Leisler, Jacob.—The first American rebel against the British misrule in America to die for his principles. When the people of the Colonies heard of the revolution in England, they at once made movements to regain law and freedom. In New York, on May31, 1689, Jacob Leisler a (German) Commissioner of the Court of Admiralty, took the fort on Manhattan Island, declared for the Prince of Orange, and planted six cannon within the fort, from which the place was ever afterwards called “The Battery.” A committee of safety was formed which invested Leisler with the powers of a governor. When, however, a dispatch arrived from the authorities of Great Britain, directed to “such person as, for the time being, takes care for preserving the peace and administering the laws in his majesty’s province in New York,” Leisler, considering himself governor, dissolved the Committee of Safety and organized the government throughout the whole province. There was division among the New Yorkers. The minority, being mostly the English aristocracy, were against Leisler; but the people in great majority were in sympathy with him. It was the old conflict between the few and the many, with “all the people” sure to win in the end.... Jacob Leisler was probably among the first of far-sighted men to see the necessity of union against the French.... To him, the importance of a federation of all the colonies seemed vital. After vainly trying to get other governors to unite with him, Leisler, early in1690, sent a small fleet against Quebec.

From the very first New York was infested with that sentiment for unison which she has shown in all political disturbances and wars throughout all her history. Very appropriately, on her soil, was held the first Congress to propose an elaborate plan of union.... A hard-drinking Englishman, named Sloughter, was appointed the royal governor of New York. On his arrival Leisler refused to surrender the fort and government, until convinced that Sloughter was the regularly appointed agent of the King. Those who hated Leisler seized this opportunity of having him and Milborne, his son-in-law, imprisoned. After a short and absurd trial, they were condemned, and the governor, when drunk, signed an order of execution. On May16, 1691, Leisler and Milborne were hanged on the spot east of the Park in New York City where stands the “Tribune” building, opposite which are the statues of Benjamin Franklin and Nathan Hale, and near which the figure of Leisler may yet come to resurrection in bronze. The outrageous act of the King was disapproved. In1695, by an act of Parliament, Leisler’s name was honored, indemnity was paid to his heirs, and the remains of these victims of judicial murder were honorably buried within the edifice of the Reformed Dutch Church. No unprejudiced historian can but honor Leisler, the lover of union, and the champion of the people’s rights. (“The Romance of American Colonization,” by William Elliot Griffis,D.D.)

A bust of Leisler was unveiled a few years ago at New Rochelle, N.Y., as Governor Leisler had given welcome to the French refugees coming to New York, and made provision for them by purchasing land at New Rochelle. Leisler sought in1690 to do what Benjamin Franklin tried to accomplish in1740 toward a union of the colonies for mutual protection.

Benson J.Lossing calls Leisler “the first martyr to the democratic faith of America.”