ROTTERDAM-MANHATTAN CONNECTIONS: THE INFLUENCE OF

ROTTERDAM-MANHATTAN CONNECTIONS:
THE INFLUENCE OF ROTTERDAM THINKERS UPON
NEW YORK'S 1689 LEISLERIANS MOVEMENT
DOOR DAVID WILLIAM VOORHEES
In 1991 Michiel Wielema published H/<WÖ/ÉTZtf<z«^ M M , a chronicle
of five hundred years of philosophical thought in Rotterdam. He
recognized the importance of Rotterdam as a center of early
Enlightenment, but did not fully expand upon the influence of the
city's intellectual life abroad.' A 1689 uprising in New York, popularly known as Leisler's Rebellion, reveals, however, that in the 1680s
Rotterdam thinkers played a role in the development of political ideology in the former Dutch West India Company colony. This paper
examines the influence of a coterie of Rotterdam theorists that included Jacobus Borstius, Pierre Jurieu and Frans Kuyper upon New York's
Leislerian movement.
A December 1689 dispute over the validity of a customs act highlights the ideological differences between the factions rending New
York in the wake of England's 1688 Glorious Revolution. On December 19 a 'plakkaat' appeared in New York City condemning rebel
leader Jacob Leisler's resurrection several days earlier of a 1683 New
York assembly act for raising government revenues. Citing the Magna
Carta and statutes of English kings Edward I, Richard III and Charles
I, the authors declared 'that no man thenceforth be Compeld to Make
or yield any gift Loan benevolence tax or such Like Charge without
Common Consent by act of parliament'.^ The following day Leisler
responded with a declaration against the 'false construction on the
wholesome Lawes of England not regarding An Act of the ffreemen
represented in Assembly', and concluded that the English constitution
guarenteed the 'Supreame Legislative Authority under his Maties & ca
shall for ever be & reside in a Governor, Councill & the People met in
Generall Assembly'.3
At issue was not whether an English sovereign should reign over the
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province; both sides agreed that one should. Rather, at issue was the
meaning of English sovereignty. Did it mean, as Leisler's opponents
argued, a centralized state with the legislative authority in the hands of
a national parliament at the discretion of the crown? Or did it mean,
as Leisler believed, a federation of kingdoms, provinces, and towns
with semi-autonomous assemblies united by the crown?^ It was an
ancient dispute, born in the debates over the constitution of the
Roman empire, intensified by the doctrinal turmoil of the Reformation, and brought to the New World by the European colonists.5
But in the late 1680s the discussion over the direction the English state
should take was being most intently debated not on the banks of the
Thames but in Rotterdam's salons on the Maas.6
That Rotterdam should influence political thought in New York is
not surprising considering the long-standing relations between the
two cities. In 1611, after first receipt of news of Henry Hudson's
explorations, Rotterdam delegates requested for their constituents a
copy from the States General of a petition presented by 'divers Merchants and Inhabitants' regarding 'certain newly discovered Navigation', and, in 1614, the city was appointed along with Dordrecht
[Dordt], Delft, Amsterdam, Hoorn, and Enkhuizen to explore the formation of a general company 'to carry on Trade on some Coasts of
Africa and America'7 With the creation of the West India Company
[WIC] in 1621, Rotterdam agreed with the cities of Dordt and Delft
to equally divide the directors and business allotted to the Maas
Chamber. This agreement resulted in the erection of three subchambers, each with 'its separate government, with little direct communication with the others', as well as 'its own Bookkeepers, Cashiers, storekeepers, houses, yards, stores and whatever else appertains thereunThe Maas Chamber's combined initial capital investment of
ƒ 1.039.202 in the WIC was weak compared with Amsterdam's investment of ƒ 2.846.582, but Rotterdam's maintenance of its own subchamber proved beneficial.^ Beginning in the 1640s, West Indian
sugar began to arrive in the city, and in the 1650s the emergence of the
Chesapeake-New Amsterdam connection in the tobacco trade marked
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the beginning of a consistent growth period for Rotterdam that extended into the l680s.i° While the WIC's Amsterdam, Enkhuizen,
Dordt, and Delft chambers operated at a loss, Rotterdam was 'not
behind'." By the 1660s New Amsterdam merchants were enjoying
increasing liaisons with Rotterdam merchants, from whom they acquired cloth, hardware, and long-term credit.^
The 1664 transfer of New Netherland to England strengthened
Rotterdam's commercial position. English mercantilism, which prohibited trade between England's colonies and other countries, now
necessitated a detour via English ports. Rotterdam's proximity to
England's channel ports resulted in the city becoming a major import
center for the Chesapeake tobacco carried by New York shippers destined for the European market. Seeking cargo for the return voyage,
New York shippers acquired in Rotterdam linen, canvas, and earthen
wares. ^ Rotterdam's increasing role in the New York trade is seen with
the Dutch reconquest in 1673. On March 21, 1674, the Maas
Admiralty Board at Rotterdam sent the States General a letter from the
'schout, burgomasters, and schepens of the city of New Orange, on the
Island of Manathans', containing 'a Summary account of the state and
condition of things in those parts and requesting immediate succor'.
