History of New York City (1665–1783) port British ships evacuated in 1783. The English had renamed the colony the Province of New York, after the king's brother James, Duke of York and on June 12, 1665, appointed Thomas Willett the first of the Mayors of New York. The city grew northward and remained the largest and most important city in the Province of New York, becoming the third largest in the British Empire after London and Philadelphia. The Dutch regained the colony briefly in 1673, then finally lost it permanently to the English in 1674 after the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Leisler's Rebellion, an uprising in which
John Willett Adye John Willett Adye John Willett Adye (1745–1815), in later life John Willett Willett, was an English plantation owner and politician. He was the second son of Stephen Adye of St Kitts and his wife Clara Payne, born 1 January 1745. He was adopted while still young by Ralph Willett, a first cousin of his mother. After education at Lincoln's Inn, he took to the gentlemanly life of a collector, following the example of his adoptive father Willett. Willett died in 1795. Adye was his principal heir, to plantations in St Kitts, and under a condition of the will took Willett