The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862

It appears that one Morris Newinhuysen, a mate of a vessel, in 1706, was taken by the French, and a prisoner of war, at New-York, reported that the 'French Protestants' here corresponded with 'the inhabitants of France, tending to the taking and destruction of this city, by Her Majesty's declared enemies.' The New-York Huguenots considered this accusation a 'crime of so high a nature in itself,' and so 'altogether false and untrue,' as to petition Governor Burnet to cause 'the said Morris Newinhuysen, and all others who may appear concerned, to be strictly examined upon the same report, and if found out, be punished according to the nature of the crime.' This petition is dated 'February 10, 1707/8,' and signed by 'Stephen D'Lancey, Elias Nezereau, Abraham Jouneau, Thomas Bayeux, Elias Neau, Paul Deoilet, Augustus Jay, Jean Cazale, Benjamin Fanuel.' These must have been leading Huguenots at the time. To another petition of a similar character, we find the names of Daniel Cromelin, John Auboyneau, Francis Vincent, Alexander Allaire. His Excellency the Governor, ordered the report to be considered, which was done, when his Council reported that there was not 'any ground to suspect Captain Faneuil of holding a correspondence with France.' This was cheering news to the 'French Refugees' in the Province of New-York, as such a slanderous report, to use their own language on the occasion, was 'of pernicious consequence to all the French refugees in general, and disturbs their peace and quiet, and obstructs that affection and familiarity which they had formerly enjoyed with the other inhabitants of this Province, to their just grief and resentment.'

The Rev. Louis Rou was also a pastor of the 'Reformed Protestant French Church in New-York.' As early as the year 1713, among other names in its official records, are found John Barberie, elder, Louis Carré, ancien, Jean Lafont, ancien, André Fuyneau, ancien.' During the year 1724, there was great excitement in the French congregation, caused by a party question. Stephen De Lancey, a wealthy merchant, and patron of the church, with others became dissatisfied with the pastor. He was dismissed for want of zeal, and for innovations which they contended he had introduced into their church discipline; but the minister, with his friends, appealed from this decision to Governor Burnet and his Council, when they sustained him. Indignant memorials were published by both parties, and things went so far, that when De Lancey was elected to the Colonial Assembly, the Governor refused to administer his oath of office, alleging that he was not a subject of the British crown. De Lancey, the Huguenot, contended that he had left France before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and had received denization in England, under the great seal of James II. He was right, and the Assembly sustained his argument and claims against his Excellency the 'Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the Provinces of New-York, New-Jersies, and Territories thereon depending in America.'

For the curious in old families, among the official friends of the French minister, we find James Gou, John Hastier, Elias Pelletreau, Jr., Jean Va Chan, Andrew Foucault, Jacques Bobin, N. Cazalet, Samuel Bourdet, David Le Febrer, Francois Bourdet, Peter Morgat. They testify to Mr. Rou's 'exemplary piety and instruction for upwards of fourteen years,' which 'have rendered him exceedingly estimable to all who knows him, which can't but be acknowledged even by those who are now the occasion of this trouble.' We find a more general list of French families, his friends also, and dated thirty-first December, 1724, and they speak well of him, 'with edification, always leading an exemplary life:' James Bergerron, Francis Bosset, Daniel Girand, Daniel Gailliard, Elias Chardavoine, Paul Pelletreau, James Many, Gamaliel Guyele, Anthony Pintard, Jeremie La Touche, Samuel Bourdet, Jean Bachan, Elie Mainburt, Andrew Richard, James Belleveau, Peter Quintard, John Bosset, James Bobin, Daniel Bossuet, Charles Jardin, Amand Perot, William Huertin, John Vezier, Peter Dennys Doctr, John Many, Peter Tillou, Peter Ebrard, Henry Collier, John David, Noe Cazalet, Gabriel Le Boyteix, Jr., Elias Groséllier, Andrew Girand, Francis Baumier, James Des Brosses, James Renaudet, Lawrence Cornisleau, Daniel Mesnard, John Ganeau, Peter Monget, John Hastier, David Le Telier, Jean Le Chevalier, Philip Gilliot, Abraham Bertrand, Abraham Butler, Daniel Cromelin, John Pintard, Abraham Pontereau, Peter Burton, Stephen Bourdet, Paul Pinaud, Peter Fauconnier. As the same old chronicle says: 'Here followeth the names of the widow women, and others, members of the same church:' Rachel Ebrard, Elizabeth Heurtin, Marie Anne Ablin, Magdalene Fauconnier, Anne Bachan, Mary Perot, Susanne Magle Bosset, Mary Sergeran, Esther Bouniot, Marquise Boyteul, Martha Brown, Renée Mary Rou, Judith Morget, Martha Pentereau, Mary Bargeau, Susanne Boutecon, Susanne Ford, Mary Oaks, Mary Ellison, Martha Perot, Esther Masse, Elizabeth Tillou.

