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Mather must have suffered keenly from the public ingratitude; still, at its end he was happy, since he felt certain of being rewarded by the Lord; for, just as the earl's administration was closing, he had succeeded by unremitting toil in so adjusting the legislature as to think the spoil his own; when, alas, suddenly, without warning, in the most distressing manner, the prize slipped into Bellomont's pocket.
Reynolds also tells that Livingston loaned money at ten per cent. Wright's "Industrial Evolution in the United States"; see also his article "Wages" in Johnson's Encyclopædia. The New York Colonial Documents relate that in 1699 in the three provinces of Bellomont's jurisdiction, "the laboring man received three shillings a day, which was considered dear," iv:588. Colonial Documents, iv:533-554.
One of Bellomont's chief complaints was that the landgraves monopolized the timber supply. He recommended the passage of a law vesting in the King the right to all trees such as were fit for masts of ships or for other use in building ships of war. "Colonial New York," 1:285-286. According to Reynolds's "Albany Chronicles," Livingston was in collusion with Captain Kidd, the sea pirate.
Bellomont's incumbency was mild, and chiefly memorable by reason of his having commissioned a certain William Kidd to suppress piracy; but Kidd if tradition is to be believed: certainly his most unfair and prejudiced trial in London afforded no evidence of it found more pleasure in the observance than in the breach, and became the most famous pirate of them all.
The Mathers were no match for these two men, and few routs have been more disastrous than theirs. Lord Bellomont's sudden death had put an end to all hope of obtaining a charter by compromise with England, and no further action had been taken, when, on September 12, 1707, Willard died.
"Does he think that I am afraid of him? He claims the Iroquois, but they are none of his. They call me father, and they call him brother; and shall not a father chastise his children when he sees fit?" A conversation followed, in which Frontenac asked the envoy what was the strength of Bellomont's government.
The general facts as to their grants, of course, are well known, but the same specific, underlying details, such as may be disinterred from Bellomont's correspondence, are lacking. In New York, at least, and presumably during Fletcher's sway of government in Pennsylvania, great land grants went for bribes. This is definitely brought out in Bellomont's official communications.
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