Cadwallader Colden

by Seymour I. Schwartz

  The mind, according to Colden, is a center of activity that functions with a purpose, be it the avoidance of pain or the creation of pleasure. Pleasure includes intellectual pleasure and the acquisition of knowledge. For Colden, morality is the “Art & Science of living so as to be happy.”97 A balance should be achieved between pleasures, and, in general, intellectual pleasures are more useful and satisfying when compared with sensual pleasures. As a participant in the Enlightenment, in the stratification by Colden, pleasures are subservient to reason.

  During the first half of the decade (between 1739 and 1748), an increased amount of leisure time allowed for the most productive period of Colden's intellectual pursuits. However, he continued to serve the colony as a member of its Council in the administration of Lieutenant Governor Clarke, albeit with a reduced investment of his time. Colden and his political allies Lewis Morris and James Alexander represented the minority opinion under Clarke and, consequently, Colden infrequently attended meetings of the Council. Colden's name is mentioned only once in William Smith, Jr.'s History of the Province of New-York, in the chapter covering Clarke's administration, and that relates to the controversy concerning Captain Campbell's proposal to settle land with Scotch emigrants (see pp. 60–62).98 Colden's published correspondence for the period between 1738 and 1743 contains only one letter with any political implication, a brief but cordial note from Lieutenant Governor Clarke, apologizing for an inadvertent mistake by the clerk that might have been construed as injurious to Colden.99

  The relative tranquility of the early part of the decade was offset by an all-consuming focus, during the second half of the decade, in which Colden fought to protect his reputation and maintain his political status. Relatively halcyon times precipitously transformed into a tempestuous period. On September 22, 1743, Governor George Clinton arrived in New York accompanied by his family. The early years of Clinton's administration were dominated by his attempt to augment the defense against those Indians who were allied with the French along the western and northern borders of the populated regions. In 1746, a newly elected Assembly increased the control of Chief Justice James Delancey, who was also a member of the Council, and opposed the governor's policies. The Assembly expressed enthusiasm for opposing the dangerous enemy but refused to advance money to underwrite the defense efforts.

  In planning for a meeting with the Indians who were allied with the British colonials, the governor received little support from the Council. “He could prevail upon none of the Council to attend him, except Doctor Colden, Mr. Livingston, and Mr. Rutherford. From Mr. Delancey, by whom his measures had freely been directed, he was to expect no aid. They had quarreled in their cups, and set each other at defiance. The Governor then gave his confidence to Mr. Colden.”100

  After Colden and the governor arrived in Albany at the end on July, in anticipation of an increasing need for military preparation, Colden was able to secure for his son Cadwallader, Jr., the well-compensated position of commissary of musters.101 At the opening of the August 1746 conference with the Indians in Albany, Governor Clinton was indisposed, and “left it to Mr. Colden to deliver a speech of his own drafting; and in his excuse for the absence of Mr. Clinton, he describes himself to the Indians as the next person in the administration, for Lieutenant Governor Clarke being gone to England, he was then the eldest member of the Council.”102

  In August, Colden formally opened the conference with the Indians who were allied with the New York colonials. According to the document that was printed to record the event, Colden stated: “His Excellency our Governor having been taken ill, and as yet not so well recovered as that he can safely come broad, has ordered me (being the next person to him in the Administration) to speak to you In his name, which I shall do in the same words which he designed to have spoke had he not been prevented by sickness.”103 The essence of the speech was an encouragement for the Indians to renew their covenant with the British, joining forces with the colonials by “taking up the Hatchet against our & your common Enemy's the French, & their Indians, who have in a very unmanly manner, by Sculking party's, muderer'd in Cold Blood, many of your Brethren, in this & the Province of Massachusetts Bay.”104

  On November 24, 1746, Governor Clinton issued a message to the Assembly in defense of his conduct at the Albany conference and his plan for operations against Canada. In the printed document, he included a preemptive defense of Colden's conduct related to the conference. He pointed out that the members of the Council deemed Colden to be an appropriate representative and that most other members declined attendance. He also stated that, if they perceived any inappropriateness in Colden's conduct, it should be excused. He stressed that Colden should not be maligned publicly because he was acting in accordance with the governor's orders. Clinton assertively concluded, “but there is something more than all this when I & he are considered in our present Stations as I am Governor of this Province & he is the person on whom the Administration devolves which may make the Tendency of these resolves deserve your most serious consideration.”105

  The crisis, which included a vitriolic personal attack by the Council on Colden, erupted on December 4th. When Colden entered the Council room he was confronted by Delancey with a printed copy of the account of the Albany treaty, which Colden admitted he had arranged for the printing. Colden was criticized for having indicated that members of the Council declined the governor's invitation to attend. Although this was true, it was construed to be an invidious attack on certain members of the Council. Four days later an account of the debate appeared in the New York periodical, Post-boy. Colden was presented as a vain individual who was focused on advancing himself, as evidenced by his referring to himself as the “next person to his Excellency in the administration.”106

