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
Thomas Hayes (Lord Mayor) Thomas Hayes (Lord Mayor) Sir Thomas Hayes (died 27 September 1617) was an English merchant who was Lord Mayor of London in 1614. Hayes was a city of London merchant and a member of the Worshipful Company of Drapers. On 22 December 1603 he was elected an alderman of the City of London for Bishopsgate ward. He was knighted on 26 July 1603. He was Sheriff of London for the years 1604 to 1605. In 1613 he was elected alderman for Cornhill ward. In 1614, he was elected Lord Mayor of London. Hayes married a daughter of Robert Howse who