In the chaos of the American Revolution, many slaves in and around New York had freed themselves simply by disappearing. Slave catchers, known as man-stealers or blackbirders, hunted for runaways and scooped up free blacks if authentic runaways were not to be found. In November 1784, city authorities had foiled an attempt to spirit away a group of free blacks on a ship bound for either Charleston or the Bay of Honduras.
This was the immediate stimulus for the New Yorkers to meet, but they had larger ends in view. A committee of five — Embree, Franklin, Murray Sr., Smith, and Troup — was appointed to draw up the society’s regulations and bylaws for approval at the next meeting, February 4. This time the society met at the Merchant’s Coffee House, the city’s largest. This was a larger meeting, attended by George Clinton, James Duane, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton.
These were ornaments of the New York elite. George Clinton, an upstate landowner and speculator, was the state’s first post-independence governor, now serving his third term (he would serve four more, earning the nickname “Old Incumbent”). James Duane, who had married into the Livingston clan, was New York City’s first post-occupation mayor. John Jay, another Livingston in-law, had been a Revolutionary spymaster, diplomat, and politician who had helped write the state’s constitution. Alexander Hamilton was the newcomer to this group: He was the same age as Robert Troup and had roomed with him at King’s College, later Columbia, before the American Revolution. Like Troup, he had served in the war, though in a loftier position: George Washington had tapped him to be a colonel on his staff.
The list of attendees reflected a unique political moment. New York’s political vanguard (loyalists having been driven into exile or hiding) had led a successful revolution. In the years to come, they would split into hostile parties: Jay and Hamilton on one side, contending with Clinton and Melancton Smith (Jay and Clinton would run against each other for governor twice, each of them winning once). But now a united elite joined with Quakers — always outsiders, pursuing their own goals — in a common cause.