“It is significant that we first begin to notice Irish names after the administration of Governor Dongan had commenced. The commanding position held by an Irishman for the first time in Colonial history must have attracted to this colony many of his less favored compatriots, who found here not only a haven of refuge where they could practise their religion, but a favored spot where under his enlightened sway the hope of entire civil liberty was near realization. The life and services of Thomas Dongan have never received their just recognition at the hands of historians, nor do we realize the debt, which, as citizens of a great city, we owe this man whose conceptions of liberty were far in advance of his time. At the risk of triteness I cannot forbear epitomizing his career, for it is that of the first Irishman who not only figured prominently in the city’s history, but, as well, moulded its future and made it possible of achievement. Thomas Dongan, second Earl of Limerick, was born in 1634 at Castletown, County Kildare, Ireland, the youngest of the three sons of Sir John Dongan, Baronet. His mother was a sister of Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel and Lieutenant-Governor of Ireland. The family removed to France after the execution of Charles I, when Dongan entered the army and was commissioned by Louis XIV, in an Irish regiment, where he rose by degrees to the rank of Colonel. Returning to England after the Restoration, after declining an offer of preferment in the French Army, he was commissioned and an annual pension of five hundred pounds given him. In the same year, 1678, he was sent as Lieutenant-Governor to Tangier under Lord Inchiquin, where he served for two years, returning to London to spend the life of a man of society and a favorite at Court. Through the influence of the Duke of York he was made Governor of the Province of New York, his jurisdiction including parts of Maine besides Long Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and all the land from the Connecticut River to Delaware Bay. He was also commissioned Vice-Admiral. Arriving in New York August 25, 1683, from Nantasket, he had on the way hither promised the inhabitants of the easterly end of Long Island that ‘no laws or rates for the future should be imposed but by a General Assembly’—but a slight foretaste of what he was really to accomplish. The population of the city was then less than four thousand and it extended from the Bay to the entrenchments along Wall Street. From the Collect Pond (the site of the Tombs) to the northwest towards the North River extended a marsh of seventy acres. From the Bouweries to Harlem there stretched a wood haunted by bears and wolves, and within the city walls themselves bear hunts took place in the orchards, one located between Cedar Street and Maiden Lane. Under his rule, general hunts were held to exterminate wolves from the city. The inhabitants