At this period, a Rey. Mr. Moulinars was the assistant minister of Mr. Rou, and united with the party who opposed him, and they also have left records of their views, in which they claim to have paid Mr. Rou in full, and that then the Consistory could dismiss him when they saw fit. 'We are not indebted unto Mr. Rou one farthing for all the time he hath served us,' is their language, and to their official act are the signatures of 'I. I. Moulinars, ministre, John Barheweeld, Louis Carréansien, Abraham Gouneau, ans., Fran. Cazalz, ans., René Het, ans., January twenty-eighth, 1724.' Still the Council decided in favor of Mr. Rou, and were 'of opinion that the said congregation be admonished that every person in it do all in his power to preserve peace and unanimity in their congregation.' That body also advised 'that the ministers of the French congregation who shall officiate next Sunday be ordered to read publicly the said opinion and admonition, immediately after divine service in the forenoon.'

All these efforts did not produce harmony in the French congregation. Moulinars evidently had a restless spirit, and was much opposed to the Church of England, at that time the established religion of the New-York Colony, and respected by many of the Huguenots. Through his efforts, a 'meeting-house' was erected for the French refugees at New-Rochelle, and its members numbered one hundred persons. One old document (May twelfth, 1725) records 'that the said Mr. Moulinars has declared (as can be proved) that he finds our Church (Episcopal) and that of Rome as like one another as two fishes can be … and one of the chiefest reasons of this violence against Mr. Rou has no other ground than his constant affection to the Church, and the public approbation he has at all times given to its ceremonies and doctrines.' The churchmen also complained that Moulinars caused 'great prejudice in general to the Church of England, and in particular to that of New-Rochelle, where he would come quarterly from New-York, and plead among the people.' New-Rochelle was then a parish, and its rector, of course, considered the French preacher a dissenter. From the parochial account of the former, the town embraced two Quaker families, three Dutch ones, four Lutherans, and several of the French; and the Huguenots settling among them in the year 1726, gathered a congregation of 'about one hundred persons.'

The Rev. Messrs. Daille and Labord appear early to have served the French Protestant Church in New-York; but of the latter we have learned nothing. The former had been pastor awhile to the French Protestants in Boston. About the year 1690, the Dutch Church Consistory employed Mr. Daille to preach to the French in their own language, at New-York, and also to conduct the religious services of the pulpit during a part of the Lord's day.

In 1763, Jean Carll was the pastor of Du Saint-Esprit, for we discover his name, together with Peter Vallade and James Desbrosses, the present elders, Daniel Bounet and Charles Jardine, the present deacons of the French Protestant Church in the city of New-York, to a petition for a charter. Their church property, they state, was purchased agreeable to an act of the Legislature in 1703; 'a decent edifice for the public worship of Almighty God, according to the usage of the French Protestant Churches,' erected; 'and the residue they devoted to the use of the cemetery or church-yard for the interment of their dead.' 'Ever since, they have maintained a succession of ministers there, who have dispensed the ordinances of divine worship in the French tongue.' Besides this property, they received the rents of a house and parcel of ground in the township of Breucklin, on Nassau Island, near the ferry, and the French Church now asked from the legislative authorities a proper charter. With honest pride they boast, in their petition, of the most inviolable fidelity 'to all those indulgent states and powers who protected them from the merciless rage of their Popish persecutors. As your petitioners in particular are the descendants of a people who suffered the greatest hardships and flew from their native country to preserve the purity of the Christian faith and worship.' Eloquent and truthful words. The Huguenots were a great blessing to every land where they settled. The name of their body politic was 'the Ministers, Elders, and Deacons of the Protestant French Church of the City of New-York.'

