Читать книгу General Richard Montgomery and the American Revolution - Hal T. Shelton - Страница 12

In this most eligible of all situations,

the life of a country gentleman . . .

he devoted his time to sweet domestic intercourse .

Nor from that happy spot did he wish to stray . . .

But when the hand of power was stretched forth

against the land of his residence,

he had a heart too noble not to sympathize

in its distress . . .

Although his liberal spirit placed him

above local prejudices,

and he considered himself as a member

of the empire at large;

yet America, struggling in the cause of Liberty,

henceforth became his peculiar country,

and that country took full possession of his soul,

lifting him above this earthy dross, and every

private affection . . . ¹

In late 1772 or early 1773, Richard Montgomery migrated to America. Before making this major change in his life, he explained his reasons for leaving England in a letter to his cousin, John Montgomery: “As a man with little money cuts but a bad figure in this country among peers, nabobs, etc., I have cast my eye on America, where my pride and poverty will be much more at their ease.” Montgomery obviously understated his financial situation. Although lacking a title or influential patronage, he was far from impoverishment. He received a middling inheritance when his father’s will divided the family resources among him and two other siblings. Proceeds from the sale of his captain’s commission further augmented his total assets.²

Because of his disappointment in promotion and future advancement possibilities in the British army, Montgomery became disgusted with military service. He decided upon a course of retreat and solitude removed from the vexations of politics and public service, vowing never to marry or take up arms again. Montgomery sought solace and a new beginning in the colonies, where both of his vows would be relinquished within three years. As a repose from his previous turbulent military career, he intended to establish an idyllic lifestyle for himself as a gentleman-farmer. During Montgomery’s wartime service in America, the vastness of the country and the unlimited opportunities it offered impressed him. An enterprising gentleman of modest means, he reasoned, could readily accumulate land and eventually amass an estate. Shortly after his arrival, Montgomery bought a sixty-seven-acre farmstead at King’s Bridge, located in the out ward, some thirteen miles north of New York City.³

While Montgomery settled into his new surroundings during the first winter and spring, he became reacquainted with Janet Livingston. They had met eight years before when he was an ambitious young officer in the British 17th Foot and she was passing into womanhood. During the French and Indian War, Montgomery’s unit traversed up the Hudson River en route to its station at Michilimackinac in Michigan territory. When the soldiers disembarked from their boats near Clermont, the grand Livingston manor, Janet’s father graciously invited the officers to visit. Richard and Janet experienced their first meeting during this occasion. It probably amounted to no more than a formal introduction and polite discourse, and left little impression on either.⁴

By the time of their second encounter, thirty-year-old Janet had developed into a most eligible lady for courtship and marriage. The eldest daughter in the large family of Judge Robert R. Livingston, one of the most affluent and influential men in New York, she personified a privileged, accomplished, and attractive woman of the time. Montgomery must have been immediately taken with her, as he wasted no time in vying for her affections. Since Janet held the social status of a Livingston, the selection process for her husband was deliberate and discriminating. In her memoirs, she claimed a long succession of suitors before Montgomery, but none had been successful in winning her hand. She rejected the advances of those who displeased her for one reason or another. Janet also wrote of a romantic notion that portended doom for men who sought her affection: “There was a fatality attending most of those who offered themselves.” She related how two suitors broke their necks after falling from their horses and another was lost at sea after establishing a romantic relationship with her.⁵

Janet’s family withheld approval of other suitors whom they deemed socially unacceptable: “I nearly fell in love with an officer who had only his beauty and his regimentals to boast of—he had neither education nor talents. I saw these defects and yet in despite of all gave him a preference. I would have been his wife could my parents have consented. They detested redcoats and had my happiness too much at heart.” The Livingstons’ estimation of the British soldiers obviously had deteriorated from the French and Indian War, when they cordially welcomed them into their home.⁶

During that war, colonists generally appreciated the security benefits that British troops brought by pushing French authority out of North America and subduing the Indians. After the conflict, however, numerous colonists came to resent a continued large British military presence. They suspected that the soldiers were an instrument of the ministerial government for coercing provincial submission to increasingly stringent imperial political measures. By the time of Janet’s courtship, many colonists regarded so-called “redcoats,” “lobsterbacks,” or “bloodybacks” with disdain. This dramatic transformation of the Livingston family attitudes toward British troops in the colonies was indicative of the evolution of patriot attitudes concerning British authority in America.