  On December 16, Philip Livingston, James Delancey, Phillip Cortlandt, Dan Horsmanden, Joseph Murray, John Moore, and Stephen Bayard, submitted a Representation to Clinton of seven members of the Council in reference to Colden's pamphlet of the Treaty with the Six Nations. In an extensive and detailed document, the authors raised the issues of misrepresentation of facts regarding their lack of attendance at the Albany meeting and, also, Colden's desire to augment his own reputation and position at the expense of others. The seven councilmen summarized their criticism of Colden: “Mr Colden has Told the World in Print of his being the Next person to your Excellency in the Administration We shall Not Make Any Reflection on this Circumstance But Leave your Excellency to Consider, Whether it may Not be his Interest to Embroil your Exellencys Affairs And Distract your Administration, the Consequence of Which may be his getting the Reins of Government into his own hands, And here perhaps Your Excellency may find that, Which Was Intended As a Reflection Upon others One of those ‘Artful and Designing Men' who have private Views.”107

  Three members of the governor's opposition and critics of Colden were also early members of the American Philosophical Society. The first, James Delancey, whose brother, Peter, had married Colden's oldest daughter, Elizabeth, in 1737/38, was a Cambridge and Lincoln's Inn educated lawyer. He was a member of the Council of New York since 1729 and a justice of the colony's supreme court. As chief justice presiding over the trial of John Peter Zenger, Delancey held Zenger's attorneys in contempt. Delancey openly broke with Governor Clinton in 1744. Strengthened by his relationships with his old college friend Thomas Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury; his brother-in-law Admiral Sir Peter Warren; and his wife's cousin, Sir John Heathcote, a member of Parliament, Delancey was appointed lieutenant governor of New York in October 1747 in spite of Clinton's expressed desire that the position be awarded to Colden.

  The second, Daniel Horsmanden, was also an English-educated lawyer who, on his arrival in New York, was befriended by Colden but later joined the Delancey faction in opposition to Clinton and Colden. On September 17, 1747, Clinton suspended Hormsmanden from the Council, and shortly thereafter removed him from the position of recorder and from the supreme court. He was restored to his positio
ns in the 1750s. The third, Joseph Murray, was a London-educated, able, and respected lawyer.

  In response to the personal attack, Colden dispatched a long letter of rebuttal to Governor Clinton, who was unswervingly supportive of Colden throughout a lengthy period of contention. Although Colden would not dismiss his personal characteristic of vanity, as he indicated it was manifested by many colonials, he explained that he presented himself at the Albany conference as the individual next to the governor in the administration in order to provide evidence of the governor's respect for his Indian allies.108

  In the third week of March 1747, the Assembly met and the governor requested funding to supply presents to their Indian allies for an expedition to reduce the French fort at Crow Point and for the funding of one hundred scouts. The members of the Assembly refused the request. Colden offered strong support for the governor and traced the greed of the opposition back to the administration of Governor Burnet. This led to Colden being referred to as “a person obnoxious to the house.”109

  In May, Colden, while in New York City, was made aware of a mutiny by the troops at Albany. This prompted correspondence with his wife at Coldengham, suggesting that she move the family that was in residence to one of her son's homes, because of the fear of reprisals.110 Governor Clinton went to Albany without Colden to assuage the troops. In May 1747, Clinton wrote Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, who was in charge of colonial affairs in the ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, recommending that Colden be appointed lieutenant governor of New York.111

  In 1747, a second edition of Colden's The History of the Five Indian Nations was published by Thomas Osborne in London. It included the material, ending with Denonnville's attack on the Senecas in 1689, that was included in the 1727 edition, to which was added a history of the Indians that extended to 1697 coincident with the signing of the Treaty of Ryswick. The map found in the 1747 edition is a reduced copy of Colden's original 1724 “Map of the Country of the Five Indian Nations.” Within the 283-page publication, the first appended section following Part II is a reprint of Colden's Papers relating to the Indian Trade of New York, 1724. The second edition also includes Colden's Papers Relating to the Indian Trade as an appendix. In the Papers, Colden expressed concern with the mistreatment of the Indians by the colonists and the failure of the colonists and of Great Britain to appreciate the value of a positive relationship with the Indians in the process of expansion of the empire and trade.

  Among Colden's papers, there is a draft in his handwriting of a Continuation of Colden's History of the Five Indian Nations for the years 1707 through 1720.112 No manuscript has been found covering the years from 1697 to 1707. The extant manuscript chronicles a meeting between Lieutenant Governor Richard Ingoldesby and the Indians in July 1709, at which time the Indians were invited to join in an expedition against Canada. It also reports that in August 1710, Governor Robert Hunter met with the Five Nations at Albany and returned for another meeting a year later. Hunter is credited with maintaining a constant concern for his allies, the Five Nations, as evidenced by another with them in Albany in September 1719.113

  The final year, 1748, of the decade in question opened with a disappointment for Colden. At the end of January, he was informed by Governor Clinton that Chief Justice Delancey had been appointed lieutenant governor by the Duke of Newcastle.114 This occasioned a letter from Colden to the duke. Colden informed the duke that there was a faction in New York attempting to wrest control from the governor and as a consequence the Crown. The group, by authority of the Assembly, had made false attacks on the governor's character. In the letter the only mention made of Colden's own conflict with the opposition referred to the insinuation that he had participated in the Rebellion against the Crown in 1715, a point that he rebutted.115