During the Revolutionary War, New-York became literally a city of prisons. The pews of the North Dutch Church in William street were used for fuel, and eight hundred American prisoners were incarcerated within its old walls, without fuel or bedding, and here many died from cold and starvation. The 'Brick Meeting,' in Beekman street, was also used at first for a prison, and afterward changed into an hospital. The Rose-street Friends' Meeting-house and the Wall-street Presbyterian church became hospitals also, and Du Saint-Esprit was made a dépôt for military stores. The Middle Dutch, the present Post-Office, stripped of its sacred furniture, was the abode of three thousand American prisoners. 'Here,' says John Pintard, himself a most respectable member of the Protestant French Church near by, and an eye-witness of the disgusting sight, 'the prisoners taken on Long Island and at Fort Washington—sick, wounded, and well—were all indiscriminately huddled together by hundreds and thousands, large numbers of whom died by disease, and many were undoubtedly poisoned by their inhuman attendants, for the sake of their watches or silver buckles.' The suffering inmates were afterward transferred to other places of confinement, and the venerable building turned into a riding-school for the British dragoons. Its floor was taken up, the ground covered with tan-bark, and the window-sashes removed for this sacrilegious purpose. The French Huguenot church remained in its original form one hundred and thirty years, until 1834, when it was taken down, the grounds sold, and its dead disinterred and removed to other resting-places. In their native lands, the ashes of the Huguenots would sometimes be dug up, burned, and scattered by persecuting hands to the winds of the heavens; but in ours—Protestant and more favored—their sainted dust, wherever buried, is watched and preserved with pious care and affectionate fidelity. It would be a pleasant but an impossible duty to trace the histories of thousands of our most excellent New-Yorkers, whose pious ancestors worshiped God in the old sanctuary of Du Saint-Esprit, and whose ashes reposed, in Christian hope, alongside of its humble and venerable walls. But records are scarcely to be found. Still we may love their characters and strive to imitate their noble and generous virtues. Hallowed be those precious memories!

The remains of many Huguenots repose among the innumerable dead of old Trinity church-yard, that vast home of the departed; and where can be found their memorials of honor, patriotism, and exalted piety. Here lie the ashes of the Rev. Elias Neau, near its northern porch. He was a man of more than ordinary eminence; his life useful, beneficial, and religious. Mr. Neau was the paternal ancestor of Mrs. Commodore Oliver H. Perry, of Rhode-Island.

Previous to his escape from France, he suffered confinement for several years in the prisons and galleys, and while in his dungeons, learned by heart the liturgy, and became attached to the English Church service. When the Rev. Mr. Vesey was rector of Trinity, Mr. Neau was appointed catechist of that church. For a number of years, he faithfully discharged the duties of this important appointment among the Indians and the slaves, of whom some fifteen hundred were catechumens in the city of New-York. He could only collect them together on Sunday nights, after the last public services; and when properly prepared, would present them to Mr. Vesey, for baptism. Mr. Neau may be said to have founded the Free School of Trinity, an institution so useful and well known among the noble charities of New-York. Its former tablet is still preserved among the mementoes of the olden time. This excellent Huguenot closed his useful life in 1722, resting from his earthly labors alongside of God's holy temple, where he had so long worshiped and' served him.

The Rev. Elias Neau, his wife Susannah, and daughter Judith, left France, for America, with the Huguenots, about 1685. Judith married a Rabineau in New-York, and their only child, Marie, married Daniel Ayrault; their issue was six sons and five daughters; and the second son, Daniel, married Susannah Eargrass, whose children were Daniel and Mary Ayrault. Mary married Benjamin Mason, and their children were two sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Benjamin Mason, M.D., was educated in England, marrying Margaret Champlin, of Newport, R. I., and their issue was three sons and one daughter. This daughter, Elizabeth Champlin Mason, became the wife of the patriotic and brave Captain Oliver Hazard Perry, of the United States Navy. From this last union were four sons and one daughter, Elizabeth Mason Perry. This daughter married the Rev. Francis Vinton; and their children, seven sons and three daughters, make the eighth generation from their venerable, pious Huguenot ancestor; Mr. Vinton himself serving in holy things at the same sacred altar of old Trinity, where the Rev. Elias Neau worshiped, and after a lapse of one hundred and fifty years. How enduring is sacred truth! It will abide forever.

