Under these instruments and principles the rule of England, and the Lord Proprietorship of the Duke of York had its beginning in the "Province of New York in America." That Proprietorship lasted twenty-one years, (excepting only the fifteen months of the Dutch reconquest), ending on the 6th of February, 1685, on which day, by the death of his brother, King Charles, the Duke became James the Second, King of England. His Proprietary rights merging in those of the Crown on his accession to the throne. New York became thenceforward a Royal Province under a Royal Government, uncontrolled by any charter. From that time till the close of the American Revolution by the Peace of 1783, she so remained, the freest and most flourishing of all the British American Provinces, ruled by her own people, enacting her own laws, supporting her own government

1 See Tatent.

THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.

and local institutions by taxation imposed by her own elected Legislature, and by her own parish, town, and county authorities.

The slight interruption, by the Dutch reconquest from the 9th of August, 1(573, to the 10th of November, 1674, did not, except for the time being, change the character of the Proprietorship of the Duke of York in point of fact. But as the Province was rest')red by the Dutch to England as a conquest under a treaty and a formal surrender of it pursuant to such treaty, the crown lawyers in England held that the Dutch I'econquest in 1673 terminated the Duke's Proprietorship; and that the renamed Province of New Netherland was vested anew in Charles the Second as King solely by the treaty of Westminster in 1674. Therefore a new Patent was granted by the King to the Duke on the 29th of June, 1674. It was almost in the same words as the first, vesting him again with the same sweeping and absolute rights and powers, but not mentioning the first Patent nor referring to it in any way.