Despite tensions between the New West India Company's Maas
Chamber and the Maas Admiralty Board over passports and duties on
ships and goods coming from New Netherland after the return of the
province to the English in 1674, New York-Rotterdam trade continued to blossom. 14
A number of New York merchants of Huguenot and Scottish origin
were particularly active in the Rotterdam trade in the 1670s and
1680s. Jacques Cousseau, a Huguenot from Marnes with established
ties in French commerce, is an example. In partnership with Cornelis
Steenwyck he exported to the French and Dutch West Indies and sent
regular cargoes to Rotterdam.''' Another example is Benjamin Faneuil,
whose cousin Jean Faneuil operated an extensive shipping business out
of Rotterdam. The Faneuil family, with relations in La Rochelle,
London, the West Indies, and New England, formed an important
trade network with members of a shared Reformed faith. Andre
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Thauvet, who married Suzanne Faneuil, became instrumental with
Jacob Leisler in founding a Huguenot refugee colony at New Rochelle,
New York, in the late 1680s.'^ Robert Livingston is perhaps the best
known of Scots New Yorkers connected to Rotterdam. His father, a
Scots Presbyterian minister, had fled to Rotterdam, where Robert
spent his childhood. He later emigrated to Albany, there to emerge as
one of New York's wealthiest merchants and landholders, while maintaining close contact with his brothers-in-law, Andrew Russell and
James Miller, merchants in Rotterdam. ^
The conjunction of Huguenot, Scots, and Dutch merchants is
important for understanding Rotterdam's intellectual influence in
New York. Seventeenth-century New York politics mirrored the split
in the Dutch body politic between supporters of the fiscal office of
'raadpensionaris', loosely identified as the 'Staatspartij', and supporters
of the Prince of Orange.^ In these protracted disputes, politics closely
aligned with theology. In the middle of the century, the followers of
Utrecht University professor Gisbertus Voetius (1589-1676), a strict
Calvinist, had stressed moral precisionism and the need for a personal
conversion to Christ. Inspired by Voetius, a movement for spiritual
regeneration, inner piety, and a more godly lifestyle known as the
'Nadere Reformatie', or Further Reformation, spread among rigid
Protestants in Europe and to America. ^ The followers of Leiden
University professor Johannes Cocceius (1603-1669), on the other
hand, espoused a more liberal covenant theology that seemed to
endorse the new intellectual forces in science and philosophy. In this
religious dispute, Orangists allied with Voetians while the 'Staatspartij', led in Rotterdam by Adriaen Paets, allied with Cocceians. By
the last third of the century the Voetian-Cocceian controversy colored
every aspect of Rotterdam's political life, and had direct bearing on
events in New York.-^
Party factionalism in the Republic came to a violent head when a
devastating French invasion in 1672 resulted in a backlash against the
'Staatspartij's policies of appeasing Louis XIV, Cocceian liberalism,
and the increasingly French cultural affectations of the regents. Mobs
forced numerous towns to replace their magistrates with Orangists and
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murdered the chief architects of'Staatspartij' policy, Johan and Cornelis de Witt, while the provinces of Holland and Zeeland restored the
stadholdership, which had been revoked in 1650, to William III,
prince of Orange.^i In 1674 Voetians gained control of the Rotterdam
city council, making that city and its press a center for Orangist agitation and propaganda.^
The conflict between Rotterdam's tolerant regent class and its
orthodox Voetian classis and democratic-leaning Orangist city government created a climate for religious and political debate. Moreover,
large Scots Presbyterian and Huguenot mercantile communities made
the city a magnet for English, Huguenot, and other dissenters in exile
from Roman Catholic regimes. The resulting intellectual ferment
generated an explosion in republican political theory.^ Gathering in
salons, such as English merchant Benjamin Furly's 'Lantern', were
such English Whigs as John Locke, Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of
Shaftesbury, Gilbert Burnet, and Algernon Sydney, all of whom resided for a time in Rotterdam, Amsterdam professor and journalist Jean
Leclerc and Amsterdam Remonstrant theologian Philippus van
Limborch, Huguenot theologians Pierre Bayle and Pierre Jurieau, and
Dutch Collegiants Frans Kuypers and Barent Joosten Stol.** In 1677
the Quaker William Penn visited Rotterdam and held meetings in
Furly's second home on the Wijnstraat. He returned to Rotterdam in
1686 to obtain more settlers for his plantation in America.^5
Also circulating within this community were a number of New
Yorkers who would play a prominent role in the 1689 uprising.
Foremost was Jacob Milborne, who became Jacob Leisler's chief aide
and, in 1691, his son-in-law. Milborne was a member of a radical
English dissenting family. His father, William Milborne, had been one
of the 'Fanatiks of East Sheen', and his brother, William Jr., was the
notorious 'Fifth Monarchist' Bermuda councilor. Jacob Milborne
spent the years 1686-1689 overseeing business interests from
Rotterdam. There he may have served as an agitator for the Prince of
Orange, for in 1688 Benjamin Furly made a number of depositions,
'at the request of Jacob Milborne', complaining against King James Us
trade policies.^ In February 1689 Milborne's father-in-law, Samuel
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Edsall, and brother-in-law, James Evetts, joined Milborne in Rotterdam. Edsall returned to New York to lead rebellion there three months
later. Milborne would return to New York City to become a leading
figure in the rebellion the following August.-^
Other New Yorkers in 1680s Rotterdam later prominent in the New
York uprising include Benjamin Blagge, Jacob Mauritz, and Joost Stol.
Mauritz, a ships captain and half-brother of New Amsterdam mayor
Cornelis Steenwyck, acted as Rotterdam factor for the Quaker
William Penn.28 Joost Stol, a wine merchant, is believed to be the son
of Barent Joosten Stol, co-author with Frans Kuyper of the controversial D^« P^/7öJö/>/>mW*7z ZtoéT (1676). He first appears in New York
City in 1688. The following year he served as the rebel emissary to
new English King William Ill's court at Whitehall.-'* According to
Plymouth port books, Jacob Leisler was also in direct trade with
Rotterdam in the late 1680s.-™
New York merchants brought back to America from Rotterdam not
only trade goods but the ideas and books circulating in the city. New
Yorkers' reading matter in the 1680s particularly reflected the broad
appeal of the Rotterdam 'Nadere Reformatie'. While shop and estate
inventories reveal ecclectic individual literary tastes, devotional works
were the most popular.^' Frequently cited authors in estate inventories
are Voetian dominee Franciscus Ridderus (1620-1683), pastor of the
church in Rotterdam from 1656 to 1683, and his successor Willem a
Brakel (1653-1711). Brakel published in 1670 his father's, Theodorus
(1608-1669), 'literary classic of the pietist movement', De /r/7/>/>?tf */«•
gmfr'/yr^Tz /«wï [77^ jft'/tt #ƒ #>/>/>«/?/ ///£]. D^ 7ra/>/^« remained a
standard in American Dutch Reformed households a centurv later.-^
The most widely read authors in New York in the 1680s were, however, Rotterdam dominee Jacobus Borstius (1612-1680) and the controversial dominee Jacobus Koelman (1632-1695).
Borstius, a prolific Voetian author and dominee in Rotterdam from
1654 until his death in 1680, was widely popular in New York. Fortysix volumes of his Ai?r/ ^£r///> <^r f/?ra&7//r£f /^?r [S«<r/'«rt /<s/évw,
1665], an adaptation of the Heidelberg Catechism aimed at parents,
were snatched up at auction in Kingston in 1665 and made mandato201
ry reading by the Long Island consistory in 1679. Other works by
Borstius, including GffW/f^ ^ « f « 4 ö « ^ (1651, 1662), ZW^TZ^/W^W
ö^r ^ /ƒ. ylwWm^^/ (1665), and Z//i7v?n> dVr £mv^?z &w« Sr/wz/rfW/(1668), a history of the Scots Presbyterian church, appear in numerous
New York estate inventories.33 Moreover, his son, Rotterdam printer
and bookseller Joannes Borstius, played an important role in disseminating Orangist-Voetian propaganda to New York.34
Voetius' 'beloved pupil' Jacobus Koelman is well known to students
of religion in colonial America. This controversial fundamentalist,
who served as dominee at Sluis from 1662 to 1674, played a prominent role in the Rotterdam 'Nadere Reformatie'. In 1682 the Delaware
River Reformed congregation unsuccessfully attempted to obtain his
services as their minister. Koelman subsequently influenced a generation of New World dominees with his brand of pietism. Koelman, like
Borstius, was attracted to English Puritans and Scots Presbyterians,
and translated a number of their writings for the Dutch public. Most
New York inventories include Koelman's Dutch translation of William
Gutherie's C/;rataz« /«ftm* (1669).35
The connection between Rotterdam's resident alien Presbyterian
community and Dutch Voetians is important. Although none of
Voetius's works was translated into English - and, indeed, had little
influence in England - his Latin texts were widely used by English
Calvinists in America. Among the guidebooks for students at Harvard,
the training ground for New York's English ministry, for example, were
Voetius's ÜJcmvVw ^ Z?/£//ö//;m7 S/W/W T/^Wög"/^ (1644) and £xérfz'taz P/>tóto (1664).36 The Rotterdam authors thus introduced
Voetius' brand of pietism to English New Yorkers, and English translations of their works appear in New York inventories.3? Perhaps
because of the influence and appeal of the Rotterdam dominees, a
presbyterian movement grew among New York's English congregations. As early as 1674 the English congregation at Jamaica, Long
Island, declared, 'we are not to maintaine any other way of church
government than that is according to the synod of Dordt'.38 Throughout the following decades other English congregations on Long Island
and in Westchester County followed Jamaica and rejected both the
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Anglican Z?0#£ #ƒ Cow wo» Prayer and Congregationalism for a Reformed Church structure and Voetian pietism.-™
Tensions between pietists and traditionalists laid a foundation for
political conflict in New York as they did in Rotterdam and other
Dutch cities. The 1676 controversy over dominee Nicholas van
Rensselaer, the most serious dispute to rend New York between the
English takeover in 1664 and the rebellion in 1689, is illustrative.
