14:39.680 Cornberry was to arrive in early May, and the temper of the oligarchy was revealed in such signs as 137 00:14:39.680 --> 00:14:46.680 God Save the King and Hang John Nanfan, and a poem that warned the Leslarians to 138 00:14:46.680 --> 00:14:51.680 wait the approaching change and then lament their fate. 139 00:14:51.680 --> 00:14:57.680 Lord Cornberry did not disappoint the expectations of either side. 140 00:14:57.680 --> 00:15:04.760 Indeed, historians most partial to the oligarchy blanch at Cornberry's record. 141 00:15:04.760 --> 00:15:10.840 Even the arch-tory historian William Smith, son of the anti-Leslarian leader, admitted, 142 00:15:10.840 --> 00:15:17.880 We never had a governor so universally detested, nor one who so richly deserved the public 143 00:15:17.880 --> 00:15:20.040 abhorrence. 144 00:15:20.040 --> 00:15:26.240 His guiding purpose was personal plunder, and it was natural for him, just as it had 145 00:15:26.240 --> 00:15:32.360 previously Benford Fletcher to align himself with that party which needed the most favors 146 00:15:32.360 --> 00:15:36.720 and was in a position to pay the most for them. 147 00:15:36.720 --> 00:15:43.420 Soon after assuming office, Cornberry ousted the Lislarians from council and filled Atwood's 148 00:15:43.420 --> 00:15:46.560 Chief Justice post with William Smith. 149 00:15:46.560 --> 00:15:52.760 He attacked the Lislarians as troublesome spirits and freed Bayard and Hutchins, who 150 00:15:52.760 --> 00:15:55.640 were cleared by the privy council. 151 00:15:55.640 --> 00:16:01.720 After packing the council, Cornberry dissolved the assembly, made many English soldiers freemen 152 00:16:01.720 --> 00:16:09.440 of New York City, and removed all Lislarian sheriffs from office. Having secured a pliant 153 00:16:09.440 --> 00:16:17.100 assembly, Cornberry proceeded to persecute the Lislarians further. John Nanfan was clapped 154 00:16:17.100 --> 00:16:23.480 into jail for years under charge of false imprisonment and misuse of public funds, and 155 00:16:23.480 --> 00:16:28.520 Bayard was kept there despite repeated orders from England to release him. 156 00:16:28.520 --> 00:16:33.640 Fan-Fan finally escaped, but his property had all been confiscated. 157 00:16:33.640 --> 00:16:40.120 Lady Bellomont's estate was confiscated for Cornberry's personal use. 158 00:16:40.120 --> 00:16:46.000 One mercy, though, Bayard was not allowed to wreak full revenge. 159 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:51.360 His suits against leading Lislarians and his jurors for damages were disallowed by the 160 00:16:51.360 --> 00:16:56.360 of the Crown, and his bill to prohibit any of his judges from holding any government 161 00:16:56.360 --> 00:17:01.680 office was too much, even for Cornberry and the Assembly. 162 00:17:01.680 --> 00:17:08.480 The new Cornberry-dominated Assembly promptly repealed all the Acts of the Nanfan Assembly 163 00:17:08.480 --> 00:17:15.660 and also repealed the Belmont-secured annulment of the enormous land grants of the Fletcher 164 00:17:15.660 --> 00:17:21.660 and while Queen Anne refused to allow this repeal to stand, 165 00:17:21.660 --> 00:17:28.660 Cornberry himself returned to the Fletcher policy of huge land grants to favorite oligarchs. 166 00:17:28.660 --> 00:17:38.660 Large tracts were granted to Reinbeck, Livingston, Phillips, Schuller, Smith, Van Rensselaer and Heathcote 167 00:17:38.660 --> 00:17:44.220 Coat, and the boundaries of the grants were defined so vaguely as to permit the grantees 168 00:17:44.220 --> 00:17:51.420 to stretch the tracts a hundredfold. The old feudal grant of Rensselaerwick was reconfirmed 169 00:17:51.420 --> 00:17:57.700 by Cornberry and a large tract was granted to Cornberry's relative, George Clark, the 170 00:17:57.700 --> 00:18:04.700 new secretary of the colony. Cornberry was more than able to compensate the landed oligarchy 171 00:18:04.700 --> 00:18:08.620 for the setback it had received under Bellamont. 172 00:18:08.620 --> 00:18:14.120 Cornberry also tried to restore the flour monopoly to New York City merchants and to 173 00:18:14.120 --> 00:18:18.460 overlord the city's representation in the assembly. 174 00:18:18.460 --> 00:18:25.660 He also wanted restored the old power to prohibit the export of wheat, thus oppressing the farmers 175 00:18:25.660 --> 00:18:30.920 for the benefit of the flour makers by executive order. 