dared not consent.
The contention went to the courts and there dragged along for many years. Astor, however, won his point; it was decided that he had a valid title. Finally in 1827 the Legislature allowed itself13 to compromise, although public opinion was as bitter as ever. The State gave Astor $500,000 in five per cent stock, specially issued, in surrender of his claim.14 Thus were the whole people taxed to buy, at an exorbitant price, the claim of a man who had got it by artifice and whose estate eventually applied the interest and principal of that stock to buying land in New York City. Thus also can a considerable part of the Astor fortune be traced to Adolphus Phillips, son of Frederick, the partner, protector and chief spoil-sharer of Captain Burgess, sea pirate, and whose estate, the Phillips manor, had been obtained by bribing Fletcher, the royal governor.
But while Astor gradually appropriated vast tracts of land in Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa and other parts of the West, and levied his toll on one-third