Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.
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| citizens whom he believed to be his enemies. He treated the Calvinist dominies as roughly as their flocks, and all the men of property became greatly alarmed. The leading Dutch and French citizens made common cause with the English, and sent a vigorous remonstrance to the home government praying for relief, and denouncing Leisler as an “insolent alien” who had tyrannized over the city, holding the lives and property of all citizens at his mercy, and setting up as rulers men of the meanest station and capacity, and often of criminal antecedents. Doubtless much of this opposition was due merely to an aristocratic dislike of anything like democracy; but Leisler’s “government of the people” had beyond question begun to degenerate into government by the mob and by a tyrant. His overbearing conduct alienated the mass of the mechanics, craftsmen, and laborers; and he was soon left unsupported save by the men he had put in office, and by the militia, in whose ranks he had left only his own adherents. |
| The repeated petitions of the citizens attracted the attention of King William; and to stop the disorders a governor (Sloughter) and a lieutenant-governor (Ingoldsby) were duly commissioned, and sent out to the colony with an adequate force of regular troops. The ship carrying the governor was blown out of its course; and when Ingoldsby, early in February, 1691, landed on Manhattan |