During the ton years following The arrival of the first royal governor under King William, and the definite erection of representative government in the province, there was a steady expansion of population, wealth, and enterprise. Sloughter died only two months after Leisler's execution, and was succeeded as governor the next year by Benjamin Fletcher, who was superseded in 1G98 by the Earl of Belloniont. one of the best and most conscientious of New York's early colonial rulers. Philipse and Van Cortlandt, who had been sent into retirement by Leisler, were recalled to the council by Sloughter, and both of them thus resumed their old-time prominence. It has already been recorded how Philipse, on account of the notoriety attaching to his connection with unlawful traffic, was finally forced to resign from the council. This traffic, while vexatious to the government officials and increasingly demoralizing, was far from beingregarded with general disapprobation by the commercial community of New York. Too many were interested in its gains to admit of such hostility, and, indeed, the large private interests concerned in it were mainly responsible for the extensive proportions to which it grew in the closing years of the seventeenth century. Ir was not confined to the ordinary forms of smuggling -- mere surreptitious importations oftaxable European goods. -- but included relations of more Seharf,

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HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

" The most apor less intimacy with the pirates of the high seas. proved course usually pursued was to load a ship with goods for Rum costing two exchange and sale on the Island of Madagascar. shillings per gallon in New York would fetch fifty to sixty shillings A pipe of Madeira wine costing nineteen pounds in in Madagascar. New York could be sold for three hundred pounds in that distant Not that just so much specie would be given for these island.