James, duke of York, had appointed Van Rensselaer, ordained an
Anglican, to the Albany Reformed pulpit. The Roman Catholic duke's
act outraged the Reformed Dutch, who held to the rule from the Synod
of Dordt that a minister must be ordained in the Reformed church and
called by the congregation.^" The controversy between Voetians and
those who acquiesced in the duke's appointment came to a head in July
1676 when wealthy New York City Reformed Church deacon Jacob
Leisler circulated a four-point glosse criticizing a sermon by Van
Rensselaer on original sin. In a critique that followed supralapsarian
verses infralapsarian arguments within the Calvinist world, Leisler charged the dominee with heresy for suggesting that only after Adam's fall
did God decree the election or nonelection of individuals to salvation.^'
Leisler was joined in his complaint against Van Rensselaer by Jacob
Milborne, who had arrived in New York two months earlier as factor
for a group of London merchants trying to break Gov. Andros's control of the New York market.^- Historians have focused on the Van
Rensselaer dispute both because of its severity and because of the conjunction of Leisler and Milborne, who later played leading roles in the
1689 uprising. Yet similar disputes rent congregations and communities throughout the 1680s. In 1683, for example, the Staten Island
Reformed congregation refused to support Morgan Jones, the minister
appointed by Roman Catholic Lt. Gov. Anthony Brockholst.^ Dutch
Reformed dominee Henricus Selijns complained in 1685, 'troubles are
arising in other of the neighboring churches. Certain men came over
last year with certificates from Sluys in Flanders, and from Middleburg
and Groode, in Zeeland, [who] speak against the church, public prayer
and the liturgy of the church'. He then prophesied, 'we look forward
to very great troubles therefrom'.^
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Trouble did indeed come. The men with certificates, such as
Guiliam Bertholf and Johannes van Eekelen, who oversaw congregations lacking an ordained minister, later 'violently urged on' rebellion."^ Revolt, however, first broke out on Long Island's East End,
when at the beginning of May 1689 the towns of Suffolk County, following Boston's example in the wake of England's Glorious Revolution, overthrew King James II's government in order to secure 'our
English nations liberties and propertyes from Popery and Slavery'.^
Rebellion rapidly spread to Queens and Westchester counties, where
'all magistrates and military officers ware put out by the people and
others chosen by them'.^ In pattern, these uprisings bear similarities
to the 1672 Orangist uprisings in the Netherlands, when mobs there
forced numerous towns to replace their magistrates with VoetianOrangists.48
As Orangist mobs in the Republic had believed, the rebels were
according to their perspective acting within proper constitutional and
legal frameworks. In the late 1680s Rotterdam's press churned out an
enormous quantity of political tracts aimed at the Dutch and English
publics that stressed the threat of Roman Catholic 'tyranny' to the
'Liberties and Estates of Free Protestant Peoples'.49 And the city's virulent anti-Papist Voetian literature circulated in New York despite
attempts by English Catholic King James Us governors to suppress
it.50 The influence of Rotterdam propagandists is clearly evident in
Leislerian justifications for revolt. Leisler, for example, claimed the
New York government had been seized 'by the encouragement of the
prince of Orange (now our gracious King) his 3 declarations'.5'
Leisler's reference is to William's 'Declarations' of October 10 and 24,
and November 28, 1688. The 'First Declaration', printed in Rotterdam in immense quantities in Dutch and English, 60.000 copies in
English alone, and probably the 'Second', reached New York in mid
March 1689.^ The 'Third Declaration' was in New York by May 31,
when Nicholas Bayard accused Leisler of plagiarizing it.53
In the 'First Declaration', confirmed by the 'Second', William's propagandists justified his invasion of England on the grounds 'for
Preserving of the Protestant Religion, and for Restoring the Law and
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Liberties of England'. King James II, the declaration asserts, did 'offer
up the Laws, Rights and Liberties of a whole Nation' in order to establish the Papist religion and 'thereby to enslave a Nation'.54 The
'Third Declaration' claimed that a build-up of armed Papists in
London and Westminster was occurring in order 'to make some desperate Attempt upon the said Cities ... by Fire or a sudden Massacre'.
It called on magistrates to disarm Catholics and dispossess them of
office. Catholics were given a clear warning: if they were found 'with
Arms' or holding any civil or military office 'contrary to the known
Laws of the Land', they and all who aided them would be treated as
criminals and punished accordingly. 55
In New York, as in England, the 'Third Declaration' had an electrifying impact.56 Ever since the French invasion of the Republic in
1672, anti-Catholic hysteria had been building in the province, where
many a settler's migration had been inspired by a fear of Roman
Catholic violence.^ Family letters from Europe buttressed Orangist
propaganda. 'People here are afraid of war with the French and when
this happens woe to our country', Hubert Coertsz. wrote his cousin on
Long Island from the Netherlands in 1684.58 King James Us appointment of Roman Catholics to the province's highest offices intensified
apprehensions. 'Such a Cloud of Popery hangs over our heads', Robert
Livingston wrote to his brother-in-law, Andrew Russell, in Rotterdam,
'since none but Papists come to the helm'.59 French Catholic King
Louis XIV's revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 and his subsequent persecutions confirmed fears. 'Hearing what greater success
the Dragonnades in France had had', a New York letter recalls, 'we
could only know what was in store for us'.^
Despite the encouragement to rebel supplied by the Prince of
Orange's three declarations, New Yorkers were reluctant to act on
them in 1689. This is because for those with a Dutch perspective the
'defense of liberty was essentially based on a constitutional framework
of fundamental laws and a balanced system of institutions'.^ The
memory of these constitutional traditions restrained rebellion in New
York and shaped its subsequent course. Political change had to follow
legal principles. Indeed, Leisler, as a member of Lt. Gov. Francis
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Nicholson's expanded council, signed a declaration to defend the
government at the uprising's outbreak against 'meutanous and rebellious persons neare unto us'.62 The militia captains, as the people's
representatives, acted only after official confirmation of William's
coronation had been received and only after the constituted magistrates continued to refuse to affirm it.^3 Following the principle that they
could not rule without the 'People's Resolutions', the militia captains
in June 1689 called for the representative convention 'to act in the
affairs'."
When 'ruling elites were discredited', historians note of political crisis in the Netherlands, the 'loss of legitimacy caused ... a demand for
changes of personnel in high offices, and a call for the restoration of
the rights of local burgher communities'.^ As a case in point, Dutch
constitutional theory drew on sixteenth-century Huguenot thought to
justify the Republic's revolt against Spain in 1572.^ In the 1680s,
English, French, and Dutch thinkers working in Rotterdam, such as
John Locke and Pierre Jurieu, reproduced the arguments of Theodore
Beza, Francis Hotman, and Simon Goulart to prove that the
'Sovereign power is in the hands of the people and of assemblies composed of its deputies'/'? In Df« /^//CW/^ÉTÉW^W 5OÉT, Frans Kuyper
and Barent Joosten Stol provided a democratic basis by suggesting that
even the ordinary person was capable of understanding religious
questions through natural reason.^ Following such arguments, Jacob
Milborne, who was undoubtedly familiar with Z)^« /^/AWÖ^/JÉT^W^W
ZWr, stated, 'it was in [New Yorkers'] power to Free Themselfs from
that Yoke of arbitrary Power and Government ... of that Illegal king
James, who was a Papist ... and that now the Power was in the People
to choose new Civil and Military Officers as they Pleased ... and therefore they must have a free Election'. 69 Such thinking, according to
then current English constitutional theory and its adherence to divine
right, as one New York critic wrote, meant 'All Authority [was] turned
upside downe'.™
The provincial convention's election of senior militia captain Jacob
Leisler as commander-in-chief falls within the Dutch constitutional
tradition. As Donna Merwick has observed, it was the pattern of the
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people to look for a stadholder to balance the power of the magistrates.^' Wealth, social prominence, and military expertise made Leisler a
logical choice, as did his association since 1659 with the interests of
Cornelis Melyn, who in the 1640s had called for a representative
government in New Netherland, and with his lay leadership in
ensuring adherence to doctrinal purity within the New York
churches.^ But it is Leisler's personal link to Huguenot theorists that
makes his elevation, and his political program, most comprehensible.
His father, Frankfurt-am-Main French Reformed minister Jacob
Victorian Leisler (1606-1653), a Geneva Academy graduate, was a disciple of Theodore Beza, John Calvin's successor as Geneva president,
and was a protege of Jean Diodati, Geneva's orthodox representative to
the Synod of Dordt.^ Even more important is the family connection
to Simon Goulart (1543-1628), Beza's successor at Geneva and a
popular figure among Rotterdam Voetians. Leisler was related to
Goulart through his maternal grandmother, and it was Goulart's sonin-law, Timothee Poterat, who Leisler's father succeeded as minister of
the Frankfurt French congregation.^
Goulart's popular M^wö/'r^ */? / S t a r ^ /r<2#re ƒ<?#* C/wr/ft- /X
(1576) contained a number of revolutionary Calvinist political tracts
including Beza's 77?** /?/£/* ö/A/dgwtatf« (1574), 77;<? /W/Y/«dw (1574)
and /V/Y/W Z)/Vf0wrtfy (1574), and Hotman's /7a«fogtf///tf (1576).
Published in French, German, and Dutch editions, and frequently
reprinted, this work was highly influential in popularizing the
Calvinist compact theory of government and justification for resistance in Rotterdam, and appears in the library of John Locke as well
as those of New Yorkers/^ Leisler undoubtedly also possessed a copy
of this work by his relative, for his declarations of June 1689 and thereafter follow in their construction the arguments the Memoirs present.^
Drawing on Calvinist thought as filtered through Rotterdam's
Orangist propagandists, Leisler encouraged in New York a 'Further
Reformation' - a term that he and his followers did indeed use - for
the 'reestablishment and preservation of the true protestant Religion,
liberty and property'7' In doing so he and his party followed
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European Orangist arguments by intertwining true doctrine with the
preservation of estates. Rotterdam theorists held that 'nations give the
supreme authority to their rulers only for the preservation of the
property, lives, liberty, and religion'.^ By losing 'their Laws and
Religion', a Leislerian tract states, a people also lost 'their Properties
and their Souls'.^ Leisler thus sought a reformation to regenerate the
Christian church from false creeds by securing civil control for 'the
preservation of our Religion'.^
Just as Leisler and his followers believed that they were regenerating
the Christian church to its original evangelical fervor, their
'Reformation' sought to restore the traditional balances of government. In the Dutch Republic, fundamental law, natural rights, representative institutions, and popular sovereignty were important aspects
of the Dutch constitution, enshrined in the É//J/0/7 0/ £/mr/tf (1579)
and Act of Abjuration (1581).^' The Leislerians thus sought to restore
the traditional corporate rights of the people and to abolish monopolies so that 'one place should have no more privileges than the
other'. **2
The New York debate in 1689 over the legality of the 1683 customs
act occurred within a larger English constitutional crisis. At its root
was the issue of in whose hands — the sovereign's or the people's — final
authority rested. Rotterdam theorists placed ultimate authority in the
people, balanced by laws and institutions. It was within this framework that the Leislerians defined their regime. They attempted to
create a rational program for the political reality of an English New
York on the legal principles they understood, as Leisler noted, out of
'the [Dutch] Lawes of this our Province & the Lawes & Customes of
our Kingdome of England'.83 Seeking a constitutional basis for their
actions, the Leislerians determined that the 1683 New York Charter of
Liberties validated the customs act, an act 'created by the [people]
represented in assembly'.^
Rotterdam's intellectual ferment in the 1680s was the result of two
countervailing trends: the pietist movement of the 'Nadere Reformatie' and the rationalist movement of the early Enlightenment. New
208
York's Leislerians, with their direct trade connections to Rotterdam,
drew upon both movements for justification of their revolt against
English Catholic King James II's government. In the end, the pietism
of Rotterdam's Reformed clergy was more suited to the conditions of
the New World's frontier society. The legacy of the Rotterdam 'Nadere
Reformatie' would remain a major force in New York intellectual life
for more than another century.
NOTES
1. Mich iel Wielema,
(Baarn 1991).
2. Declaration of the English Freeman Regarding the 1683 Act of Customs,
Dec. 19, 1689, CO 5/1081, p. 203, Public Records Office, Kew Gardens,
England [hereafter cited as PRO]. Leisler and his council had ordered the
customs and accizes to be collected according to the 1683 Act on Dec. 14,
1689, Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan (ed.), Dofttwratary ///tfory o/V/;^ 5tate #ƒ
7 W K>r£ (4 vols.; Albany 1848-1853) 2:49 [hereafter cited as DHNY]. The
authors of the declaration were Jacob de Kay, Sr., probably with Nicholas
Bayard and William Nicolls.
3. DHNY 2:50-51.
4. For the anti-Leislerian interpretation of this act see 'A Modest and
Impartial Narrative' (1690), in: Charles M. Andrews (ed.), Narratives of the
Insurrections (New York 1915) 340-344. Also see David S. Lovejoy, 77^
G/or/OHJ TfezWw/Vöw /'« /iwerzV» (New York 1972; rept. Middleton (Conn.)
1987) 276; Robert C. Ritchie, 72* £>«£« / W / / H * . /I S/Wy <ƒ 7\fcw For£
/fefttts *«</ Sor/^, 7&>4-7697 (Chapel Hill (NC) 1977) 210-211; and
Charles Howard McCormick, Leisler's Rebellion (New York 1989) 275.
