464                                  HISTOEY   OF   NEW-YOEK

further treason! A strange incongruity in the history, or wonderful
stupidity on their part! Moreover, when the revolution begins—that
31st of May—it is through Nicholson's act and not his. And on the
3d of June the result is not to make Leisler a dictator, but that
mutual agreement of the captains—in the face of which he is now
represented to us as an ignorant man surrounded by " a rabble "; a
mere puffball fuming with rage and insolence and profanity; as
already infatuated with his own greatness, comparing himself to
Cromwell, and most offensively assuming to his fellow-captains, whilst
they are deferential! What injustice to them, in order to carry out
the idea, received from the other side, of Leisler and the ^'lower
classes, the rabble"! History makes them his mere foot-ball—Abra¬
ham De Peyster, Nicholas Stuyvesant, Charles Lodowick, and the rest;
men assuredly not the ones to be dragged at a vulgar cart-tail through
mud and slush. Historians deprive them of their manhood, and in
these events would have us regard them as silent puppets upon
a street-organ, moving to the tune of a coarse and ignorant player.
And yet when, just after the revolution, Leisler himself wished to
remove the obnoxious Catholic collector, he could not do it, for the
reason which he gives: "I cannot get the other captains to turn out
the collector"; and again (June 16th) "I can get no captain to side
with me to turn him out." Outgoing letters from the fort are signed
by the captains, the answers addressed to Leisler and " the rest of the
captains " in command. They are so addressed by the General Court
of Connecticut. When within a few days after signing that agree¬
ment Minvielle resigned, it was not on the ground of Leisler's tyranny
and insolence, but because he thought their proceedings " hot-headed.'^
The other captains remained, all of them, for months. When (June
11th) they sent to friends in England an address for the king from "the
militia and inhabitants of New-York"—her citizen soldiery and only
defense — did they regard the movement as that of a " rabble " ? When,
so late as October 20th, Bayard—still as colonel and councilor—
wrote from Albany to De Peyster and De Bruyn an order " to bear
good faith and allegiance " to William and Mary, but " to desist from
aiding and abetting" Leisler, they put the letter into his hands; and
when yet later (October 29th) he again commanded them " to obey
the civil government established by Sir Edmund Andros," as still in
force, they paid no heed. What do these facts prove ? This period,
the opening period of the revolution, was that of Leisler and the cap¬
tains conjointly, not of Leisler and " the rabble." People of standing
and influence parted from their own families and friends on these
issues. History conceals it and them. It adopts a party stigma.
It was slippery ground, and the Attorney-General, when drawing an
indictment against Leisler, did not touch this period.