288 with artillery.
The Green Bag Big guns were trained
on the fort and a pitched battle seemed imminent. The dull, heavy atmosphere was rent
by the detonation of a single shot. Who fired it was never determined. But a general engagement followed in which several men were killed and more wounded. Leisler, during the uncertain months
in which William and Mary were settling themselves on the English throne in place of James II, had put himself at
the head of the totally disorganized government of New York and by sheer force of his own personality had held the exciting and disrupting elements in hand pending the determination of his authority by the Crown. Finally the King appointed Col. Henry Sloughter Governor of New York. And it boded ill for Leisler that Major In goldsby, the Governor's subordinate, who
had reached the colony before Sloughter
immediately afterwards brought before theGovernor who allowed (having spoken but a very few words to him) that he was spit in the face, and that he was robbed of his wig, sword and sash, and
of a portion of his clothes which were torn from him, and that they abused
him like raging furies, putting irons on his legs and throwing him into a dark hole underground full of stench and filth. His council and burghers were treated in the same way." Highly colored and partisan this may be; but it conveys something of the spirit which put Leisler, who had struggled so hard to keep some vestige of government in the almost disrupted colony during the long months it seemed to have been entirely forgotten by the home authorities, on trial for his life,
accused of high treason. The trial of Leisler and his companions was one of the most peculiar combina
himself, immediately invested Leisler’s
tions of the just and the unjust, of the legal and the farcical, of the trivial and
own stronghold in an out and out siege.
the tragic in recorded law cases.
When Sloughter himself appeared in
New York, Jacob Leisler immediately surrendered his authority as, indeed, he maintained he had always intended
The
grand
jurors were sworn
March 31, 1691. They immediately brought two indictments against Leisler and his associates, Milborne, Delanoy,
to do upon the arrival of a duly ac credited representative of the King. He and his three hundred adherents laid down their arms and left the fort. This was followed by a scene of peculiar
Gouverneur and Beekman.
violence, according to an old account.
for murder and felony.
“The men thus coming out in their side-arms were at once attacked by the
outstanding crowd, scolded as being villains and traitors, and robbed of everything, and that with such fury as if they wanted to kill them, the officers
meanwhile shouting and screaming— ‘Rob them! Rob them, and take their
guns away from these rascals; they will otherwise murder our wives and chil dren! . . .’ Commander Leisler was
on
The first
count was for treason and felony, men
tioning specifically the conflict on the 17th of March. The second part of the indictment against these men was
A second group
of Leislerians, Coerten, Williams, Ver
milye and Brasier, were indicted for treason alone. Immediately afterward Leisler was taken before a hostile court, presided over by Joseph Dudley, to stand trial for his life. Well realizing the nature of political trials and the determination of his enemies to secure his conviction at any cost, Leisler refused to acknowl edge the jurisdiction of the court.
~". h‘ 11 nm-.-.
