CHAPTER XXIII

JACOB LEISLER :  THE PEOPLE'S  CHAMPION

" The Leisler episode " has been treated as a
family quarrel, as a social cataclysm, as a dis¬
turbance between parsons and their flocks, and as
a struggle of "Protestants" against "Papists."
The best view to take is that of the cool historian,
who looks at the background and scans the latest
evidence.

After the English conquest of 1664, with the
increase of wealth, and the importation of Eng¬
lish court notions, fashions, and social gradations,
unknown in a republic, there grew up an " aristo¬
cratic party." Scores of Dutchmen fawned on the
English governors, securing fat offices and arro¬
gating to themselves luxury and privileges un¬
known in simpler days. These were the men who
had secured for New York City the flour monop¬
oly, which took away from other places the right
to bolt meal, that is, to sift out the bran and make
flour. The monopolists were hated by the farmers,
who looked on the Manhattan " court" as a centre
of oppression.

In Europe, France under Louis XIV had be¬
come the paramount power. Its State Church was
a persecutor. Tens of thousands of Huguenots, in