was a heavy burden to New York, but by its problems the growth of the union of the colonies was promoted. The main effort of the French, how ever, was, by diplomacy, to destroy the English-Iroquois alliance. To counteract the influence of French priests dwelling among the Iroquois, the English, in 1701, prevailed upon the chiefs to deed their territory, said to be Boo m. in length and 400 m. in breadth, to the king of England. The English, also, frequently distributed presents. But the success of the French at the close of the 17th century and the early portion of the 18th was prevented only by the ceaseless efforts of Peter Schuyler (1657-1724) whose per sonal influence was for years dominant among all the Iroquois except the Senecas. When they had assumed a neutral attitude, he persuaded a number of them to join troops from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in the unsuccessful expeditions of 1709 and 1711 against the French at Montreal. In order to regulate the trade with the Iroquois, Governor Burnet established a trading post at Oswego in 1722 and fortified it in 1727 and thereby placed the Iroquois in the desirable position of middle men in a profitable fur trade with the "Far Indians." In King George's war New York was left alone to protect its own frontier and while the assembly was wrangling with Governor Clinton for the control of expenditures the French and their Indians were burning farm houses, attacking Saratoga (Nov. 17, 1745), and greatly endangering the English-Iroquois alliance. A reconcilia tion was effected, however, by Col. (later Sir William) Johnson (q.v.), a former agent of Indian affairs. Largely to secure the co operation of the Iroquois the home Government itself now called the most important assembly of colonial deputies that had yet gathered to meet at Albany (q.v.). This body, consisting of 23 commissioners and representing seven colonies, met in June
and, besides negotiating successfully with the Iroquois, it adopted, with some modifications, a plan of colonial union prepared by Benjamin Franklin; the plan was not approved, however, either by the home Government or by any of the colonies. In the first year of the French and Indian war (1755) Maj.-Gen. William Johnson defeated a French and Indian force under Baron Dieskau in the battle of Lake George. In Aug. 1756 Montcalm took Os wego from the English and destroyed it, and in 1757 he captured Ft. William Henry; but in the latter year the elder Pitt assumed control of affairs in England, and his aggressive, clear-sighted policy turned the tide of war in England's favour. Victory fol lowed victory, Ticonderoga, Crown Point and Niagara were wrested from the French and New York was freed of its foes.
England's attempt to make the colonies pay the expenses of the war by means of the stamp tax thoroughly aroused the opposition of commercial New York, already chafing under the hardships imposed by the Navigation Acts and burdened with a war debt of its own exceeding £300,000. The assembly authorized its committee, which had been appointed to correspond with the New York agent in London, to correspond also with the committees in the other colonies and this committee represented New York in the Stamp Act Congress, which met in New York city in Oct. 1765. In the series of events which followed important changes were made in party lines. The court party and propertied classes became the Loyalist Party, standing for law as against rebellion, monarchy and the union of the empire as against republicanism; the popular party became the Patriot Party, determined to stand on its rights at any cost. The Stamp Act was repealed in March 1766, but the Townshend acts were met in New York by fresh outbursts of the Sons of Liberty and, by an association of merchants, the members of which pledged themselves not to import anything from England until the duties were repealed. New York had also been requested to provide certain supplies for the British troops quartered in the city. This the assembly refused to do but parliament answered (1767) by forbidding it to do any other business until it complied. It was under these conditions that the Loyalists, in the elections of 1768 and 1769, gained control of the assembly and in the latter year passed an act granting the soldiers' supplies. The moderate Loyalists joined in the election of delegates to the first Conti nental Congress ; but the great body of Loyalists in New York strongly disapproved of the "dangerous and extravagant" measures adopted by that body, and the assembly, in Jan. 1775, refused to approve its acts or choose delegates to the second Continental Congress. The Patriots met this refusal by calling a provincial
convention to choose the delegates. Scarcely had they done this when news of the encounter at Lexington produced a strong re action in their favour, and in May 1775 they called a Provincial Congress which usurped the powers of the assembly. Still, con ditions were such in New York that a fight for independence was not to be lightly considered. In the south the chief city was exposed to the British fleet, and the northern border was exposed to attack from the British and their Iroquois allies. In various sections, too, considerable numbers of Loyalists were determined to aid the British. When, in June 1776, a vote on the Declaration of Independence was pending in the Continental Congress, the New York Provincial Congress refused to instruct its delegates in the matter; but a newly elected Provincial Congress, influenced by a Loyalist plot against the life of Washington, adopted the Declaration when it met, July 9.
It was a settled point of British military policy throughout the war to hold New York city, and from it, as a base, to establish a line of fortified posts along the Hudson by means of which com munication might be maintained with another base on Lake Champlain. Such a scheme, if successfully carried out, would have driven a wedge into the line of colonial defence and cut off communication between New England and the southern colonies. A few days after the fight at Lexington and Concord, Connecticut authorized an expedition under Ethan Allen which surprised and captured Ticonderoga and Crown Point. In the following year (1776) the British began their offensive operations for the control of the Hudson. Sir William Howe, with a force of British and Loyalists vastly superior in equipment and numbers to Washing ton's untrained militia, landed in July on Staten Island and late in August defeated Washington at the battle of Long Island within the present limits of Brooklyn borough. In the following month Washington withdrew from New York city which the British entered and held until the close of the war. Washington prepared to withstand the British behind fortifications on Harlem Heights, but discovering that Howe was attempting to outflank him by landing troops in the rear he retreated to the mainland, leaving only a garrison at Ft. Washington, and established a line of fortified camps on the hills overlooking the Bronx river as far as White Plains. This brought on the battle of White Plains late in October, in which Howe gained no advantage ; and from here both armies withdrew into New Jersey, the British capturing Ft. Washington on the way. In 1777 General John Burgoyne suc ceeded in taking Ticonderoga, but in the swampy forests south ward from Lake Champlain he fought his way against heavy odds, and in the middle of October his campaign culminated disastrously in his surrender at Saratoga. Col. Barry St. Leger led an auxiliary expedition from Oswego against Ft. Stanwix on the upper Mohawk, and on Aug. 6 he fought at Oriskany one of the most bloody battles of the war, but a few days later, deserted by his terror stricken Indian allies, he hastened back to Montreal. Early in October Howe sent an expedition up the Hudson under the com mand of Sir Henry Clinton. Clinton met with little difficulty from the principal American defences of the Highlands, consisting of Fts. Montgomery and Clinton on the western bank, together with a huge chain and boom stretched across the river to a precipitous mountain (Anthony's Nose) on the opposite bank, and ascended as far as Esopus (now Kingston) which he burned, but he was too late to aid Burgoyne. The year 1778 saw the bloody opera tions of the Tory Butlers and their Loyalist and Indian allies in the Mohawk and Schoharie valleys and notably the massacre at Cherry valley. In retaliation a punitive expedition under Generals John Sullivan and James Clinton in 1779 destroyed the Iroquois towns, and dealt the Indian confederacy a blow from which it never recovered. The American cause was strengthened this year also by several victories along the lower Hudson of which General Anthony Wayne's storming of the British fort at Stony Point was the most important. The closing episode of the war as far as New York was concerned was the discovery of Benedict Arnold's attempt in 1780 to betray West Point and other colonial posts on the Hudson to the British. On Nov. 25, 1783, the British forces finally evacuated New York city, but the British posts on Lakes Erie and Ontario were not evacuated until some years later.