636

MEMOIR OF THE HOW. JAMES DE LANCET.

A feud, which burning strongly ever after, exerted a controlling influence in the future politics of thecolony. So much so that in 1759 the two parties were designated by the names of these twopowerful and wealthy leaders. 1

In the spring of 1755 the Lt. Governor attended the council of Governors , called by Gen.Braddock, at Alexandria, and aided in the adoption of the measures there concerted against theFrench, with whom hostilities had commenced. 2 Sir Charles Hardy, the new Governor , appointedin Sir Danvers Osborne’s place, arrived and took command of the Province on Sept. 2 nd , 1755 ;and Lt. Governor De Lancey resumed his seat upon the Bench as Chief Justice. Gov. Hardy wasan officer of the Navy and not much accustomed to civil affairs. He depended chiefly on the Lieut .Governor, who supported all leading measures, except the ill-advised and unsuccessful attempt hewas induced to make to vacate the ICayayderosseras and a few other land patents. Preferring hisprofessional life, Sir Charles, after a ten months’ residence in New York applied to be allowed toresign his government and to re-enter the Navy . 3 A short time afterwards his request was granted,and being made a Rear-Admiral, he sailed from New York , with a command in the expedition againstLouisburgh, on the second of July, 1757, just twenty-two months after his arrival in that city. Bythis resignation the command again devolved upon Mr. De Lancey. The war with France wasthen going on, and the Province was entirely engaged during this, and the two succeeding years, inmilitary affairs and measures. During this period civil matters were very quiet, and the energiesof the Lt. Governor were given to promoting, directing, and carrying out the various measures wdiichthe events of the war rendered necessary on the part of the Colony, lie contributed greatly to the'retrieving of the disasters of 1757, and to the success of the operations of 1758 and 1759 ; andespecially to promoting the expedition which ended in the repulse at Ticonderoga, and that whichfollowed it in the succeeding year.

Though generally quiet, the opposition did not give up entirely their attempts against the party inpower. The most notorious of wdiich W'as the printing, in England and secret circulation thereand in the colony, of an anonymous pamphlet, entitled a “ Review of the military operations inNorth America, from the commencement of the French hostilities on the frontiers of Virginia , in1753, to the surrender of Oswego , on the 14‘ h August 1756, in a letter to a nobleman.” Inthis publication the Lt. Governor was attacked by name, and in terms of bitterest invective. False-hood was, however, so evident on its face that neither Lt. Gov. De Lancey, nor any of the othergentlemen whom it attacked, ever considered it worthy of notice. Mr. Alexander superintended itsprinting as he acknowledged himself, 4 being at the time in England, engaged in his vain attemptto prove title to the earldom of Stirling; but its author is now' believed to have been WilliamSmith, the younger, the writer of the colony’s history, notwithstanding it has been ascribed toMr. Livingston. 5

1 Smith’s Hist. N. Y.; II., 273. 2 Doc. Ilist, N. Y. ; II., 648.

3 See his letter to this effect, dated Aug. 2nd, 1750, Lond. Doc.; XXXIII., 367.

4 Smith’s Hist, N. Y. , II., 255.

5 “ This pamphlet was written in New York , and it is believed, from circumstances, that William Smith, afterwards ChiefJustice of Canada , was the author; that he copied it himself, never permitting cither of his clerks to see a word of it; thatthe manuscript was carefully nailed up in a box prepared for the purpose, and sent to London to he printed. The pamphlets,when received from London , were not publicly dist ributed, and only a few of them were given to particular individuals. But itsoon became known in the city that such a pamphlet existed. I was then a clerk in Smith’s office, and wished to procureone of the pamphlets, but all my endeavors were fruitless; and I never got one until some time during the revolutionarywar, when I met with one at an auction in New York and purchased it.” Hon. Samuel Joncs’notcs on Smith’s History ofN. Y. in Vol. 3 of N. Y. Hist. Soc. Collections, p. 361. See also a prior letter of his, same Vol.p. 349. The pamphletitself is in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, VII., p. 67.