Johannes Delamontagnie was another Huguenot refugee, who reached New-Amsterdam in 1773. Governor Kieft appointed him a member of his council, then the second office in the colonial government. He purchased a farm of two hundred acres at Harlaem, for seven hundred and twenty dollars, naming it' Vriedendel', (Valley of Peace.) The land was situated East of the Eighth Avenue, between Ninety-third street and the Harlem river. His grandson, named Vincent, died in May, 1773, at the very advanced age of one hundred and sixteen years. Numerous descendants are still among us from this early French Protestant emigrant, although some abbreviations have been made in the name.

THE BANE OF OUR COUNTRY

While sharing the Provost-Marshal's office, in Portsmouth, Virginia, I was struck with the almost utter absence of cultivation of the understanding of the people living there or in the surrounding country, who entered to obtain passes, or for other purposes. Scarce one of them at first appreciated the nature of an oath, which they all shrank from taking, or objected to, when proposed as a condition of obtaining either the passes or the protection they wished. They were not merely illiterate and untaught, but showed also an extremely low grade of reasoning power. There was, indeed, in most cases, but little development even of those lower grades of intellectual ability which are so frequently seen in simply 'illiterate' persons. They hung back from committing themselves, in any way, as friendly to us, though they evidently did not feel that hatred or ill-feeling characteristic of the bolder secessionist. I afterward saw many more of these people, in Norfolk, at our office. With our continued occupancy of the city, and in the absence of any aggressive action by our Government, they presented themselves more frequently. Among them there was occasionally one who avowed himself, without reservation, for the Union. These people are, I am confident, the only ones in the rebellious States who are other than secessionists. Love of the Union—that which the reader identifies with patriotism and nationality—they had not, because this can nowhere be found in the rebellious States, except in isolated instances. That they remained silent and subdued under the progress of the acts of the secessionists, and never raised hand or voice in contradiction to them, proves in this class an absence of that force of character, or of that moral courage or 'energy' which is the distinguishing attribute of our Northern people, even the poorest, and this was also evinced when we first occupied the town. It was not peacefulness of disposition which I remarked, but the lack first, of decision of character, and next, of decision of understanding respecting the questions at issue. In conversation they could express only very simple notions, nor could I promptly elicit more from them. Even their feelings lacked the qualities of force and intensity. Yet this class is next to the ruling and leading part of the population, which is composed of planters, cotton, tobacco, and produce factors' families, professional men, and others, who court patronage, including shopkeepers, small manufacturers, and money-lenders, and who support in political affairs their own clientéle of supporters. The latter people constitute the determinedly rebellious. It is the first class only, that we can regard as the sole support to Unionism which there is in the rebellious States; but in them we shall find no moral force or power even when the reign of the leading class shall have ceased. These facts, I am aware, are in striking contrast to the usual estimation of the courage and daring of the people of the South. But the usual estimation is true only of the people who have a concert of interest in slavery, and who, whatever their petty disagreements may be, concur in their politics. Nowhere, therefore, is democracy less actual than in the rebellious States; a ruling and a subservient class exists precisely as in England or Austria. To increase the latter, comprising the people I first described, is by no means to increase the power and extend the domination of the other, but the contrary; and undoubtedly the diminution of their number by the sacrifice of their lives in the rebellion, is considered by the chief managers as desirable, in view of the success of their scheme of polity and government.

Accordingly, in enforcing their plan of formally identifying the various States with secession—the form being the ordinance of secession—the suffrages and sense of this ruled class were ruthlessly unheeded, and denied validity.

