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 Hele (died 1665) Luttrell, a daughter of Thomas Luttrell of Dunster Castle, Somerset, but left no children. He predeceased his father and died at Wigborough at the age of 35 and was buried at South Petherton. His monument survives in Holbeton Church. Thomas Hele (died 1665) Thomas Hele (6 September 1630 – 13 September 1665) of Wigborow, Somerset, was a Member of Parliament for Plympton Erle in Devon from 1661 to 1665. Hele was the eldest son and heir apparent of Sir Thomas Hele, 1st Baronet (died 1670), of Flete, Holbeton in Devon, by his first wife Penelope Johnson, daughter and co-heiress of