During their unusually brief engagement, Janet still retained her anxiety over foreboding misfortune that she felt could befall a potential husband. Richard lightly dismissed her fears, however, and her sisters offered supportive counsel. After receiving favorable consideration from Janet, Richard followed convention by formally requesting permission for marriage from the parents of the intended bride. In late May 1773, Montgomery wrote to Judge Livingston: “I have been extremely anxious to solicit your approbation, together with Mrs. Livingston’s, in an affair which nearly concerns my happiness and no less affects your daughter. . . . I have ventured at last to request, sir, that you and Mrs. Livingston will consent to a union which to me has the most promising appearance of happiness, from the lady’s uncommon merit and amiable worth.” He concluded with a polite compliment regarding how he would be honored to join the Livingston family: “Nor will it be an inconsiderable addition to be favored by such respectable characters with the title of son, should I be so fortunate as to deserve it.”⁷

While his prospective father-in-law deliberated over the request for marriage, Montgomery’s social status and former service in the British army were probably areas of some concern. When the patriarch of the Livingston dynasty, Robert Livingston, died in 1728, he divided his vast estate between two of his sons. The elder son, Philip Livingston, received the bulk of the property (about 141,000 acres), known as Livingston Manor. The younger son, Robert Livingston, Jr. (Janet’s grandfather), inherited the adjacent Clermont estate of 13,000 acres. Consequently, the two Livingston branches at Livingston Manor and Clermont constituted one of the largest land-owning families in New York.⁸

Influence accompanied the affluence of this family, which cooperated in achieving political ascendancy of the province. Judge Robert R. Livingston (of Clermont), Janet’s father, took an active part in colonial affairs. He served as a colonel in the militia, functioned for a time as high sheriff of New York, and represented Dutchess County in the General Assembly from 1757 to 1768. He attained appointment as Judge of the King’s Bench in 1763, which operated as the New York supreme court of those times. In 1765, he attended the Stamp Act Congress as a delegate from Dutchess County. During 1772, he acted as chairman of the New York Committee of Correspondence, part of a network to coordinate colonial vigilance against the British. When New Yorkers divided over the question of remaining loyal to the king, Judge Livingston emerged as a recognized leader of the whig or patriot faction.⁹

The fact that he had earlier resigned his commission and elected to live in the colonies probably exonerated Montgomery from his British affiliation in Judge Livingston’s mind. Montgomery’s prior association with Whig leaders in Parliament—Edmund Burke, Isaac Barré, Charles James Fox, and other opposition politicians sympathetic with the American colonists—must have enhanced his acceptability with the Livingstons. After family consultations and investigation into Montgomery’s character and reputation, Judge Livingston replied to his future son-in-law on June 21, 1773: “Since we heard of your intentions, solicitous for our daughter’s happiness, we have made such inquiries as have given a great deal of satisfaction. We both approve of your proposal and heartily wish your union may yield you all the happiness you seem to expect, to which we shall always be ready to contribute all in our power.”¹⁰

With the formalities completed for his marriage, Montgomery became concerned over how the local press would announce the event. Anti-imperialist fervor of that time disdained any trappings of royalty. Montgomery’s sister, Sarah, had married an Irish viscount, Charles, Lord Ranelagh. The peerage was the only inheritance that befell Ranelagh, as he became strapped to support his large family. This was probably all the more reason for the despoiled lord to cling to his nobility, trying to bolster his familial pride and honor. Montgomery had no desire to be linked publicly to his titled relatives in Ireland during his present circumstances. He felt that it would only subject him to possible embarrassment. just before his wedding day, Montgomery expressed a hope that the journalists would “let me down easy” by not advertising the royal inference. To his chagrin, a New York City newspaper pronounced: “Last Thursday evening was married at the Manor of Livingston, Richard Montgomery, Esq., brother to the Right Hon. the Countess of Ranelagh, to Miss. Livingston, eldest daughter of the Hon. Robert R. Livingston, Esq.; one of the Judges of the supreme court of judicature, a lady of fine understanding, and very amiable accomplishments.”¹¹

