Back Aa

Story of Manhattan, The

Close

<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> <h3>SOMETHING <i>about the</i> BOLTING ACT</h3> <br/> <p>Edmund Andros was sent to govern New York for the Duke of York. The people complained a good deal because he acted as though he were a king with absolute power. They asked that they have some voice in the direction of their affairs. They got up a petition and sent it to the Duke in England.</p> <p>"What do the people want?" said the Duke. "If they are not satisfied, they can always appeal to me." He did not see that they had just appealed to him, and in vain.</p> <p>Captain Manning, who had been in charge of the province when the Dutch recaptured it, came again to New York with Andros. Many who had lost their property by the coming of the Dutch, complained bitterly to Andros. So the Governor, and his council, and the officers of the city held many conferences, with the result that Captain Manning was arrested. He was found guilty of cowardice, and his sword was broken in front of the Stadt Huys in the presence of the citizens, and he was declared, on the good authority of King Charles II., unfit ever again to hold public office.</p> <p>Although disgraced, Captain Manning did not seem to care much. He owned a beautiful wooded island in the East River, to which he now retired. He was wealthy, and there he lived and entertained royally during the remainder of his life.</p> <p>Andros did many things for the general good. When he had been Governor four years, and when the most important product of trade was flour, a law was made by which no one was permitted to make flour outside of the city. This was called the Bolting Act. Flour cannot be made unless it is "bolted"—or has the bran taken from it—and so the act came by its name. The right to grind all the grain into flour may not now seem very important, but it really was, for it brought all the trade to the city. So you see the Bolting Act was a very good thing for the city, and very bad for the people who did not live in the city. The city folks became very prosperous indeed, but the others, because they could not make or sell flour, became poorer day by day.</p> <p>This went on for sixteen years, and then the law came to an end. But by that time all the business of the entire province had centred in the city so firmly that it could not be drawn away.</p> <SPAN name='image-21'></SPAN> <center> <ANTIMG src='images/image-21.jpg' width-obs='300' height-obs='300' alt='' title=''> </center> <p>So, after this, when you look at a picture of the Seal of New York, and see a windmill and two barrels of flour, you will remember that the windmill sails worked the mill, and the barrels were filled with flour which laid the foundation of the city's fortunes; and were put on the seal so that this fact would always be remembered. The beavers on the seal suggest the early days when the trade in beaver skins made a city possible. At one time there was a crown on the seal—a king's crown—but that gave way to an eagle when the English King no longer had a claim on New York.</p> <p>Now that the province was prosperous, one would think that the people would have been quite happy. But they were not. They did not like Governor Andros because they thought that he taxed them too heavily, and they sent so many petitions to the Duke of York that, in 1681, Andros was recalled, and Colonel Thomas Dongan was appointed the new Governor. A few years later, when the Duke of York became King James II., he remembered how carefully Andros had carried out his orders, and appointed him Governor of New England; where he conducted matters so much to the satisfaction of his King that he earned the title of "The Tyrant of New England."</p> <p>When Governor Dongan reached the city and announced that the Duke had instructed him to let the people have something to say as to how they should be governed, he was joyfully received. It really seemed now that everything was going to be satisfactory. But there came a sudden check. Two years after Dongan became Governor, the Duke of York was made King of England. He thereupon ordered Dongan to make all the laws himself, without regard to what the people did or did not want. The power to make the laws was a great power, but Governor Dongan was a fair and just man and did not abuse it. The year after this he granted a charter to the city, known ever since as the Dongan Charter, which was so just that it is still the base on which the rights of citizens rest.</p> <p>But while Dongan was popular with the King's subjects, he became unpopular with the King. This was because he stood in the way of the plans of his royal master whenever those plans interfered with the good of the people. He must have known what the result would be. Whether he knew it or not, it came in the year 1688. The King joined the colony of New England and the colony of New York, and called this united territory New England. Dongan then ceased to be Governor, having ruled the province well.</p> <hr style='width: 65%;' /> <SPAN name='CHAPTER_IX'></SPAN> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />

1 of 2

2 of 2