people to resistance. The Stamp-Act Congress, called at the
suggestion of Massachusetts, sat in the city from the 7th to the
28th of October 1765, and on the 31st of October the New York
merchants started the non-importation movement which spread
to the other colonies. Lieut.-Governor Cadwallader Colden
prepared for the enforcement of the Act by strengthening Fort
George (a later name for Fort Amsterdam) and increasing its
garrison. The ship with the stamps arrived in the evening of
the 23rd of October and on the following night threatening
notices were posted on the doors of every public office and at
the corners of streets. When the day (1st of November) came
for the Act to go into effect Governor Colden had retired within
the fort. Major James, the commander of the garrison, had
threatened to enforce the Act; but the Sons of Liberty gathered
a mob, broke into the governor’s coach-house, burned his coach
and burned him in effigy, destroyed the furniture and other
property of Major James and threatened to storm the fort.
On the 5th, the governor delivered the stamps to the mayor
and aldermen. No serious attempt was subsequently made
to enforce the Act, and its repeal (18th of March 1766) was
celebrated on the city common with noisy demonstrations and
the erection of a liberty pole. The Assembly also made appropriations
for the erection of statues of the king and William Pitt.
The Sons of Liberty opposed the passage by the Assembly of
appropriations for the maintenance of the soldiers, and the
latter retaliated by repeatedly cutting down liberty poles
erected by the Sons of Liberty. Finally in a skirmish on the
18th of January 1770 the soldiers killed one man and severely
wounded several others, and this bloodshed is memorable as
the first in the struggle which culminated in the independence
of the colonies. The tea shipped to New York for testing the
right of parliament to tax the colonies did not arrive until four
months after that shipped to Boston had been thrown overboard,
but when it did arrive (April 1774) the chests in one
vessel were destroyed in the same manner as were those in
Boston and the other vessel was forced to carry its cargo back
to London. The Port Act for punishing Boston stirred the
New York merchants as well as the Sons of Liberty (chiefly
mechanics and artisans), and when the latter again threatened
violence the merchants resolved to guide the movement, and
called a mass meeting and named a committee of correspondence
of fifty-one members. This committee, on the 23rd of May 1774,
proposed a Continental Congress chiefly with a view to obtaining
an effective regulation of non-importation from England; it
also named the New York delegates to that body.
During the greater part of the War of Independence the city was occupied by the British. Its capture was a part of the British plan to get control of the Hudson and separate New England from the southern colonies. Early in 1776 the Americans began to throw up fortifications at several points on both banks of the East river in the hope of closing the east water front to the enemy. Other fortifications were erected on Governor’s Island and at some points along the west water front to the upper end of Manhattan Island, where an attempt was made to close the passage of the Hudson by building Fort Washington on the New York bank and Fort Lee on the New Jersey bank and connecting them with a line of sunken ships fastened together with chains. To the north of the city proper, also, defences were constructed along the line of the present Grand Street, and to prepare for a retreat from the north end of the island a redoubt, which the British later called Fort George, was built on the prominence overlooking Kingsbridge from the south, and Fort Independence, in what is now Bronx Borough, was built to command the approach from the mainland. After the battle of Long Island, fought within the present limits of Brooklyn Borough, Washington, on the night of the 29th of August 1776, crossed to Manhattan Island. As the city was no longer tenable, some of the generals proposed burning it, but Congress would not give its consent and Washington, although withdrawing the greater part of his army behind fortifications on Harlem (now Washington) Heights, continued to occupy it with about 5000 men under General Israel Putnam until the British general, Sir William Howe, began to show signs of attack. Troops also remained behind the batteries along the east water front, and it was on this occasion that Nathan Hale went on his fatal errand to ascertain Howe’s intentions, was discovered within the British lines and was hanged as a spy. On the 15th of September several British ships which had some days before passed the American batteries, as far as Montressor’s (now Randall’s) Island, entered Kipp’s Bay, at the foot of the present 34th Street, routed the militia posted behind the low breastworks there, and after landing narrowly missed cutting off the rear of Putnam’s retreating army. One portion of Howe’s army took possession of the city and another marched toward Harlem Heights along the east side of what is now Central Park while Putnam’s men were marching in nearly parallel columns on the west side of the park. On the 16th, in the battle of Harlem Heights (on what is now Morningside Heights), about 1800 Americans drove a somewhat smaller number of British troops from the field. In October Howe sailed up the East river, and Washington, to avoid being outflanked, retreated to the mainland, leaving only a garrison at Fort Washington. Howe landed at Pell’s Point (now within Pelham Bay Park), and on the 28th, a few miles north of the present city limits, was fought the battle of White Plains. Howe then turned westward and southward and on the 16th of November captured Fort Washington. What is now Bronx Borough was within the “Neutral Grounds” which suffered greatly from the foraging parties of both armies. Six days after the British entered the city proper about one-fourth of it was destroyed by fire, and the desolation was extended by another large fire on the 3rd of August 1778. The British crowded their prisoners (who suffered terrible hardships) into several of the churches, the City Hall, the new gaol (later the Hall of Records), King’s College, the Livingston sugar house, and a number of ships moored in the harbour. The city was a refuge for Loyalists, but even they were treated with contempt by the British. The homes of Loyalists and Whigs alike were plundered, and when the British finally evacuated (25th of November 1783) they had robbed the city of its wealth and had destroyed its business.
For the first three or four years after the return of peace recovery in some directions was very slow; but only a few months after the British had gone an American merchantman sailed from the port bound for China and opened trade with that country. Trade was speedily resumed with European ports, and by 1788 it was not uncommon to see 100 or more vessels in the port either loading or unloading. On the question of enlarging the powers of the Federal government in 1787–1788, the city strongly supported Alexander Hamilton and John Jay against a determined opposition in other parts of the state, and the ratification of the Federal constitution in the state convention at Poughkeepsie was a triumph for New York City. The city was the Federal capital in 1789–1790 and under its strong Federalist influence the new government of the nation was organized. During the colonial era New York was always the seat of the provincial government and for twenty years it was at times the seat of the state government, but in 1797 Albany was made the permanent capital. In 1807 the success of steam navigation was assured by the trial trip of Robert Fulton’s “Clermont” from New York to Albany and return; but the city did not benefit immediately from this invention. On the contrary, the Embargo Act (1807–1809) threatened its commerce with ruin. It revived under the Non-Intercourse Act, but suffered again from the second war with Great Britain. In the first and second years of this war some merchants reaped profits from privateering against the enemy, but in December 1813 the British stopped privateering by a closer blockade of the harbour and in 1814 they threatened to attack the city. In preparing to resist, the city erected or assisted in erecting elaborate fortifications, and Robert Fulton was busy in New York building a steam frigate with cannon-proof sides and heavy guns, but the war closed without a test of the fortifications and before the frigate was ready for action.
In 1817 the Erie Canal was begun and the first line of trans-Atlantic packet-ships was established. The canal, opened in
