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NOTE 46. Conflict in New York

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Volume 3, Chapter 46, Conflict in New York

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Boston was not the only place where armed conflict exploded between the citizens and

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British troops. We remember that the New York Assembly had been forced by British threats

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to comply with the British Mutiny Act and therefore voted to supply British troops in

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in New York in June 1767. At the end of 1768, the Assembly, under pressure from the Sons

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of Liberty and coming under control of the radical liberals, resumed its resistance and

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bravely refused to vote for the supplies during 1769. Finally, the Assembly yielded in mid-December

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by a thin majority. The agitation of the people, aggravated by the economic depression of the

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day, was led by the Sons of Liberty. Spearheading the attack was the merchant Alexander McDougall,

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one of the radical leaders of the Sons of Liberty of New York. McDougall, in the pamphlet

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to the Betrayed Inhabitants of New York attacked the assembly's capitulation and urged imitation

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of the deeds of the brave Bostonians. At a popular meeting of 1,400 people, led by John

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Lamb of the Sons of Liberty, a committee of sons was appointed to pressure the assembly.

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The assembly lashed back at the McDougal broadside as a false, seditious and infamous libel and

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and called for the author's arrest.

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Lamb and Benjamin Prince, a friend of McDougall's, were accused of authoring libel, but the assembly

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could find no evidence against them.

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In mid-January 1770, resentment against the British soldiery came to a head.

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Since 1766, the British troops in New York had repeatedly cut down the Liberty Pole,

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which had been built by the Sons of Liberty to commemorate repeal of the Stamp Act. One

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of the grievances against the British soldiers was that they offered themselves as cheap

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civilian labor, thus undercutting the regular laborers. This was a major reason for the

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clashes between ropewalk laborers and soldiers, who sometimes worked as civilians there at

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Low Rates in the days before the Boston Massacre. In New York, the Sons of Liberty on January

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16 issued an attack on those who employed British soldiers and called a meeting at the

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Liberty Pole. The soldiers promptly cut down the pole and contemptuously deposited the

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pieces at the doors of the Sons of Liberty. The enraged sons held a mass meeting of 3,000

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In the late 19th century, a group of 3,000 people who protested the destruction of the Liberty Pole and the employment of British troops in laboring work.

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In retaliation, the British troops issued a hand bill denouncing the Sons of Liberty as dangerous enemies of the country.

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As some soldiers tried to post the leaflet on January 19, they were seized by Isaac Sears and a group of Liberty boys and taken to the mayor's office.

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An attempt by the British to effect a rescue led to a clash between the troops wielding

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bayonets and the crowd armed only with chains and sticks. Several citizens were wounded

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at this, the Battle of Golden Hill. A clash with occupying troops thus antedated

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Bostons by nearly two months, but the consequences were considerably different. New York was

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was ruled not by popular leadership of radical liberals, but by factions of a conservative,

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land-based oligarchy. In New York, the Sons of Liberty were not the vanguard of a dominant

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movement, but a radical group trying to work its way into position to crack open an oligarchic

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power structure. The armed clash, instead of cementing libertarian control here, intensified

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conservative backlash and made the conservatives determined to crush the Sons of Liberty.

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Broad sides appeared, supporting the granting of money to the British troops and ridiculing

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the Liberty Boys, MacDougall being attacked as an Irish upstart, his authorship of the

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seditious pamphlet criticizing the Assembly having been betrayed by an informer. Alexander

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Mr. McDougall was arrested by the assembly during February and turned over to the common

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law courts to be indicted for seditious libel. Consciously emulating the courage and career

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of John Wilkes, McDougall remained in jail rather than post bail and was visited by adoring

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crowds and hailed as the Wilkes of America. The radicals even used the talismanic Wilkite

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Number 45. To the New York Conservatives, MacDougall was indeed a Wilkes who sought

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to trample down all legal authority and shake the government to the foundation. He was defended

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by John Moran Scott as well as by the Liberty Boys. But with the prosecution's major witness,

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the informer, dying, the government decided not to press the case further. MacDougall

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MacDougall was released from prison to great popular rejoicing. His freedom was short-lived.

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At the end of the year, MacDougall, on the same charge, was hauled before the vindictive

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assembly, acting by its own authority. First, the assembly tried to force MacDougall to

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testify against himself. When he refused, it threatened him with torture to force him

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When MacDougall still refused, the assembly sentenced him to indefinite imprisonment for

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for High Contempt and ordered the sheriff, as in the Smith-Moore case in Pennsylvania

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in the 1750s, to disregard any writ of habeas corpus. Only five members of the assembly

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voted against this brutal suppression of freedom of criticism by a government body that acted

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as its own complainant, judge and jury. McDougall was finally released at the end of the assembly

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session in April 1771, with the government dropping all charges against him.