176 00:18:30.920 --> 00:18:37.040 By this time, however, the Slyrians were able to bounce back in the new assembly. The assembly 177 00:18:37.040 --> 00:18:42.980 was in any case disgusted with Cornberry's flagrant appropriation of tax funds for his 178 00:18:42.980 --> 00:18:50.080 personal use. By 1704, it was refusing to vote any more money unless it was allowed 179 00:18:50.080 --> 00:18:55.760 to appoint a treasurer in charge of the public funds. The assembly was able to win its case 180 00:18:55.760 --> 00:19:03.160 in England for extraordinary expenses. Naturally, it then tended to make all grants of money 181 00:19:03.160 --> 00:19:09.400 extraordinary ones. The assembly also denounced Cornberry's practice of charging ruinous 182 00:19:09.400 --> 00:19:16.160 fees to defendants being prosecuted at court. Lord Cornberry was finally removed from office 183 00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:23.200 in late 1708. Characteristically, he then had to flee New York to escape creditors to 184 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:30.200 to whom he owed several thousand pounds. After very brief terms by Lord Lovelace and Richard 185 00:19:30.880 --> 00:19:37.880 Inglesby, Robert Hunter became governor in 1710. By now twenty years had elapsed since 186 00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:45.480 the Leisler rebellion, and under the lengthy and soothing rule of Hunter, the Leislerian 187 00:19:45.480 --> 00:19:52.480 passions died down and faded away. In one of his first addresses, Hunter warned that 188 00:19:52.480 --> 00:19:58.280 that no faction would receive any encouragement from him. His appointments to the Council 189 00:19:58.280 --> 00:20:05.280 and other offices were consciously designed to be impartial and to allay tempers on both 190 00:20:05.280 --> 00:20:11.360 sides. Furthermore, both factions had already begun to cooperate in asserting the power 191 00:20:11.360 --> 00:20:18.360 of the Assembly as a check against the excesses of Cornberry. Thus Hunter fought the Assembly 192 00:20:18.360 --> 00:20:46.120 New York was beginning to settle down into the Governor versus Assembly structure that 193 00:20:46.120 --> 00:20:52.420 was becoming characteristic of the royal colonies. But even though the Laslerian movement had 194 00:20:52.420 --> 00:21:00.540 faded away, that which had provoked its rise, the quasi-feudal oligarchy, had unfortunately 195 00:21:00.540 --> 00:21:07.840 not faded too. Although the Laslerian Revolution had succeeded in bringing an assembly to 196 00:21:07.840 --> 00:21:15.040 New York which would become the focus of popular opposition to government, it did not succeed 197 00:21:15.040 --> 00:21:21.920 in Destroying the Feudal Oligarchy. Indeed, land monopoly was now aggravated by the grants 198 00:21:21.920 --> 00:21:28.240 of Fletcher and Cornberry. Governor Hunter saw the danger and prophetically warned the 199 00:21:28.240 --> 00:21:33.520 Crown that the owners of the vast estates in New York would cripple the growth of population 200 00:21:33.520 --> 00:21:40.240 in the colony by insisting on renting out instead of dividing and selling their lands. 201 00:21:40.240 --> 00:21:47.040 Retaining the land and renting it out, as under feudalism, will not succeed in America, 202 00:21:47.040 --> 00:21:52.480 Hunter warned, where full ownership of cheap and fertile land can be obtained in all the 203 00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:54.640 other colonies. 204 00:21:54.640 --> 00:21:57.920 But Hunter, alas, was not a crusader. 205 00:21:57.920 --> 00:22:04.320 So while basically opposed to landed monopoly, his policy of balance and moderation only 206 00:22:04.320 --> 00:22:11.320 left the problem of land monopoly and quasi-feudalism a festering sore that would linger in the 207 00:22:11.320 --> 00:22:17.300 New York social and political structure for over a century. Hunter did not add to the 208 00:22:17.300 --> 00:22:23.900 arbitrary land grants in New York, but by pursuing moderation instead of principled 209 00:22:23.900 --> 00:22:30.900 reform, he made no move to remedy the problem. In fact, Hunter even appeased to the landlords 210 00:22:30.900 --> 00:22:40.900 by recommending a waiver of the requirement that a certain proportion of each land and estate be settled within three years of the grant. 211 00:22:40.900 --> 00:22:51.900 Hunter's only long-run achievement was to eliminate the one social movement dedicated to the removal of the feudal land monopoly.