5. Quentin Skinner, 7~/v Fö««d^fww #ƒ Afod'mz /W/V/'ftf/ 77w#g/tf (2 vols.;
Cambridge 1978).
6. Wielema, TV/WÖ/PW, 76-78; Herbert D. Foster, 'International Calvinism
through Locke and the Revolution of 1688', y^wmVtf» //«/or/Va/ /?m>#/ 32
(1927) 475-499.
7. Edmund B. O'Callaghan (ed.), DofK/wfwtf Tfe^zr/w f<? ^ Co/owzW///Vrory
o/rAf 5/are- o/TW^ ]^r^ (15 vols.; Albany 1853-1885) 1:4, 6 [hereafter cited as
DRCNY].
8. Van Cleaf Bach man, /VmW ör T^zwtaftowj: //?*" iSrowow/V Po//«« o/ //><•
D«/r/? W^5f / W M Cöw/>^«y /« Afcw TV^ér/^W 76"23-7635? (Baltimore (Md)
1969)40.
9. J.G. van Dillen, 'De West-Indische Compagnie, Het Calvinisme en De
Politiek', 7ï/V&f^//r wwr C«c^/W(f«« 74 (1961) 151.
209
10. Jan Kupp, 'Dutch Notarial Acts Relating to the Tobacco Trade of
Virginia, 1608-1653', in: U?7//ww WAfary Q«*r/?r/> 3d ser., 30 (1973) 653655; Dennis J. Maika, 'Jacob Leisler's Chesapeake Trade', Df //^/w A/^w 67
(1994) 9-14.
1 1. Bachman, /V/YrzW or ^«tóft'om, 4 l .
12. Cathy Matson, M<prf/w«zj d" £ra/>zm- 77Wz'»g /'« G?/o«w/ A^zf }6r£
(Baltimore (Md) 1998) 26-27.
13. Plymouth/Penrys Port Book, E 190/1051/10 and E 190/1052/3, n.p.,
Public Record Office, Kew Gardens.
14. DRCNY 1:540.
15. Matson, A/iprf/wwft rfW £w/>/>f, 27.
16. J.E Bosher, 'Huguenot Merchants and the Protestant International in
the Seventeenth Century', W7///^w #W Afary Qw^r^r/)/ 3rd ser., 52 (1995)
90-91.
17. Lawrence H. Leder, /fo&r/" Zz'w'»gs/0« 7654-7725 W z/^ /WzVzW o/"
C Ö / Ö « W / / V ^ Far* (Chapel Hill (NC) 1961) 7-9.
18. John M. Murrin, 'The Menacing Shadow of Louis XIV and the Rage of
Jacob Leisler: The Constitutional Ordeal of Seventeenth-Century New York',
in: Stephen L. Schechter and Richard B. Bernstein (ed.), Afcz^ K?r£ #«*/ z/?f
£/wzo«: Co«?r/'^«//o«j ZÖ ^ /Jwmcvzw Comz/zwZ/öWtf/ £x/>fr/Vwre (Albany 1990)
31-36.
19. James Tanis, 'Reformed Pietism in Colonial America', in: F. Ernest
Stoeffler (ed.), Cowrt'we'wtó/ A>tora ^W £^r/)/ /4ram'w« CAmf/^w/V)/ (Grand
Rapids (Mich) 1976) 34-73; Martin H. Prozesky, 'The Emergence of Dutch
Pietism', in /ö«r«^/ o/£rc/«/W/W 7/üröry 28 (1977) 29-37.
20. Charles Sherwood McCoy, 'The Covenant Theology of Johannes
Cocceius' (Ph.D. diss., Yale University 1956) 28-39; Jonathan Israel, 7fo
£>«frA %»«^//f: /b 7?w, Grartra, ^W/w// 7^77-7506' (Oxford 1995) 661669, 789-790, 792.
21. Herbert H. Rowen, 77^ /V/Vzc^f o/'Owwgp; T^é" 5/a^/6o^/(Prj /« / ^ D«/r/?
/?^/>«^/zV r C ^ w ^ / % 1988) 131-36, 138; Israel, D«/r/? /?^«^/zc, 802-804.
22. J. Melles, /V/zw/rffrj ##« ^ A/^^5.- G'wrA/Wé'ww f^« dip 7?ö^é'r^w5é' />f««öw^r/w^» w ^ ^ « zw/^zV//«^ ö^r A^z- W f / i / ' ^ />f«5zo«^rz^/- 7505-775^5
(Rotterdam 1962) 141-43.
23. Wielema, /V/O^Ö/^W, 76-78.
24. Augustus Charles Bickley, 'Furly, Benjamin (1636-1714)', D/W/o«tfry #ƒ
7VrfZ70«rf/ 5z'fl^ra/>^y 7 (Oxford 1917) 770; Foster, 'International Calvinism',
482; Guy Howard Dodge, 77/f /WzVzVtf/ 77?<?öry Ö
York 1947); Wielema, / = / 7 Ö ^ « , 76-78.
25. William I. Hull, W M W /V«« ^ W ^
w (Swarthmore (Pa) 1935) 70-72, 102-104, 116-117.
26. David William Voorhees, '"Fanatiks" and "Fifth Monarchists": The
Milborne Family in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World', A^M^ K?r£
(1998) 67-75; 174-182; Depositions
210
of Benjamin Furley and others at the request of Jacob Milborne, May 28 and
29 and June 1, 1688, ONA 1397, fol. 365, June 1, 1688, ONA 1397, fol.
367, and July 27, 1688, ONA 1260, fol. 127; Peter R. Christoph, 72*
DflHgtfw / V m , /6&3-/68S (Syracuse (NY) 1996) 200-201, 236-238,
257-270, Gemeentearchief Rotterdam (GAR).
27. Deposition of Samuel Edsall, Henry Farr, and James Evetts on behalf of
Jacob Milborne, Feb. 15, 1689, ONA 1399, fol. 83, GAR.
28. Hull, Wï/Zw/w /VH», 313-314.
29. Thomas Grier Evans (ed.), /taror^ o/V//** Tfe/omz^ Dtt/r// C/jwrfA /'« Afcw
/Iwjfcrd/zw rfW Afcw K>r& Zfo/>to#w (2 vols.; New York 1901; rept. Upper Saddle
River (NJ) 1968) 1:190; DRCNY, 3:630-632, 637; C ö / t ó o m ^ ^ A^-K?r£
//wtor/Vv*/ SoaV/y (New York 1868) 1:297-298. Last Will and Testament of
Lysbeth de Munnik, Feb. 24, 1680, ms. 1474.12, GAR. For the elder Stol see
Wijnman, 'Barent Joosten Stol', in: P.C. Molhuysen, P. J. Blok, L. Knappert
(ed.), Afottw AWfr/rfwdta-// 5/ögra/wfA Wfron&w^o^ (10 vols.; Leiden 19111937) V, 981-983; and Andrew C. Fix, /Vo/>/^ry i/a/Zfazw/z. 7#* **W; ro//f/« f/v éwr/y f«/zg/7/*7/w*7^ (Princeton (NJ) 1991) 150-155, 174-176.
30. Plymouth/Penrys port book, E 190/1052/3, n.p., PRO.
31. Estimates of literacy in late seventeenth-century New York are at least
80 percent among freeholding men and 50 percent among women of this
class, see David E. Narrett, /«/jmtawre rfW /v//m'/y /.//? z'« CO/ÖHZV// 7V<?tt/ ?ör£
C/Vy (Ithaca (NY) 1992) 222-227. Approximately 20 percent of inventories in
Will Libers 1-7, 19B, New York State Archives, Albany, contain mention of
books. For samples of New Yorker's libraries see inventory of Gysbert van
Imbrock, Sept. 1, 1665, and Sale of Estate Sept. 9, 1665, in Peter R.
Christoph, Kenneth Scott, and Kenn Stryker-Rodda (ed.), Afew; }6r£ //wtan W M#/7H.ft77/>#: Dttftr/?, Avwgtfo/z /fcr^m, Dingman Versteeg, trans. (2 vols.;
Baltimore (Md) 1976) 2:568-569, 574; and inventories of William Cox,
1689; Anthony de Mille, 1689; John van Gee, 1689; Elizabeth van Es, 1692;
Jacques Cortelyou, 1694; John Coosart, 1700; Elizabeth Bancker, 1695;
Abraham Delanoy, 1702, Wills Libers 5-6, New York State Archives, Albany.
See also Henry C. Murphy (ed.), /ö«r«^/ o/rf Vfrjwg? to /V<?w K?r£ £y/<2j/>#r
D^w^fry d W PzW*r 5/«yréT. Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society V.I
(Ann Arbor 1966 [repr. from edition 1867]) 134, and James Tanis,
/
^
(The Hague 1967) 134.
32. Tanis, Dutch Calvinistic Pietism, 28 note 7; Firth Haring Fabend, yl
fy i» ^ A//^/<? CÖ/O«Z>J, / ^ Ö - Z ^ Ö Ö (New Brunswick (NJ) 1991)
102.
33. Zuidema, 'Borstius', in: A/z>z/w AWér/^wdic/? ^/ö^ra^^f/? \%ora^«^o^ IV,
229-30; H. Florijn, 'Borstius, Jacobus', Zfrograf/wr/; Zéx;Vö« wor ^p ^r^/Wé-ww
y^« /?rt A/l?d5?r^z«^ Pratötówmww' 3 (1988) 49-50. Inventory of Gysbert van
Imbrock, Kingston Papers 2: 578; David William Voorhees, trans, and ed.,
/v&tf£ttjA GWd>/kaWy 1: 7677-/72Ö (New York 1998) 83; Elizabeth Banckers
library contained Borstius's Gmte/y^f ^«f«r, and Abraham Delanoy had in
211
his shop a large number of "bookes of Bortius [Borstius]" in quarto and folio.
34. TVzVww yVft/fr^H^&fA Zfrogm/wf/; WWdW^o^ IV, 230.
35. J.A. Ruys, 'Koelman, Jacobus', A//>//w AW<pr£*w*&r/> Zfrognz/wr/f Wfcor*/?»£ o ^ V, 302-303; Tanis, 'Reformed Pietism', 43-44.
36. Tanis, 'Reformed Pietism', 34-35. Cotton Mather wrote of Harvard,
'Wherefore a colledge must now be thought upon: a colledge, the best that
that ever New-England thought upon! As the admirable Voetius could happily
boast of it', Thomas Robbins (ed.), Magnalia Christi Americana; or, 77^
///Vfory o/W<fw-.Ewg/(7«*/; ^row itt /ïrtf PZflwftwg, /« //>^ fërfr 7620,
o/O«r W /<#£ (2 vols.; New York 1852 rept. 1967) 1: Book 4.
37. Inventory of Richard Pretty, Wills Liber 5:118.
38. DHNY, 3: 193-194.
39. Samuel Eburn, for example, was forced by his Brookhaven congregation
to 'omitt the ceremonies in the Book of Common Prayer' and 'not use the
aforesaid ceremonies neither in his publiek worship or administration of the
Sacraments', [E.T. Corwin (ed.)], üVr/«w.rf/V»//&«>/*& #ƒ J/K* j/tf/** ö^Afcw ^or/fc
(6 vols.; Albany 1901-1905) 2:912. See W.W Munsell, ///Vtory <ƒ Q««w
Gw/i/ji 7Vfw K>'r£ (New York 1882) 230-231; Robert Bolton, ///Vtory <ƒ rA*>
CtfM«/y ofWfrff/wftTyröw /'/Ï f mr 5rt//*7w*'«f (2 vols.; New York 1848) 1:227230; Williston Walker, /l //«tory <?ƒ Cowgrf^a/'/ow^/ C/?«rr/;« /« /A^ £/w/V«/
5^r« (New York 1894) 164-179.
40. DHNY 3:872-875; Lawrence H. Leder, 'The Unorthodox Domine:
Nicholas Van Rensselaer', TVi?^ }^r£ //wrory 35 (1954) 166-176; Ernestine
G.E. vander Wall, 'Prophecy and profit: Nicolaes van Rensselaer, Charles II
and the conversion of the Jews', in: C. Augustijn e.a. (ed.), AVr^/ytorwr^
O/>rtf//fwtfrfwj^Wfwtfrfw/>rö/f<^r. ƒ ^ « rf'fw Zfog (Kampen 1987) 75-87.
41. Attestation of 12 Members, Van Rensselaer vs. Jacob Leisier and Jacob
Milborne, Aug. 17, 1676, GLC 3107, J.P. Morgan Library, New York City
[translation JLP # 2472]; Complaint of Nicholas van Rensselaer GLC 3107
[translation JLP # 2471]. In the civil aspects of Van Rensselaer's subsequent
suit for slander, both sides referred to Dutch rather than English law, citing
Hugo Grotius Z.^ïf^ Ö///O/^«^/, and Joost de Damhouder, Pra/yr^f **«*/? /wW£ottf£ /« fr/w/W/f ttftr&'H. See Complaint of Nicholas van Rensselaer, July 17,
1676, GLC 3107, Morgan Library [translation JLP #2471].
42. Voorhees, '"Fanatiks", 174-75.
43. NYCD 2:567. See also £«&«<wr/W /fow*& 2:912, 1021-1022; DHNY
3:192-193, 195-96.
44. Selyns to the Classis of Amsterdam, Sept. 20, 1685,
2:907.
45.Varick to the Classis of Amsterdam, Apr. 9, 1695,
2:1051; Firth Fabend, 'Guiliam Bertholf', DzW/o/tary o/ Afo
[ms. of forthcoming]; Willem Frederik (Eric) Nooter,
rarf/;.- rAwrr/; tfW jor/V/y /'« /w-rftWK/toHrfry / ^ / - ^ « J / ; (Long Island 1994)
63-64.
46. DHNY, 3:577.
212
47. Minutes of the Councell att New Yorke, May 16, 1689,
W-mS 1:260.