  Colden perceived Delancey to be his arch enemy. In a letter to the governor, Colden refers to him by position rather than name in characterizing the chief justice as “a person in this province of such insatiable Ambition and thirst after power…entirely directed by him as to curb & embroil your administration at pleasure & to have it in his power to do the same to any other administration…. His love of money On many occasions is as remarkable as his ambition & it is therefor most likely he will never be content with a half while he can hope to have the whole.”116

  The Assembly, which was convened in 1748, offered no support for the governor. Clinton became concerned that the heated arguments between Colden and Delancey might lead to his own recall to England or the termination of his appointment. Therefore he dismissed Colden from the Council and as a prime advisor, replacing him with Alexander.117 Colden was reinstated in September, allowing a continuance of the heated argument between him and Delancey. That year, from his Ulster home, Colden issued “His Address to the Freeholders and Freemen of the Cities & Counties of the Province of New York by a Freeholder.” He attacked the opposition's practice of making assertions without proof. He pointed out that their attempt to wrest authority from the king and parliament would engender resentment and adverse effects. Colden also attacked the personal interests and the desire of the wealthy members of the Council and Assembly who dominated the opposition to expand their estates.118

  In late October, Colden first met Peter Kalm, who had been sent by Linnaeus to America to study the flora and fauna. Kalm wrote in his journal, “In the afternoon I called on Mr. C. Colden, who was then living in the town. He was minister in the government. He wielded great influence over the present governor, Clinton, so much that the latter almost always followed Mr. Colden's advice. On the other hand the majority of the people were very dissatisfied with Mr. Colden, whom they accused of all sorts of things.”119

  Despite his disappointment, Colden continued his activities in support of the governor. He petitioned for the appointment of his son John to the post of store keeper at Fort George. From April 24 through 26, Colden engaged in a conference with the Five Nations at Onondaga to retain their friendship.120 Toward the end of the year, he received word from Franklin, who had put his printing business in the hands of David Hall, that Franklin had turned down the position of assemblyman in Philadelphia to allow for more time to read, study, experiment, and maintain his association with correspondents, particularly Colden.121

  The decade, in which Cadwallader Colden lived the life of sexagenarian, was characterized by the continuance of a life spent mainly on his estate, with sporadic interjections of activities related to his roles as surveyor general and a member of the provincial Council. He remained a polarizing figure in the ever-expanding antipathy between the two competing political factions in New York. The one, which included Colden, sided with the governor and the Crown's control. The other, led by James Delancey and including the majority of the Assembly, favored more control by the colonists. Colden continued in his unswerving advocacy of Britain's imperialism and also in his attempts to gain personal recognition and appreciation in that regard. He used his long period of service without compensation as a platform for advancing the careers of his sons. The major change in the political arena was that the decade would become dominated by involvement of the province as a battleground during the early stages of the French and Indian War.

  Colden's leisure time was continuously occupied by his attempts to gain recognition for what he perceived to be significant personal contributions to an understanding of the action of matter, the causes of gravitation, the principles of vital motion, and the transmission and reflection of light. By contrast, there was an apparent and expressed decrease in his interest in botany that was somewhat compensated for by the contributions of his daughter, whose expertise was a direct consequence of his deliberate direction. Although he had not practiced as a physician for the previous three decades, he maintained an interest in medicine as evidenced by his correspondence and the publication of articles on the subject.

  At the onset of 1749, Colden wrote Governor Clinton in reference to the continuance of the opposition's publication of scandalous libels and their over
t lack of respect for the king's authority as exercised by the governor.1 Colden was comfortable in requesting that the governor appoint his son John clerk of the peace & of the common pleas for the city and county of Albany, as replacement for the recently deceased Philip Livingstone.2 The affidavit for the appointment was executed in May with the stated provision that the profits, which accrue from the office, would be paid to Cadwallader.3

  Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts was supportive of Governor Clinton and Colden, and served as a sympathetic sounding board for Colden's catharsis of his political concerns. In a long letter written to Shirley, Colden detailed the influence of Chief Justice Delancey, perhaps exceeding that of the governor. Colden indicated that the faction led by Delancey was desirous of a tyrannical government. Colden felt that he personally was in danger of a physical attack. Because the Assembly, controlled by Delancey's cohorts, blocked the financing required to protect the interests of the English colonists and allied Indians, Colden called upon Shirley to support Clinton and himself during Shirley's forthcoming trip to England.4

  The Delancey-led faction relied on public opinion and the control of finances by the Assembly, which they dominated, to subvert the king's representative, the governor, and, consequently, the king's control. Colden's concern with political status in the Province of New York at that time was summarized in a letter to John Catherwood, the governor's secretary. According to Colden, the opposition continually acted to dissuade those who supported the kings prerogative and authority in theprovince. Colden wrote: