r tea pot;
napkins of the very finest materials; toast and bread and
butter in great perfection. After breakfast a plate of
beautiful peaches, another of pears and a muskmelon were
placed on the table."

The Revolution proved the utter ruin of these great landed
proprietors, who naturally espoused the cause of the British court.
The habits of life to which they and their fathers had been accustomed
necessarily rendered all the levelling doctrines of the Revolution
offensive to them. They rallied around the royal banners and went down
with them.

Some few of the landed proprietors espoused the cause of the people.
Among others may be mentioned the Livingstons and the Schuylers, the
Jays, the Laurences, and a portion of the Van Courtlands, and of the
Morris family. Fortunately for the Patroon Van Rensselaer, he was a
minor, and thus escaped the peril of attaching himself to either
party.

Negro slavery in a mild form prevailed in these early years in New
York. The cruel and accursed system had been early introduced into the
colony. Most of the slaves were domestic servants, very few being
employed in the fields. They were treated with personal kindness.
Still they were bondmen, deprived of liberty, of fair wages, and of
any chance of rising in the world. Such men cannot, by any
possibility, be contented with their lot. Mr. William L. Stone, in his
very interesting History of New York, writes:

"As far back as 1628, slaves constituted a portion of the
population of New Amsterdam; and to such an extent had the
traffic in them reached that, in 1709, a slave market was
erected at the foot of Wall street, where all negroes who
were to be hired or sold, stood in readiness for bidders.
Their introduction into the colony was hastened by the
colonial establishment of the Dutch in Brazil and upon the
coast of Guinea, and also by the capture of Spanish and
Portuguese prizes with Africans on board.

"Several outbreaks had already happened among the negroes of
New Amsterdam; and the whites lived in constant anticipation
of trouble and danger from them. Rumors of an intended
insurrection real or imaginary, would circulate, as in the
negro plot of 1712, and the whole city be thrown into a
state of alarm. Whether there was any real danger on these
occasions, cannot now be known. But the result was always
the same. The slaves