Richard Nicolls

Richard Nicolls (* 1624 in Ampthill , Bedfordshire ; ⚔ May 28, 1672 off Suffolk , North Sea ) was the first English governor of the province of New York from 1664 to 1668 .

Life

Military career in Europe

Nicolls was the son of the lawyer Francis Nicolls, who held the rank of squire of the 2nd Lord Bruce of Kinloss , and Margaret Nicolls, daughter of the Scottish nobleman and businessman Sir George Bruce . His father was a tenant in the royal hunting estate of Amptshill Park; Because of this fact and because of his family ties to the Scottish nobility, it is not surprising that Nicolls entered the military on the side of the royalists after the outbreak of the English civil war . He commanded a cavalry unit, and his two brothers Edward and Francis became commanders of infantry units. After the defeat of the royalists, he followed with his brothers of the royal family into French exile and there joined the entourage of the Duke of York , who was to become King of England as James II in 1685 . In 1652 he took part in the suppression of the Fronde as part of a military unit led by the Duke under the command of Turenne . After the restoration in 1660, he returned to England and was chamberlain ( groom of the bedchamber ) of the Dukes; his brothers had meanwhile died in exile in France.

Governor of New York

On March 12, 1664, King Charles II granted his brother James , the Duke of York, the entire Atlantic coast between New England and Maryland; the new colony was to be named New York after its owner . So the Dutch colony Nieuw Nederland was to be conquered for the English crown in order to strengthen the English supremacy in North America. In this regard, the king continued the foreign policy of Oliver Cromwell , who had pursued an increasingly aggressive policy of expansion towards the Dutch in North America. Nicolls was put in charge of the expedition to North America. Their goal was next to the conquest Nieuw Nederlands Also, the authority of the restored monarchy in New England ensure - the local English colonies were puritanical dominated and had fought in the Civil War on the side of Cromwell.

The expedition set sail on May 25, 1664 with four ships and around 300 soldiers in Portsmouth . In addition to Nicolls, the heads of the royal delegation included Sir Robert Carr, George Cartwright, and Samuel Maverick. On July 27 of that year the expedition reached Boston, where Nicolls requested reinforcements from the ranks of the New England colonists. Even before these 200 additional men were mobilized, Nieuw Amsterdam , the capital of the Dutch colony , surrendered without a fight against the will of Pieter Stuyvesant a few days after the arrival of the English fleet in front of the city's port on August 27, 1664.

Nicolls took over as acting governor of the new English colony, which from then on bore the name New York. In dealing with the beaten Dutch, he tried to compensate and forbear; he guaranteed them property, freedom of religion and the continued existence of many Dutch civil rights. English law was immediately introduced into the areas of Long Island, Staten Island and Westchester, which were already predominantly or partly populated by English, and gradually introduced into the Dutch-dominated areas. Nicolls and his secretary Mathias Nicolls finally drafted a land law for the colony, the so-called Duke's Laws . They were promulgated at the first general assembly of the colony on March 12, 1665 in Hempstead, Long Island, and remained in force until 1683. When formulating these laws, Nicolls relied in part on the legal codes of the New England colonies, such as the introduction of jury courts and a progressive wealth tax. Despite these concessions, the Duke's Laws were basically rather absolutist. The Duke of York, as the owner of the colony, reserved the right to issue new lease and settlement patents.

Return to Europe

Nicolls returned to England in the summer of 1668 and returned to the service of the Duke of York; his successor in the governorship was Francis Lovelace . Nicolls was fatally wounded in the Third Anglo-Dutch Sea War in the Battle of Solebay on May 28, 1672 when his ship, the Royal Prince , commanded by Sir John Cox, was shot at. The cannonball that killed him was installed as part of his tomb in the sanctuary of the church in his native Ampthill.

literature

• John Andrew Doyle: NICOLLS, RICHARD . In: Dictionary of National Biography , 1885-1900, Vol. 41.