a force of four ships and 450 soldiers, under the command of Colonel Richard Nicholls, was sent to New Amsterdam to take possession of that city.  It arrived at the Narrows about the 29th of August, and on the 30th, Nicholls demanded the surrender of the town. 

Stuyvesant, who had made preparations for defending the place, endeavored to resist the demand, but the people refused to sustain him, and he was obliged to submit.  On the 8th of September, 1664, he withdrew the Dutch garrison from the fort, and embarked at the foot of Beaver street for Holland.  The English at once took possession of the town and province, changing the name of both to New York, in honor of the new proprietor.

The English set themselves to work to conciliate the Dutch residents, a task not very difficult, inasmuch as the English settlers already in the province had to a great degree prepared the way for the change.  In 1665, the year after the conquest, the city was given a Mayor, a Sheriff, and a board of Aldermen, who were charged with the administration of municipal affairs, and in the same year jury trials were formally established.  In July, 1673, the Dutch fleet recaptured the town, drove out the English, and named it New Orange.  The peace between Great Britain and Holland, which closed the war, restored the town to the English, November 10th, 1674, and the name of New York was resumed.  The Dutch Government was replaced by the English system under a liberal charter, and during the remainder of the seventeenth century the town grew rapidly in

population and size.  In 1689 there was a brief disturbance known as Leislers’ Rebellion.  In 1700 New York contained 750 dwellings and 4500 white and 750 black inhabitants.  In 1693 William Bradford established the first printing press in the city.  In 1696 Trinity Church was begun, and in 1697, the streets were first lighted, a lamp being hung out upon a pole extending from the window of every seventh house.  In 1702 a terrible fever was brought from St. Thomas’, and carried off 600 persons, one-tenth of the whole population.  In 1711, a slave market was established.  In 1719 the first Presbyterian Church was built; in 1725 the New York Gazette, the fifth of the colonial newspapers, was established; and in 1730 stages ran to Philadelphia once a fortnight, and in 1732 to Boston, the latter journey occupying fourteen days.  In 1731 the first public library, the bequest of the Rev. Dr.  Wellington, of England, was opened in the city.  It contained 1622 volumes.  In 1734 a workhouse was erected in the present City Hall Park.  In 1735 the people made their first manifestation of hostility to Great Britain, which was drawn forth by the infamous prosecution by the officers of the crown, of Rip Van Dam, who had been the acting Governor of the town.  The winter of 1740-41 was memorable for its severity.  The Hudson was frozen over at New York, and the snow lay six feet on a level.  In 1741, a severe fire in the lower part of the city destroyed among other things the old Dutch Church and fort, and in the same year the yellow fever raged with great violence.  The principal event of the year, however, was the so-called negro plot for the destruction of the town.  Though the reality of the plot was never proved, the greatest alarm prevailed; the fire in the fort was declared to be the work of the negroes, many of whom were arrested; and upon the sole evidence of a servant girl a number of the poor wretches were convicted and hanged.  Several whites were charged with being the accomplices of the negroes.  One of these, John Ury, a Roman Catholic priest, and, as is now believed, an innocent man, was hanged, in August.  In the space of six months 154 negroes and twenty whites were arrested, twenty negroes were hanged, thirteen were burned at the stake, and seventy-eight were

transported.  The rest were released.  In 1750 a theatre was opened, and in 1755 St. Paul’s Church was erected.  In 1754 the “Walton House,” in Pearl street (still standing), was built by William Walton, a merchant.  It was long known as the finest private residence in the city.  In 1755 the Staten Island ferry, served by means of row boats, was established, and in the same year Peck Slip was opened and paved.  In 1756 the first lottery ever seen in the city was opened in behalf of King’s (now Columbia) College.

New York bore a prominent part in the resistance of the colonies to the aggressions of the mother country, and in spite of the efforts of her royalist Governor and the presence of a large number of Tories, responded cordially to the call of the colonies for men and money during the war.  On the 14th of April, 1776, the city was occupied by the American army, the British force stationed there being obliged to withdraw.  On the 26th of August, 1776, the battle of Long Island having been lost by the Americans, New York was occupied by the British, who held it until the close of the war.  It suffered very much at their hands.  Nearly all the churches, except the Episcopal, were used by them as prisons, riding schools, and stables; and the schools and colleges were closed.  On the 21st of September, 1776, a fire destroyed 493 houses, including Trinity Church—all the west side of Broadway from Whitehall to Barclay street, or about one-eighth of the city; and on the 7th of August 1778, about 300 buildings on East River were burned.  The winter of 1779-80 was very severe; there was a beaten track for sleighs and wagons across the Hudson; the ice in that river being strong enough to bear a horse and man as late as the 17th of March; eighty sleighs, with provisions, and a large body of troops, crossed on the ice from the city to Staten Island.  On the 25th of November, 1783, the British evacuated the city, which was at once occupied by the American army.

In 1785 the first Federal Congress met in the City Hall, which stood at the corner of Wall and Nassau streets, and on the 30th of April, 1789, George Washington was inaugurated first President of the United States on the same spot.  By 1791

New York had spread to the lower end of the present City Hall Park, the site of the new Post Office, and was extending along the Boston road, or Bowery, and Broadway.  In 1799, the Manhattan Company for supplying the city with fresh water was chartered.  On the 20th of September, 1803, the cornerstone of the City Hall was laid.  The city fathers, sagely premising that New York would never pass this limit, ordered the rear wall of the edifice to be constructed of brown stone, to save the expense of marble.  Free schools were opened in 1805.  In the same year the yellow fever raged with violence, and had the effect of extending the city by driving the population up the island, where many of them located themselves permanently.  In 1807, Robert Fulton navigated the first steamboat from New York to Albany.

The war of 1812-15 for a while stopped the growth of the city, but after the return of peace its progress was resumed.  In August, 1812, experimental gas lamps were placed in the City Hall Park, though the use of gas for purposes of lighting was not begun until 1825.  In 1822 the yellow fever again drove the population up the island, and caused a rapid growth of the city above Canal street.  In 1825 the Erie Canal was completed.  This great work, by placing the trade of the West in the hands of New York, gave a powerful impetus to the growth of the city, which was at that time spreading at the rate