The wedding announcement became a subject of some good-natured humor directed at Montgomery by the Livingstons. Like most of the privileged social group in the colonies, the Livingston family embraced the idea of a natural elite, but they were careful not to portray themselves as aristocrats or noblemen. The colonies were evolving toward a culture that fancied the concept of the self-made person, apart from the European tradition of relying on bloodlines to determine social status. Although adhering to deferential values, the prosperous and influential segment of the population had no wish to become a catalyst for class struggle by callously flaunting its social position.¹²

Thus, on July 24, 1773, Richard Montgomery and Janet Livingston married at Clermont with most of the Livingston family present for the ceremony. Richard leased his farm at King’s Bridge to a tenant, and the Montgomerys established their residence in a small house at Rhinebeck where Janet owned property. With most of his remaining funds, Richard purchased more land adjoining Janet’s tract. He then set to work fencing the pasture, plowing the fields, building a small grain mill, and laying the foundation for a larger home. Janet’s sister, Catharine, formed a favorable opinion of Richard during this time, but she also noted his bouts of melancholy brought on by fears that his contentment was too good to last: “Mrs. [Catharine Livingston] Garretson, who sometimes came to stay with her eldest sister at the cottage, had ample opportunity of knowing this brother. She spoke of the influence of his manly character upon the villagers, of his grave rebuke of idleness and vice and of his many amiable domestic virtues. . . . He was so happy in his domestic relations that forebodings would sometimes arise and he would exclaim, ‘I never was so happy in all my life; everything conspires to make it so,’ then shaking his head sadly he would say, ‘This cannot last; it cannot last.’”¹³

Janet told of a strange and frightening dream that she had three months after their marriage. In it, Montgomery and his brother engaged in a fierce duel, and Richard sustained a mortal wound. Upon awakening and relating the vision to her husband, he said, “I have always told you that my happiness is not lasting. . . . Let us enjoy it as long as we may and leave the rest to God.”¹⁴

Although both were basically fatalists, the personal philosophies of the Montgomerys differed somewhat. While Richard seemed to accept fate with little reservation, Janet tended to agonize more over their destiny and turned to her husband for reassurance. Although Richard had forsaken his army career, the lingering mental attitudes formed by years of service were not as easily shed. His military background probably conditioned him for a direct, confrontational approach to life’s problems. This professional soldier’s mindset prevented him from dwelling upon matters that he deemed beyond human control. On the other hand, Janet’s thinking reflected the cultural role of privileged women of that era. Society accustomed women of leisure to a seemingly gentle, passive existence in which demure ladies attained their goals through indirect means. With this feeling of being limited in personally directing their lives, many of these women tended to brooding reflection of their perplexities.

Ominous perceptions, however, could not spoil the marital bliss that the Montgomery newly weds enjoyed. The Livingstons welcomed Richard into their family, and he emerged as an industrious and faithful husband who cherished his quiet, rural life. Janet readily accepted her position as a devoted and dutiful wife.

Still, the couple experienced some areas of contention. Janet, for instance, wanted to have a child, particularly a son, as soon as possible. However, Richard did not share her enthusiasm. He chided her by saying, “Be contented, Janet. Suppose we had a son, and he was a fool. Think of that!” As in most other matters, Janet deferred to her husband’s judgment.¹⁵

In a letter written in late 1774 to Perkins Magra—friend of both Richard and Janet, and an officer who had served with Montgomery in his previous British regiment—Montgomery admitted to nostalgia about his former comrades: “There are some in the corps [17th Regiment] for whom I entertain a more cordial regard than I shall probably ever feel again for any of my fellow creatures.” The newly established country squire then turned to a description of his present life, writing with zeal and pride about the improvements he had initiated on his small estate: “ ‘Tis a pity you can’t come help me plan a house which I shall lay the foundation of this fall. My mill is almost finished.” He also confirmed his contentment in his current existence: “Your suspicions touching my hobby horse are not well founded. I rode a skittish nag for fifteen years. A country life is the only recourse of disappointed ambition, to have something to do the surest means of procuring good spirits and comfortable feelings.” The retired soldier closed his letter with a fateful remark: “I begin to think I shan’t die by a pistol.”¹⁶

By 1775, emerging events surrounding increasingly antagonistic relations between the colonies and England interrupted the tranquil life of the Montgomerys. The practice of maintaining unwanted British soldiers in the colonies under the Quartering Acts had resulted in the Boston Massacre, and the protracted series of restrictive trade and taxation acts culminated with the Boston Tea Party in late 1773 and the Intolerable or Coercive Acts of 1774. These last measures brought the closing of the port of Boston and the declaration of martial law in that colony. All of these points of contention contributed to unraveling the bonds of the parent British state with the American colonies. When colonial leaders gathered at the First Continental Congress in September 1774, the situation had reached crisis proportions. With the open hostilities between British troops and colonial militia at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, and the convening of the Second Continental Congress in May 1775, American patriots decided to secure a full redress of their grievances with Britain by armed rebellion.

The most publicized events that received the bulk of British reaction erupted in Massachusetts, which Parliament considered to be the seedbed of the revolt. Similar incidents, however, occurred throughout the colonies. New York produced its share of extralegal activities directed against British authority. Yet, avid patriots in other colonies occasionally faulted their fellow colony for demonstrating an apathetic zeal toward their cause. After returning home from a visit to New England in the summer of 1773, a Philadelphia enthusiast wrote to his friend in Boston that patriotism “seemed to have taken but shallow root in some places, particularly New York, where political principles are truly as unfixed as the wind. One year sees the New Yorkers champions for liberty, and the next hugging their chains.”¹⁷

The reputation thus acquired by New York was mostly unfair. The slow maturation of the patriot infrastructure in this province largely resulted because New York City functionally served as the capital of the British government in the colonies. Many New Yorkers, probably more than anywhere else, owed their livelihoods to the English bureaucracy. This widespread affiliation took some time to erode and generated a deceptive image of the colony. New York was slow in its revolutionary efforts only in contrast to the New England colonies, the crucible of the Revolution. The tortuous path of New York’s patriot movement concealed the depth of its commitment only to an unwary observer.

Six weeks before the Boston Massacre, New York City residents rioted against British troops. On January 19, 1770, strained civil-military relations in Manhattan led to two days of street fighting, referred to as the Battle of Golden Hill. Built-up animosity between royal military forces stationed in the city and the populace precipitated open fighting between British soldiers and New Yorkers in the Golden Hill area on John Street. Hostilities between the two factions resumed the next day with a second riot on Nassau Street before order returned.

A disturbance involving a felled liberty pole served as the provocation for this incident. In March 1766, New Yorkers joined most of the other colonies in erecting so-called liberty poles to celebrate the repeal of the unpopular Stamp Act, a major political victory over Parliament. These structures usually occupied a prominent location in the town. They functioned as patriotic symbols and rallying points for speeches and demonstrations espousing opposition to British policies in the colonies.

British troops, who considered themselves faithful agents of the Crown, regarded the liberty poles as a flagrant insult to imperial authority. Usually acting without specific orders while off duty, soldiers felt honor bound to cut the liberty poles down as quickly as they reappeared. The destruction of the fifth successive liberty pole in New York City resulted in the Golden Hill and Nassau Street riots, involving some sixty harassed troops and hundreds of angry civilians. During these brief but intense clashes, soldiers used bayonets against threatening crowds armed with weapons of opportunity. Although the participants suffered no fatalities and most casualties amounted to only cuts and bruises, the encounters underscored the combustibility of anti-British sentiment in New York.¹⁸

The reported case of Michael Smith glorified the individual action supposedly taken by some New York citizens in this affair. When word of the confrontation reached Smith, a Broadstreet chairmaker’s apprentice, he grabbed a leg of an unassembled chair and ran toward the commotion. Using the chair leg as a club, he attacked a British grenadier and captured the soldier’s weapon. Smith triumphantly returned to his shop after the fray with the musket and bayonet. He regarded the appropriated firearm as a trophy of his personal triumph over the British, and proudly displayed it while relating the circumstances of its acquisition on any occasion that presented itself. The New York Sons of Liberty seized upon these particular acts by New Yorkers to build the participants into folk heroes and strengthen the patriot rhetoric against ministerial government.

Some partisan commentators erroneously reported later that the troops killed one citizen during the New York riots and touted the skirmish as the “first blood shed” in the American Revolution. The Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770, however, with its confirmed fatalities, overshadowed the Battle of Golden Hill in the contemporary patriot mind.¹⁹

New York also participated in its own tea party. In May 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act to rescue the floundering British East India Company. Since the company represented the largest business establishment in the British Empire, this commercial enterprise was so vast that it influenced the national economy. Unfortunately, the tea trade had fallen into desperate economic straits that threatened the British financial climate. Colonial boycotts over previous British government revenue measures were responsible, in large part, for a large stockpile of unsold tea in England and the company’s possible bankruptcy. In passing the act, the government intended to give the East India Company a monopoly on tea sales in the colonies. Parliament hoped that this marketing concession would relieve the company’s warehouses, which were burdened with 18 million pounds of surplus tea.

Even though the Tea Act would actually lower the price of tea for the consumer, it would eliminate colonial middlemen and errant tea-smuggling operations that especially flourished in the provinces of New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Thus, powerful colonists engaged in this lucrative business stood to lose a part of their commercial domain, and they joined with popular patriot leaders to turn public opinion against the bill. The issue that emerged from these circumstances was that Parliament had devised yet another devious scheme to tax the colonies without representation, requiring the colonists to continue their vigilance against imperial slavery by resisting East India tea. When the tea ships arrived from England at the principal ports of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, hostile crowds awaited them. Boston Harbor became the site of the first encounter, resulting in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, where a well-organized crowd destroyed the tea by dumping it into the water before it could be unloaded.

By the fall of 1773, the people of New York had become concerned over the tea tax as well. Constant public attention focused by local media and frequent rumors that the tea ships were approaching kept the populace agitated. The Sons of Liberty circulated an “association” pledge not to buy, sell, or use East India tea, and a wide cross section of New Yorkers signed. A clandestine patriot body, calling itself the “Mohawks,” published a notice in Rivington’s Gazetteer on December 2, 1773, that they were “prepared to pay an unwelcome visit” to any ship that arrived with the boycotted tea. News of the celebrated Boston Tea Party reached New York by December 21, 1773, to heighten dissension further.

Finally, on April 18, 1774, a tea ship anchored outside New York Harbor. After several days of heated negotiations with the patriot “committee of inspection,” the captain prudently decided not to risk the wrath of New Yorkers by trying to unload his consignment of tea, and he began to make preparations for a return to England. The master of another tea ship that arrived on April 22, 1774, was not as accommodating. He docked his vessel at a New York pier and attempted to conceal its cargo of tea while he devised a way to off-load it. The patriots suspected his plot, and their intelligence network soon confirmed their skepticism. Facing mounting animosity, the unnerved captain eventually broke down and admitted his cargo included East India tea.

Patriot activists immediately started to plan operations to prevent unloading of the tea. That night, a large crowd, under the influence of the Sons of Liberty, assembled at the wharf where the tea ship was docked. The “Mohawks” were expecting to do their duty by disposing of the tea at a prearranged time. However, the dockside crowd became so aroused and impatient by about eight o’clock that some of them took matters into their own hands. They boarded the ship and destroyed seventeen chests of tea, valued at £2,000, by opening and throwing them into the harbor. This premature activity by the crowd took the “Mohawks” by surprise, as they were donning Indian disguises in a nearby tavern at the time, and preempted their planned event. The next morning, festive celebrants watched the two tea ships set sail for England— one with all of its tea plundered and ruined, and the other with a hold of undelivered tea. This was New York’s “Tea Party,” which approximated and reinforced that of Boston.²⁰

All of these events formed the backdrop to Montgomery’s studied detachment from politics. Although he favored a simple existence of noninvolvement, his lifestyle was not reclusive. Montgomery must have confronted reports of these happenings on a regular basis as he went about the daily routine of managing his estate. Information concerning aggravated British-colonial relations dominated newspapers, broadsides, pamphlets, rumors, and conversation of the time. In addition, Montgomery no doubt had firsthand knowledge of some of these incidents. He possessed an educated and inquiring mind, and these events begged analysis. The jarring conditions of the times were not conducive to prolonged stoicism. Compelling external forces intruded upon and altered the lives of the colonists. Like the rest of his contemporaries, Montgomery eventually felt the pressure to choose sides in the growing controversy. All alternatives had to be considered to resolve the dilemma in his own mind and arrive at a personal decision. Then, there was the Livingston connection.

The Livingston dynasty projected the family into a position of power in New York provincial politics. Yet, it did not enjoy absolute primacy in this respect. The De Lanceys paralleled the Livingstons in their evolution into prominent and influential families. As these two houses built ambitious and competitive commercial enterprises, it was natural that this contention be extended to the political front. Also, most of the socioeconomically advantaged colonists felt that it was an obligation of their social station to serve the community as political leaders. So, these two families were not the only members of the ruling elite involved in New York politics, but they were undoubtedly the most active. After a visit in early 1774, John Adams noted, “The two great families in this province, upon whose motions all their politics turn, are the De Lanceys and Livingstons.”²¹

The predominance of the Livingstons and De Lanceys in politics dated from the 1740s, and they competed on generally equal terms, with control of the provincial assembly alternating between the two for several decades. Additionally, the Livingston-De Lancey rivalry was not limited to kinship. Political activists of all sorts broadened the partisan system by lining up behind one family standard or the other. In opposing each other, the two factions amended their agendas as political expediency dictated. The Livingstons and De Lanceys engaged in a balancing act between currying favor from the governor and the Crown, and seeking cooperation with an emerging popular movement hostile to ministerial rule. Thus, if changes in the political system were inevitable, each side maneuvered to be well positioned in the new order that would follow. The prerevolutionary period would finally resolve this longstanding family and political rivalry. The Stamp Act crisis opened a crucial period in which the De Lanceys almost delivered a death blow to Livingston political prospects. Both factions supported the Stamp Act Congress held in New York City to voice disapproval of such imperial measures. Judge Livingston served as a delegate to the congress and authored the petition that was sent to King George III, respectfully protesting the stamp legislation. But, the Livingstons suffered from the measured, reasoned manner by which they fashioned their moderate opposition to the British in the general emotional storm that ensued. The De Lanceys fared much better because of the strong ties they forged with the more radical, popularly supported Sons of Liberty.²²

In the aftermath of the Stamp Act protests, a widespread tenant or land riot broke out in the rural districts north of New York City. This general disorder consisted of five hundred to two thousand participants, as disgruntled tenants roamed the countryside in armed bands during 1766 and clashed with the Hudson Valley landlords. During these disturbances, the “levelers,” as they sometimes called themselves, killed and wounded a number of men, burned houses, and destroyed crops. This activity centered on the large Livingston estates and threatened New York City before local law enforcement units and British soldiers subdued the outbreak.²³

A rebellious spirit that challenged established civil authority provided the atmosphere for the tenant riots, although these hostilities were not an integral part of the coming Revolution. The New York Sons of Liberty, for example, regarded the riots as a separate issue and did not support them. A British officer who participated in apprehending the offending tenants snidely remarked in his journal that the Sons of Liberty were “great opposers to these rioters as they were of the opinion no one is entitled to riot but themselves.”²⁴

Judge Livingston’s propensity for law and order in protecting manorial property was revealed when his cousin, the lord of Livingston Manor adjacent to Clermont, wrote to him for advice on dealing with riotous tenants. The judge responded, “I would let the mob go on their own way and as soon as they had separated get a warrant and take up those that are most dangerous and guilty, and carry them to Albany Gaol. . . . If they should chance kill any person in the Fray every man of them is guilty of murder and the Government must interpose even if they should be obliged to raise men for the purpose.”²⁵

The Quartering or Mutiny Act matter heated up after authorities quelled the tenant uprising. This legislation required colonial assemblies to provide quarters and supplies for British soldiers stationed in their province. Parliament had annually passed temporary acts for quartering troops in America during the French and Indian War. Many Americans came to regard the acts as strictly wartime emergency measures. After the conclusion of hostilities, therefore, the colonies proved less willing to support the British military establishment in their midst. Yet at the time of its passage in 1765, the latest act stirred little controversy in the New York Assembly. Its members were too occupied with adopting resolutions against the Stamp Act to give the Quartering Act much of their attention.

Parliament persisted in seeking adherence to its decree. Now reeling from recent events, the Livingstons embraced the quartering statute in the hope that British troops could safeguard the colony from such domestic law-breaking and attacks on property as experienced during the land riots. Since they were the principal plaintiff in the riots, the Livingstons’ self-interest in the bill was all too obvious. As a result, they appeared to be willing to jeopardize the common good—because the same British soldiers could also be used to enforce the Stamp Act and other objectionable ministerial measures—for selfish considerations.

The Livingston-led New York assembly pushed through quartering-enabling legislation in July 1766. Even so, the measure did not fully conform with the Quartering Act. It did not acknowledge Parliament’s authority to pass such a law and treated the requirement as a mere requisition, with the final decision resting with the New York assembly. Mounting tensions over the measure led to a clash between citizens and soldiers on August 11, 1766. Subsequent action by the New York assembly led to continued reluctance for unconditionally implementing provisions of the bill. On July 2, 1767, a frustrated Parliament declared the province in rebellion and passed the New York Restraining Act, which ordered the assembly suspended effective October 1, 1767, as punishment for noncompliance. Meanwhile, New York assemblymen voted for a more liberal interpretation of the Quartering Act, but it still fell significantly short of complete conformity. Fearing that a prolonged confrontation with New York over the issue might unite the colonies in opposition and defeat its original intent, Parliament decided not to invoke the suspension.

The damage had already been done. The Restraining Act, even though it had not been enforced, provided a cause célébre to kindle colonial resistance. Richard Henry Lee, the ardent Virginia patriot, referred to the act as a “flaming sword over our heads.”²⁶ New York’s recalcitrance toward the Quartering Act also provided an example for other colonies to emulate. Of the seven continental colonies (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Georgia, South Carolina, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania) specifically affected by the Quartering Act, all but two (Connecticut and Pennsylvania) followed New York by refusing full compliance at one time or another.²⁷

As a result of the Livingstons’ conspicuous advocacy of the Quartering Act, public opinion increasingly regarded the family leaders as self-serving patricians who had lost touch with the general cause. The De Lanceys took good advantage of the situation to discredit and displace the Livingston political machine. After 1769, most members of the Livingston family grew dispirited and withdrew from New York politics. William Livingston, the cousin of Judge Robert R. Livingston, actually left New York in 1772 and settled at his country retreat, Liberty Hall, near Morristown, New Jersey. He quickly adapted to politics in that colony and became its first revolutionary governor. Judge Livingston remained as the only member of the former dynasty with an important political office after 1769. Never since the first Livingston entered public life in the seventeenth century had the family political fortunes sunk so low.²⁸

The continuing revolutionary crisis brought a remarkable turnaround in the Livingston-De Lancey rivalry. By 1773, the De Lanceys joined the movement in support of the British and became the senior loyalist faction in America. This unfortunate decision wrecked their provincial interests and political influence. Their property in the colony suffered sacking and confiscation as members of the De Lancey family eventually emigrated to England. The Livingstons, on the other hand, managed to shed their previous stigma and became imbued with intensified patriot commitment. Their revived association with the revolutionary element propelled the family once more into a political leadership position in New York.

