Under, or rather by, this Act of 1693, the Parishes of Westchester County were constituted.
The reasons why this " Ministry Act," as it was commonly styled, was confined to the regions it names in establishing the Church of England have not been adverted to by any writer who has mentioned it. The Counties it designates were the only portions of the Province in which English-speaking people dwelt, with the single exception of the County of Suffolk, iu the eastern portion of Long Island. In all the other counties of the Province, the Dutch, with many French in two or three of them, were the sole inhabitants. In those counties the Dutch church, for fifty
III. Bradford, 39.
2 III. Col. Hist., 8i% 833. scbalmei-s Opinions, 257.
* II. Bradford's Laws, I'J.
THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.
years prior to 16G4, the Established Church in the Province, with which the French Protestants, outside of New York City, generally affiliated, was maintained in its worship, privileges, property and dependence on the Church of Holland, by the Crown of England, pursuant to the Articles of Surrender of 1(3(34, the Treaty of Breda in 16G7, and the Articles of Surrender of 1674. All that it really lost by the change of dominion from Holland to England was the pecuniary support it derived from the Dutch West India Company under the ditl'erent charters of Freedoms and Exemptions, and the title of the ' Established Church.' Hence it was impossible to establish the English Church in those parts of the Province, where not only were there no English-speaking people, but where the preexisting Dutch Church was guaranteed by the English Crown in its faith, worship, and rights of property, neither of which, by the law of the land, could be interfered with in any way whatsoever.