Note 34 — Chapter VI · KINGS COUNTY AFTER THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 1665-1700

"The government of the colony was at once put on the basis on which it stood until the outbreak of the Revolution. There was a governor appointed by the king, and a council likewise appointed; while the assembly was elected by the freeholders. The suffrage was thus limited by a strict property qualification. Liberty of conscience was granted to all Protestant sects, but not to Catholics; and the Church of England was practically made the state church, though the Dutch and French congregations were secured in the rights guaranteed them by treaty. It was, then, essentially a class or aristocratic government,—none the less so because to European eyes the little American colony seemed both poor and rude."—Theodore Roosevelt, New York, p. 71.