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.”

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.

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.

CHAPTER IX

The stirring times of Jacob Leisler

Sir Edmund Andros, who, you will remember, had been appointed Governor of New England, had been knighted for obeying the King’s commands.  He now became Governor of the united provinces.  He made his home in Boston, and left the care of New York to his deputy, Francis Nicholson.  In this year a son was born to the English King, and the people rejoiced.  But these were stormy times in England, for King James II. was a tyrant who ordered a great many of his subjects killed when they refused to believe in what he believed.  And the people, grown weary and heartsick, overthrew King James and put William III. on the throne.  So the sights and sounds of rejoicing over the birth of a prince were scarcely over, when the news came that James was no longer King, and New York was soon in a state of confusion.