MISCELLANEOUS.

HOLLAND LAND COMPANY.

TO THE CITIZENS OF CHAUTAUQUE COUNTY:

AUBURN, October 15, 1838.

MISREPRESENTATION of facts and injurious influences, which concern only the political principles and conduct of candidates for popular suffrage, may generally be left to the correction of the press. But misrepresentations and inferences which tend to affect the social or business relations existing between them and their fellow-citizens, may sometimes demand personal notice.

During the last two months many statements have been published calculated to excite apprehensions among you concerning your business relations with the Chautauque land-office.

It is not my intention to question the justice or magnanimity of this mode of attack, or to inquire why those who have been so suddenly overcome by solicitude on behalf of "the hardy and honest settlers of the west" have been so long, as it would now seem, criminally indifferent to your welfare; or whether their kind concern for you will continue after the election which now approaches shall have passed.

Knowing from your intelligence and past liberality that your confidence was not to be easily shaken, I have waited before making this expose, until those engaged in these efforts should have submitted to the public all the accusations they might deem it to their advantage to allege against me. And although to many of you these accusations will now come for the first time, I shall not hesitate to submit them in all their enormity, and in the language in which they have been promulgated.

It was insinuated some two weeks since, by an anonymous correspondent of the Maysville Sentinel, that

"The bonds and mortgages of the settlers of Chautauque county are now in Wall street, New York;" that "some trust company has a deed of all the lands of the settlers;" that "through the agency of Nicholas Biddle and others, William H. Seward has raised money in Europe at an interest of five per cent., while he demands seven per cent. from you;" and that "he and his associates pay interest annually, and extort interest from you semiannually."

These anonymous communications were copied into the Albany Argus, and received the sanction of that journal.

The Albany Argus, of October 3, says: "It is alleged that Mr. Seward, as agent of a few whig speculators, has sold to a foreign corporation mortgages which cover the farms and firesides of thousands of hardy and honest settlers of the west; that he has, by this operation, put their prosperity, quiet, and happiness, in some measure, at the disposal of a soulless corporation, which will have no sympathy with them."

The Rochester Daily Advertiser, still more alarmed for your security, charges that "at the time Seward obtained the mortgages, he promised the settlers (and it was considered a part of the stipulation between him and them) that he would retain the mortgages in his own hands; so that if they were not able to take them up at the expiration of the time for which they were given, Seward could renew them, and thereby prevent the ruin and distress among the honest settlers, which would be the inevitable. consequence of a foreclosure. Instead, however, of doing as he agreed, he immediately sold the mortgages to a foreign corporation. Corporations have no souls, and of course the corporation to which Seward sold the mortgages, will demand payment of the settlers the moment the mortgages expire. If the settlers by any misfortune are not able to raise the amount of money necessary to lift the mortgages, they will be foreclosed, and the farms sold for half what they are worth, and William H. Seward, being a heartless speculator by trade, and wealthy withal, will doubtless be the purchaser, and thus rob the poor settlers of millions of their hard earnings."

It will surprise you, doubtless, that these confident statements

are altogether inconsistent with your own knowledge of your own affairs.

In November, 1835, Wilhelm Willink, Walrave Van Henkelone, Jan Van Eeghen, Cornelis Isaac Vandervliet, and others, living in Amsterdam, in Holland, made an arrangement to sell to Trumbull Cary and George W. Lay, of Batavia, in this state, all their remaining estate, personal and real, in Chautauque county. This estate consisted, as you well know, in wild lands, reverted lands, lands held under valid contracts, and a few bonds and mortgages upon lands sold and conveyed.

The purchase-money upon the sale was payable as follows: $50,000 in hand, and the residue in four equal instalments of six, twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four months. For the security of the Holland Company, it was stipulated that they should retain the legal title of the property, receive all the moneys which should be collected, and take in their own names and retain all securities by bonds, mortgages, and contracts, which should be taken on the sale of the lands, and liquidation of debts. But the local agent of the Holland Company was, as far as should be consistent with its security, governed by the direction of the new (equitable) proprietors.