Shortly after Montgomery became a member of the Livingston clan, the family engaged in a political discussion. Janet, in her memoirs, described how her grandfather turned to her father and said, “You and I will never live to see this country independent. Montgomery, you may, but (speaking to his grandson) Robert, you will!” Janet continued her remembrance of her grandfather’s passion for American independence: “On the breaking out of war he was in raptures. In beginning with the Bostonians he said ‘They have taken the bull by the horns.’ His sanguine temper made him expect with confidence our independence.” Janet, however, surmised that the turbulent atmosphere of 1775 hastened the end for this aged patriot, who was then in his eighty-seventh year: “I verily believe the Battle of Bunker Hill (of which such a false and disastrous report was made) was his death. He took to his bed immediately, lay a week without pain, and died. The last words he muttered were ‘What news from Boston?’ “ His son, Judge Robert R. Livingston, followed him in death six months later.²⁹

The Livingston family’s stature as ardent supporters of the patriot cause may be gauged by the level of criticism they received from the royalist opposition faction. Thomas Jones, a fervent New York loyalist who vigorously denounced the Revolution as nothing more than widespread lawlessness, singled out the Livingstons for particularly venomous treatment in his history of the Revolution. Jones alleged that a Livingston instigated an atrocity against a British officer in December 1776. The related incident involved the assassination of Capt. Erasmus Phillips as he passed through Princeton to join his regiment: “One of the party who committed the murder, his name shall be mentioned, was a John Livingston, one of the sons of Robert R. Livingston, late one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the province of New York. This barbarian, in a public company at Middletown, in Connecticut, boasted of this horrid murder as an act of heroism, a noble achievement; and so little remorse had he for this cruel act in which he had taken a principal part, that he declared, ‘That Captain Phillips made one of the handsomest corpses he had ever beheld.’ “Jones continued quoting remarks that he attributed to John Livingston: “ ‘We stripped him,’ says he, ‘of all his clothes and left him naked in the street.’ ‘I thought,’ added he, ‘that I should be obliged to have cut his head off, to get at his diamond stock buckle, but I effected my purpose by breaking his neck and turning his head topsy turvy.’ “ Jones concluded this lurid account with a provocative condemnation: “Let the public judge whether a more barbarous, cruel, unchristianlike act was ever committed among civilized nations. But it was done by rebels. It was an act of rebellion, and done by people who bragged of their humanity.”³⁰

After 1773, the Livingston family embraced the patriot movement en masse. All of Judge Livingston’s sons who were old enough became involved in the Revolution in some capacity. Even all his sons-in-law actively participated in the conflict against Britain. So, the persuasion of the Livingstons must have fallen heavily on Montgomery. Yet, the former British officer was a strong-willed person, quite capable of independent thinking. He reached his individual decision after considering all the realities as he perceived them at the time. Like many other provincial inhabitants, of which he was now one, Montgomery grew to regard himself less as an Englishman and more as a self-determining American. Increasingly, he viewed England in antagonistic terms as an unneeded, oppressive, and even tyrannical parent-state. Montgomery perceived little benefit to be derived from the British government and resented its dictatorial interference in his life. Montgomery’s lingering bitterness over his rejected commission in the British army certainly conditioned his attitude. In time, he became estranged from his former allegiance to England. Thus, the influence of the Livingston family ties and his own intellectual convictions combined to draw Montgomery inexorably into the patriot cause.