Hence we say that several of the rebel States did not 'secede,' it being true that a majority of the people expressed their aversion to rebellion—this majority being, for the occasion, the ruling one, in virtue of the principle to which all equally deferred. But it is the will of the ruling or aristocratic class in all similar cases, and not the forms of law or principle, which accomplishes such changes, whether according to the forms of law or in disregard of them. This class are never respecters of principle, but rule in virtue not of what principles empower them to do, as a majority, but of the power of might and dominant strength. It is obvious that were they to do the former, they would be destitute of any other power than pertained to the whole community, they in part, and others equally. Accordingly, they having, once for all, in their adhesion to the Constitution, and again on its eve, consented to an election, and therefore its issue, when a majority of the entire nation elected a representative of the Chicago declaration, they reverted to their power of might, and rebelled.

It is, therefore, the subversion of an unprincipled (the term is of the strictest accuracy) ruling class, or aristocracy, and the obliteration of their peculiar power, that we have to accomplish. This power consists wholly of certain peculiar interests as masters. To deprive them of these, is the only possible terminus of the question at issue. So plain and palpable is the whole question, that we need hardly say that their whole scheme of government turns upon and clusters about this interest. For the preservation of this interest, which they thought touched by the advances of freedom, they rushed into war, and for the conservation of their power, they base all upon it.

That the general question of property is at all affected by the obliteration of this interest, is an egregious error. The property, the possession of which is valid and inviolable, is the product of human skill, industry, labor, invention, or what not. Nor does it confer political dominance on its possessor. The slaveholders are the only class in the nation whose property interest does so; and reciprocally, the sole object of the maintenance of this interest is the maintenance of this dominant power. Whether it be or be not criminal to possess it, is not the point upon which the demand for the abrogation of this interest turns—at least, there is no legal precedent to so think of it—but it turns upon the fact that it is ruinous to a republican system. Not the whole force of republicanism can at once maintain itself and conserve and cherish that; and if it, to a certain extent cherish it, it will do no more than continue the basis of the power of a class, who will use it in the only way it can be used, namely, in contesting whatever interests, principles, or practices are averse to it.

Hence, for more than thirty years not a single widely beneficent measure of legislation has been allowed to pass and become operative by the representatives of this interest. So the South, the seat of this interest, has always been, in its own estimation, 'the South,' despite what we have said of a national Union; rendering it impossible that the republican patriot could unite in one sentiment that which this particular interest divided itself from.

That humanity should dictate the freedom of the slave in the interests of morality, is but natural. With this we have nothing to do; but that the being of an 'aristocracy based on property' should be excluded from the bounds of a republic, is of an importance to it and mankind, not second to religion itself.

THE MOLLY O'MOLLY PAPERS

VII

The Chinese thief, they say, greases himself and sticks knives in his queue, so that it is nest to impossible to catch him. Old Time is about as slippery a fellow as a Chinese thief. I don't know that he has a queue, and have fancied that when queues were worn, and Time was in the fashion, some old fogy, too slow to keep up with him, caught him by his queue. Time, who never yet was detained by mortal grasp, pressed on and left it behind. Since then he has cultivated only that ungraspable forelock. Fleet of foot as he is, it is thought that Young America, with his telegraphs, will, in the long run—that is, in the race round the world—come out 'a leetle ahead' of him. Indeed, Young America talks of annihilating Time. But, though he may have 'one foot on land and one on sea,' he has no commission to 'swear that time shall be no more.'

We are a fast people—no mistake. Perhaps a little too fast. Did we only anticipate Time, and pull down only what, with those sure sappers and miners of his, the years, he is certain to overthrow, it would be well enough. But we wish to destroy what he has left untouched, or would remodel it, would modernize it.

The dear old creed of our fathers; old creed, did I say? Ever new creed; for what Time passes by, never grows old. This we would change to suit ourselves, fancying we have outgrown it; or thinking it, like the Spartan iron coin, too cumbersome for general circulation, we would change it for lighter, and as we think, more precious metal. We deem this the age of gold.

There is a great deal said about our progress toward mental and moral perfection. Some seem to think that education is all we need to make us perfect moral beings. 'Ignorance is the cause of all evil;' all things are as they should be; our minds are as the camera obscura, a darkened chamber which a few rays enter, and every thing only appears upside down. All we need is more light, to see to set every thing straight. It is true that we see things in an inverted position; but in this prison-house, we shall never have light enough to see them as they are. There is a lens that corrects these false impressions, and the light that enters through it shows us many things upside down that we before saw right side up, and vice versa.