In May, 1836, application was made to me to assume the agency of the estate. Its condition at that time you well recollect. The land-office had been demolished in a popular commotion. The books, maps, records, and most of the bonds, mortgages, and contracts, had been burned. The business of the estate was altogether suspended. Universal distrust prevailed concerning the title of the Holland Company, as well as the terms and conditions which would be required by the proprietors for a settlement of the great mass of contracts, and the country suffered those ruinous consequences which inevitably follow when the title of its landholders is felt to be in jeopardy. The Holland Company having, about the same time, with a view to withdraw its interests from the country, made similar agreements of sale for other parts of their tract, similar difficulties extended throughout the counties of Erie, Genesee, and Cattaraugus. Such was the popular excitement, that a crowd of seven hundred persons made a descent upon the Holland Company's office at Batavia; and when I repaired to that place to determine whether I would accept the agency proposed, I found the citizens of Batavia or

ganized in a military force, and a corps of men armed, as well as the citizens, from the state arsenal, occupying the land-office, and two block-houses erected for its defence.

Of the causes of these difficulties, as I had no connection with them, it is not for me to speak. It was on that occasion that I received at Batavia the proceedings of your convention, held at Mayville, in June, 1836, in which you resolved that the proprietors be invited to open an office in your county, and pledged yourselves that the settlers would cheerfully pay the principal and interest accrued upon their contracts, but would submit to no extortionate demands by way of what was called the Genesee tariff, compound interest, or otherwise. Accustomed always to confide in the intelligence and justice of the people, I was determined by this expression to accept the trust proposed. Compelled by ill health to relinquish my profession, it seemed to me that I might, without wrong or injury to you, contribute to restore peace, harmony, and prosperity in, that flourishing region of the state, where so much unhappy agitation prevailed; and although I may have erred, this seemed to me not an unworthy object of ambition, nor an ungrateful return of the generous confidence its people had, on a former occasion, bestowed upon me. Nor did it appear to me morally wrong to receive from the purchasers an adequate compensation for my services. The compensation tendered, as an equivalent for the not unprofitable professional pursuits which I abandoned, was invested in the purchase. The Holland Company reposed in me the extreme confidence of constituting me their agent, although I was a purchaser under them, and it is due to them and to the proprietors to say, that without even the previous formality of an agreement in writing, or other instrument than a general letter of attorney, I went among you to undertake the agency you desired should be established.

It was known to me that the Holland Company insisted upon its payments, and that these could only be made by raising a loan in Europe or elsewhere, to meet their demands sooner than they could be collected from you, without intolerable oppressions. I therefore stipulated with the American Trust Company, before commencing my agency, that as soon as the liquidation of the debts by bonds and mortgages could be effected, and the monetary affairs of the country would permit, they should advance me

their bonds for the amount. I secured, also, an understanding with the Holland Company, that they would favor the proprietors and settlers, until I could accomplish this preliminary settlement and security.

Thus prepared, I opened an office, and invited the settlers to liquidate their debts, and to quiet all alarm, as well about the title of their lands, as the terms and conditions of their credit, by taking deeds, and executing bonds aad mortgages for the purchase-money. In less than eighteen months four thousand persons whom I found occupying lands chiefly under expired and legally-forfeited contracts of sale, and excited and embarrassed alike by apprehensions about the uncertainty of ever obtaining titles, and anticipated exaction upon their contracts, became freeholders, upon the terms, at their own option, either of payment of their purchase-money, or payment of a convenient portion thereof, and a credit of five years for the residue.

When the occupant could not pay an advance, and his improvements were insufficient to secure his debt, his contract, no matter how long expired, was renewed without any payment. It was always, as you well know, a principle of my agency, that no man could lose his land by forfeiture if he would but agree to pay for it in five years. There was none so poor that he could not secure his "farm and his fireside." I think, too, you will recollect that to the sick and infirm, I invariably sent the papers for securing their farms; to the indigent the money to bear their expenses to the land-office; and, since I am arraigned as a "soulless speculator," I may add, that to the widow, I always made a deduction from the debt of her deceased husband. To the common schools I gave lands gratuitously for their school-houses. From the time I first went among you to this period, I have never refused any indulgence of credit, and postponement that was asked at my hands. When I found a few persons (as there must necessarily be some) who were very obstinate in refusing terms generally esteemed liberal, I appealed to them first through the public newspapers, then by letters through the postoffice, and finally by a message sent directly to their houses. When these efforts failed to arrest their attention, and in a few cases legal proceedings or forfeitures were necessary, I uniformly conveyed the lands upon the same terms as if the occupants had