48. Rowen, /V/'/KW *ƒ Ora»#\ 131-136, 138.
49. W.P.C. Knuttel, Ctfta/cgzw *W7 */?ƒ># w/Zf/Y^v; f^rza»/é'//w^ ^nw^H^f /« <&
AÜ?w/«^///^ 5 / M o / / ; ^ (8 vols.; 's-Gravenhage 1889-1916); G.O. van de
Klashorst, W.H. Blom, and E.O.G. Haitsma Muiier, ^/^//ö^ra/»/^ o/D«rrA
5m7*r«7///> Ow/wry /V/tavz/ TTw/g/tf: /!« /JwwötaW /ww/7/»ry 75S7-777Ö
(Amsterdam 1986) 122-25. A selection of those tracts aimed at the English
public is in 5tafc' 7nz£tr; 7fe/;/£ rf 7v7rr/w CW/erf/tf// #ƒ 5fwra/ C/w/o* 7m7ta«
7feA7/7«g to f/;^ Gwr«w*7/f, /TÖW //K" y^r 7660 /o 76#9 (2 vols.; London 1692;
repr. Wilmington (Del) 1973). See, for example, Robert Ferguson's /I
#ƒ //v 77jmzft72/>zg D^wgifry (1687), Halifax's y4 Z^?fr to ^
/?«• /«raW #r r ^ //ö^«f (1688) and the anonymous /I Zrtftr
^y M//« / / ^ r /va^f/...rö A/r. /^w« 5rf^^r/ (1688). Leisler often literally
lifted passages from these works. For example, in 1690 he used the words of
Charles Blount's /!« /J/>/>frf//r0w f/>f G?««rry ^ //^ GVy (1679) to describe that
year's devastating French and Indian February raid on Schenectady, well
knowing the public was familiar with Blount's prophetic imagery of Catholic
atrocities. See State Tracts 1:401-402, and Leisler to Maryland, Mar. 4,
1689/90, DHNY 1:307, and 2:181-84.
50. CDNY 3:375, 548. For censorship see Fredrick Seaton Siebert, /rra/ow
o/7/?f Aw* /« ifwg^/W / ^76-7776": 77»f /?w /7w^/ Der//'«^ 0/^(7o/^r«w^/zf Cowrro/
(Urbana (111) 1965) 299-300. In 1685 King James II renewed the licensing act
of 1662, thus outlawing all works not expressly approved by the king.
51. Leisler to the Governor of Barbados, Nov. 23, 1689, OHNY, 2:40-42.
52. Robert Beddard, y4 Ajfwgz/ow ^/>/;o«/ rf A7«g: 77;^ /oz/rwrfA <?ƒ r/;f
P/w/V/'owrf/ GoféTwwf/;/- /'« r/?^ /?^o/«r/'ö;; 0/ 7^55 (Oxford 1988) 29-31;
Jonathan I. Israel, 'The Dutch role in the Glorious Revolution', in: Jonathan
I. Israel (ed.), 77^ y4//g/ö-/)«/r/; wow^wf: «w_yj ö« //?f G"/ör/o/« 7?fï/o/«/;o« rfwrf'
/>i MW;/ ;'w/>^c/- (Cambridge 1991) 121-122. For Leisler's receipt of the declarations see Deposition of Andries Greveraet and George Brewerton, Dec. 31,
1689, PRO CO5/1081, 223.
53. "For feare to be lyable to answer for the life of every protestant that
might have perished, and every howse burnt or destroyed, etz.," Bayard wrote
of Leisler's Z)ff^;wr/ö;/ #ƒ //?f 7«/M£/MW/S 5o^/ym, "Yet for want of some plausible cause these words were taken out of His Royall Highness The Prince of
Orange's third Declaration in England." See Colonel Bayard's Narrative of
Occurrences in New-York, Apr. to Dec, 1689, NYCD 3:639-41. Bayard
claimed Leisler "dictated " the declaration on June 3 and "antidated it 31 th day
of May," ibid., 639.
54.
«ƒ f«^»</, Sro/TrfWrf//*//re/^H^/,Oct. 10, 1688,
2:420-25.
213
55. 73y /?w ///g/w«j W////rf/w //<?wry, /V/«cf o/^ Ora«g?, # Dfr^zrar/öw [or the
77>/>*/De-c^rar/ow] appeared in London on Dec. 4, 1688. Dated Nov. 28 from
Sherborne Castle, Dorset, where William had been the guest of the Earl of
Bristol, it bore the hallmarks of authenticity: the Prince was given his full
Christian names William Henry and it was countersigned by his Dutch
Secretary Constantijn Huygens. It later turned out to be a forgery, but
William did not reveal this fact until after it had had the desired effect, 5/tffc'
7rartt 2:427-428; Beddard, % i ? w , 30.
56. Beddard, A7>/^w, 29-31.
57. David Steven Cohen estimated that 54.5 percent of New Netherland
immigrants were Calvinists fleeing Catholic persecutions in the Spanish
Netherlands and France (17 percent) and the German states (37.5). 'How
Dutch Were the Dutch of New Netherland?', Afcw >6r£ Mtfory 42 (1981)
43-60. With Louis XIV's 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes and subsequent persecutions of French Calvinists, "many French refugees were filling up
the churches." Henricus Selyns to Boston Ministers James Allen, Increase
Mather, and Samuel Willard, May 8/18, 1683, in Charles W. Baird, ///V/ory
#ƒ //>f TYwgw^wo/ Tiw/grar/ow to y4wm'w (2 vols.; New York 1885) 2:397.
Between 1682 and 1689 five French Reformed congregations were formed in
and about New York City-New Rochelle, New York City, Staten Island, New
Paltz, and Bushwick, see William Warren Sweet, 7fe//£/o« />; Co/ow/rf/zlwmra
(New York 1943) 207.
58. Hubert Coerts tot Voor Hyes to Coert Stevens van Voor Hees, Apr. 13,
1684, 7&rott£/? rf Dw^r/; Door; 77//? rotary ongz'wj o/V/je* V^« Voor/wj^w/7y
(Baltimore 1992) 154-157.
59. Andrew Russell Papers, RH 15/106/494/31, Scottish Record Office,
Edinburgh; Bosher, 88.
60. Members of the Dutch Church at New York to the Classis of Amsterdam, Oct. 21, 1698, in Co/Zert/om TV-K/ZS 1:398, and frcfesóoftoz/ 7&ro/*&
2:1246-1262.
61. Martin van Gelderen, 77?f TV/f/W 77;owg/tf o/7/^ D«rr/; TfrzWr 7555755W (Cambridge 1992) 286.
62. Minutes of the General Meeting, May 10, 1689, CW/^t/o/w 7V-K//5
1:279; Declaration of the Lieutenant Governor and Council, May 10, 1689,
CO 5/1081, p. 9, PRO.
63. Voorhees, 'The "Fervent Zeale" of Jacob Leisier', W/7/ww rfW Afary
QHrfmr/y 3d series 51 (July 1994) 471.
64. Circular to the Towns of Long Island, June 12, 1689, Charles R. Street
(ed.), //««#'«£/0« 7ow« /fefor*&, /«r/«^/«^ Zfa£j//o«, Z,o«£ M*W, /V<?#/ }frr£ (2
vols.; Huntington (NY) 1887-1888) 2:31-32; DHNY2:11.
