The Correct Arms of the State of New York. 



285 



with the numerousness of other emblems. Among states and nations 

 of previou^ate, I only find it nsed by Persia. It is also ou the 

 patriotic banner of Ireland, called Fingal's and is named the "sun- 

 burst," having been npon the standard of her hero Bryan Boroihme, 

 when he won the decisive victory against the Danes, in the year 1014, 

 at Clontarf. 



On the St. Paul's Chapel picture of the Xew York Arms, we find 

 less than half the body of the sun is represented, but that is the latest 

 and least valuable witness of our three only specimens of the Arms. 

 It is on the wax seal of New York of 1777 that the large proportion 

 of the sun which is exposed shows most conspicuously. 



My second reason for thinking that it is not a mere coincidence that 

 the sun of the New York Arms resembles the sun of the York family 

 is the following: James II, formerly Duke of York, when he had 

 been on the throne for two years, on account of complaints from Gov- 

 ernor Dongan, in 1685, of irregularities in the use of seals in the 

 province of Xew York, sent over the sea, by special command, on 

 August 14, 1687, a new seal, with a sun upon it, which was to be used 

 in the place of all other seals. It reached Xew York, November 19, 

 while Governor Dongan was in Albany. It is thus described by the 

 king's minister, the Earl of Sunderland, in the document containing 

 the warrant for its use in the province: " The obverse has on the one 

 side the eflBgies of the king on horseback in arms, over a landskip of 

 land and sea, with a rising sun." It will be asked if this was a 

 Yorkist sun? Unfortunately it is not known that there is a copy of 

 this seal in existence. The secretary calls it a rising sun, but it could 

 not well have been less than a Yorkist sun, for tliat too was a rising 

 sun according to the legend, though all above the horizon. 



James the Second had been at his birth declared Duke of York, by 

 Charles I, and ten years after he received the patent of Duke of 

 York ; he had read Habington's history of Edward IV ; he was 

 learned and a pedant ; he had been declared proprietor of Xew York 

 in 1(564. 



He gives to it in the place of its old name of Xew Xetherland, the 

 name of its new proprietor. Although the sun had ceased to be used 

 upon the coin of the kingdom for many years, he revives the use of 

 it by placing it upon the new seal of his province, named after him. 

 Can any other supposition be fairly made than that while he did not 

 place there the insignia or arms of his own family, yet that he placed 

 there as emblematic of the name of New York, the cognizance of the 

 family of York ? 



