Political astuteness, or perhaps a desire to enjoy in quiet his advancing years, had led Clarke to yield to the popular party on all important points. He had confined himself to wordy remonstrances in surrendering several of his prerogatives. His successor, Admiral George Clinton,—the second son of the Earl of Lincoln, and, as he acknowledged himself, a friend and cousin of Charles Clinton, father of Governor George Clinton of a later date,—found that the position of governor had ceased to be financially desirable. New Jersey had been again placed under a separate governor, thus reducing the income of the governor of New York by £1,000. “Former governors,” it is reported, “had the advantage of one of the four companies, besides the paying of all the four companies, which made at least £2,000 per annum;” but now the assembly had placed this in other hands. [Illustration: GOVERNOR CLINTON. From a plate in Valentine’s _N. Y. City Manual_, 1851.] They had also interfered with a former custom, according to which the governors drew one half of their salary from the date of their commissions; but under the new arrangement for raising and paying the salary he could only draw it from the date of his arrival. Clinton brought with him a prejudice against his lieutenant-governor which was perhaps justified, for he knew him to have led Cosby into all the errors which characterized the latter’s administration. But instead of maintaining an independent position apart from the two political parties, he threw himself into the arms of the cunning Chief Justice De Lancey, the leader of the popular faction. Acting under his advice, Clinton at first was as ready to yield every point to the assembly as Clarke had done, until he discovered that all the powers of a governor were gradually slipping into De Lancey’s hand, who hoped to tire out Clinton’s patience and induce him to resign, thus leaving the field free to him with a commission of lieutenant-governor.