Colonial governor; was a soldier of fortune; received the appointment of governor of New York from William and Mary in 1692, and arrived at New York City on Aug. 29 of that year; later in the year was also commissioned to assume the government of
Pennsylvania and the annexed territories; and made his first visit to
Philadelphia in April, 1693.
Fletcher was a colonel in the
British army.
Possessed of violent passions, he was weak in judgment, greedy, dishonest, and cowardly.
He fell naturally into the hands of the aristocratic party, and his council was composed of the enemies of
Leisler.
The recklessness of his administration, his avarice, his evident prostitution of his office to personal gain, disgusted all parties.
He
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continually quarrelled with the popular Assembly, and his whole administration was unsatisfactory.
The Quaker-governed Assembly of Pennsylvania thwarted his schemes for obtaining money for making war on the
French; and he was fortunately led by
Col. Peter Schuyler in all his military undertakings.
The Assembly of Connecticut denied his right to control their militia; and late in the autumn of 1693 he went to
Hartford with
Colonel Bayard and others from New York, and in the presence of the train-bands of that city, commanded by
Captain Wadsworth, he directed (so says tradition) his commission to be read.
Bayard began to read, when
Wadsworth ordered the drums to be beaten.
“Silence!”
said
Fletcher, angrily.
When the reading was again begun, “Drum!
Drum!”
cried
Wadsworth.
“Silence!”
again shouted
Fletcher, and threatened the captain with punishment.
Wadsworth stepped in front of the governor, and, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, he said: “If my drummers are again interrupted, I'll make sunlight shine through you. We deny and defy your authority.”
The cowed governor sullenly folded the paper, and with his retinue returned to New York.
With a pretended zeal for the cause of religion,
Fletcher procured the passage of an act by the Assembly for building churches in various places, and under it the English Church and preaching in English were introduced into New York.
Trinity Church was organized under the act, and its present church edifice stands upon the ground where the first structure was erected.
During
Fletcher's administration, pirates infested American waters; and he was accused not only of winking at violations of the navigation laws, but of favoring the pirates, for private gain.
They sometimes found welcome in the harbor of
New York, instead of being seized and punished.
When
Bellomont, after the treaty of
Ryswick, came over as governor of
Massachusetts, he was commissioned to investigate the conduct of
Fletcher and to succeed him as governor, and he sent him to
England under arrest.
The colony felt a relief when he was gone, for his career had been marked by misrule and profligacy.
