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PREFACE TO VOLUME TEN xvii

The Leisler rebellion in New York (Jacob Leisler,
p. 512) was the outgrowth of the anti-Catholic wave
that swept over England and ber colonies during the
reign of James II, and Leisler’s imagination greatly
magnified the danger of a general religious war. He
was no traitor to William of Orange; his effort was
to hold the government for the Protestant cause. But
he possessed none of the qualities of a leader-——a sim-
ple New York merchant, his education did not fit him
for the trying emergencies in which he was placed.
He was wrong in seizing the government and this act
made him many enemies, but his intentions were good,
and his execution after the danger was passed was a
judicial mistake. He perished a victim to party ma-
lignity. The first to raise the standard of William
and Mary he was the frst to suffer as a traitor, In
later years his estate was restored to his family and
an act of Parliament reversed his attainder. His vio-
lence and incompetency were forgotten in sympathy
for the injustice of his death, and his friends became
a suceessful party and one of his principal enemies
was himself condemned as a rebel and a traitor.

The trial of Nicholas Bayard (p. 518) for High
Treason in 1702, appropriately follows Jacob Leisler’s
ease in 1691. They explain each other and are both
singularly illustrative of the condition of the Prov-
ince at the periods when they occurred, distracted as
it was by two rival factions who carried their dissen-
tions to an excess which has no parallel in this coun-
try. The aceonnt is derived from standard historical
works and from a full report of the trial which ap-
pears to have been prepared by Bayard himself or
some of his friends and which is contained in the
fourteenth volume of Howell’s State Trials. There

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