65. Marc Boone and Maarten Prak, 'Rulers, patricians and burghers: the
Great and the Little traditions of urban revolt in the Low Countries', in: Karel
Davids and Jan Lucassen (ed.), /I w / W ? w/'rroW. 77^ D«fr-/? 7fe/>«£//'f /'«
£«ro/>éwz 7Vr5/>ffm^ (Cambridge 1995) 99-134; 119.
66. Van Gelderen, /V/r/W 77/o«^/?f, 269-276.
214
67. Foster, 'International Calvinism', 495.
68. Fix, A-tf/>/*>ry W flwww, 151-155, 174-177.
69. Albany Convention Minute, Nov. 9, 1689, DHNY 2:114; see also
Robert C. Ritchie, 77/f Dw£« Aw///f<\- #rtwdfyÖ / V V ^ ' K?/&/>o//7/W rf/fd'.
766^-769/ (Chapel Hill (NC) 1977) 207.
70. /4 A W « r <fiu/ /w/wmVz/ Aforrar/W (1690) in Andrews (ed.),
337.
71. Donna Merwick, ZW^w/wg/4/£rfwy 7 6 3 0 - / 7 / 0 : f/?^ Darr/? ^
/ > « t t ' ( C a m b r i d g e 1990) 221.
72. Leisler was closely associated with the interests of the Melyn family, and
this may have been the result of an earlier relationship between Leisler's father
and Melyn s patron Godert van Rede, lord Nederhorst. On June 13, 1659,
Leisler at age nineteen witnessed in Amsterdam an agreement of Cornelis
Melyn with the West India Company, Melyen Papers, N-Y Hist. Soc. See also
the Letter Book of Jacob Melyen, son of Cornelis Melyn, American
Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
73. Sven Stelling-Michaud (ed.), Z.f Z./YTTdW 7&rft7/rdW/l<W<fw/V^/p Gif/j^r
(7559-/S7&) (6 vols.; Geneve 1959-1979) 1:170, 4:310; Voorhees, 'Fervent
Zeale', 451-452.
74. Leonard Chester Jones, S/'/WÖ« (7o///^rr, Z543-/625: rtWf /frogra/»/;/^/^
rt 7i/^//ö^w/>/;/^«f (Genève-Paris 1917). Leisler's grandmother Madame
Catharine Aubert Wissenbach's first cousin Pierre Aubert married Goulart's
daughter Jael. Timotheé Poterat, Frankfurt minister and predecessor to Jacob
Victorian Leisler, was wed to Goulart's daughter Anne. See A. Choisy and L.
Du-Four-Vernas, /ferra^// G^»^/fl^/^«f S#«W Grafw (Geneve 1902), 1:277282; 7nró/£mf/if£f/^ «SYfH^/rf ^/p ^/ /vn^/20/1 <J/P /'/i^/w 7?^/orw^r /7a«ftf« <^f
Fn««^/9/rf-Jttr-A/ip/« (Frankfurt 1854), 22. Moreover, the Rev. Leisler made
much effort to obtain Goulart's grandson as his community's teacher.
Frankfurt Consistory to J. Poterat, July 11/21, 1640, Französisch Reformierte
Gemeinde 157:11, Staatsarchir, Frankfurt am Main.
75.
(3 vols.; Geneve 1576; Middelburg 1578); Lord King's half of Locke's library
cited in Foster, 'International Calvinism', 495 note 19; see also 492, 494-495.
For discussion of Goulart's Afr/wömï see Skinner, Zw/wdW/öw 2, 304-309.
76. Voorhees, 'Fervant Zeale', 454 note 31.
77. Address of the Militia of New-York to William and Mary, June 3, 1689,
CDNY 3:583. For Leislerian use of the phrase "Further Reformation" see, for
example, A Memoriall, 1689, DHNY 2:57, and Edsall et al to Committee of
Safety, Albany, Oct. 28, 1689, DHNY 2:115.
78. Nobbs, 777Éwrarj> tfW 7o/p;wf/'ow: <7 */Wy o/ fifa dV/w/ftt /'« D«/rA ctf/wnww^-ow /ó'OO ro 7650 (Cambridge 1938) 209 (this page relates to Voetius
call upon a Christian civil rule to purge the church by force); Guy Howard
Dodge, 77^ /W/V/VY// r/vory Ö/ rAe' Z///^wf;/o/ï 0/ rAf ^/«/>fry/o« w/VA i^^r/V//
^
Z
'
_/«r/V« (New York 1947) 63.
215
79. Z.tfj'tf/jf)' K/W/VrfW, in Andrews (ed.), Aforrrfft'm, 389.
80. Address of the Militia of New-York to William and Mary, June 3, 1689,
NYCD, 3:583.
81. Van Gelderen, /W/V/Vtf/ f/zowg/tf, 286. English texts of the Union of
Utrecht and Act of Abjuration are in E.H. Kossmann and A.F. Mellink (ed.),
7fx/s f0«feT«/«£ ^/>f /few?// ö/V/z^ Afo/jfri^wdk (Cambridge 1974) 166-173; 216228. For the influence of these works on American constitutional development see James R. Tanis, "The Dutch-American Connection: The Impact of
the Dutch Example on American Constitutional Beginnings", in: Stephen L.
Schechter and Richard B. Bernstein (ed.), Afcw }frr£ <?W /&• £/«/o«: Co«mI'wtow to //v /4wm'w« GpHrt/ft/ft'owrf/ £\y>ér/>««' (Albany 1990), 22-28;
Stephen E. Lucas, "The Plakkaat van Verlatinge: A Neglected Model for the
American Declaration of Independence", in: Rosemarijn Hoefte and Johanna
C. Kardux (ed.), Cowwffftwg f«/fwr«. 77;^ AW/^rAzW.? /«y?tr «72/wrav <?/
rfr/W/r «<rr/w«£f (Amsterdam 1994) 187-207.
82. Act of Assembly, Apr. 24, 1690, 7"/^ C/wr/fWdgw 7ÖMW rö//frr/o«
i4wmVd« ro/oww/ ^WJ (Philadelphia 1890) 1:218. The abolition of monopolies and special privileges was an important aspect of Leisler's program.
Ironically, Leisler was a beneficiary of monopolies: in 1676 he received a license for the Curasao slave trade [Nieuwe West Indische Compagnie 467, fols.
13-14, Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague]; as owner of several of New York
City's flour mills he was a beneficiary of that city's bolting monopoly; and he
appears to have benefitted by the East End's whaling monopoly [N.Y. Col.
Mss. 35:82]. Nonetheless, in the 1680s Leisler led the opposition to monopolies [NY Col. Mss. 35: 54a].
83. Commission to hold a Court of Oyer and Terminer, Jan. 18, 1689/90,
DHNY2:61. Prior to 1689, jurisprudence in New York combined Dutch and
English legal practices. Beginning in Sept. 1689 Leisler attempted to codify
New York's legal system. See Charles T. Gehring (ed.), Lrftttf #«</ WW/s qf
/4/>/W, 1647-1663 (Syracuse (NY) 1991) XIX. At present, legal cases and
court minutes from Leisler's 1689-1691 administration remain fragmentary.
84. DHNY 2:51. See also Ritchie, £>«£« /Wz'«fé>, 210-211.
216