248 



The Correct Arms of the State of Ncio York. 



should approve ; and a new great seal with a written description, to 

 be preserved in the secretary's office. This law of 1809 makes no men- 

 tion of the Arms of the State.* 



A law passed Feb. 25, 1813, does not differ from the law of 1801 ex- 

 cept that it includes a seal for the office of the secretary of State, under 

 a like requirement for the preservation of a description of the Arms. 

 Chap. XIV, Sec. 6, requires " That the descriptions in writing of the 

 Arms and of the great and privy seal of this State and of the seal of 

 office of the secretary of this State, deposited and recorded in the office 

 of the secretary of this State, shall remain as public records ; and the 

 arms and great and privy seal aforesaid, and the seal of office of the 

 secretary, of which descriptions in writing have been deposited and 

 recorded as aforesaid, shall be, and continue the arms, the great seal, 

 and the privy seal, and the seal of office of the secretary of this State.'.'f 



The State Arms are not again mentioned in this law, nor in any law 

 of this State since that date, except as they are mentioned in the re- 

 vised statutes; and the language in the last edition of 1875 relating 

 to the Arms and Seals, is the following : 



" Sect. 20. The description, in writing, of the arms of this State, 

 and of the great and privy seals, and of the seal of office of the secre- 

 tary of State, deposited and recorded in the secretary's office, shall re- 

 main as public records; and the said arms shall continue to be the arms 

 of this State, and the said seal of office, to be the seal of office of the 

 secretary of State." \ 



The declaration that there is somewhere a standard Arms of the 

 State, that can be appealed to, is here very emphatic; and the import- 

 ance of the declaration will be seen in the sequel. 



Of all the descriptions of the arms and seals alleged to have been 

 deposited and recorded in the secretary of this State's office," not 

 one can be found, I am assured, except a brief description, without 

 heraldic detail, of the seal of 1809. The search for these descrip- 

 tions has, I believe, been repeatedly made during the last thirty years ; 

 their disappearance, if they ever existed m the office, is not a recent 

 one.§ 



This memorandum containing the description of the great seal of 

 1809, describes a picture, having as a basis the arms of this State, 



*Laws of N. Y., 1809, Chap. 141, p. 135. A description of tliis seal of 1809, 

 signed by Gov. Tompkins, and an impression of it may be found in the volume of 

 Official Seals, Secretary of State's Office. 



f Laws of N. Y., Van Ness & Woodward's ed., vol. I, p. 458. 



^Banks' Ed. of Revised Statutes, 1875, vol. I, p. 535. 



§N. Y. Geneal. and Biog. Record, vol. Ill, p. 18. —N. Y. Civil List, ed. of 

 1857, p. 429. 



