[Frederic Shonnard & W.W. Spooner (1900)] His first public employment was therefore under English rule. He was a member of the original Court of Assizes created by the duke's laws, and thereafter was constantly engaged in official service, hold-ing practically every position of importance in the province except that of governor. His career was probably the most conspicuous and creditable of that of any inhabitant of New York in the seven-teenth century, and " undoubtedly the first brilliant career that any native of New York ever ran." In 1077, at the age of thirty-four, he was appointed mayor of New York, being the first native Amer-ican to hold that office, in which he continued with hardly an in-terruption until his death. He was, with Philipse, one of the orig-inal members of the governor's council, and served in that body without any intermission to the end of his life. At the time of the Leisler regime, the responsibility for the government of the province was temporarily committed to him and Philipse by the de-parting lieutenant-governor, Nicholson, and, although a kinsman of Leisler's, he firmly resisted the hitter's assumption of authority, an act which for a time endangered his life, so that he was obliged to flee from the city. He was later one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the province, and for several months previously to his death was its chief justice. " He was prominent in all the treaties and conferences with the Indians as a member of the council, and was noted for his influence with them.