from 1676 list Leisler as the third wealthiest man in the city. In 1674, Leisler was one of the administrators of a forced loan imposed by Anthony Colve. While residing in Albany in 1676, Leisler engaged in a theological dispute with the Rev. Nicholas van Rensselaer, who had been appointed to the Reformed pulpit by James, Duke of York (later King King James II). His finances and reputation both suffered from this encounter, as he and fellow dissenter Jacob Milborne were forced to pay all the costs of a lawsuit they had initiated in the dispute. While on a voyage to Europe in 1678, he was captured by Moorish pirates, and was compelled to pay a ransom of 2,050 pieces of eight to obtain his freedom. Leisler had endeared himself to the common people by befriending a family of French Huguenots who had been landed on Manhattan island. They were so destitute that a public tribunal had decided they should be sold into slavery to pay their ship charges. Leisler prevented the sale by purchasing the freedom of the widowed mother and son before the sale could be held. French Huguenots were arriving in New York as refugees from religious persecution by Catholics in France. Under Thomas Dongan's administration in 1683, Leisler was appointed one of the judges, or "commissioners," of the court of admiralty in New York, a justice of the peace for New York City and County, and a militia captain. Leisler's Rebellion The English Revolution of 1688 also played out in New York, where people of a wide variety of religious and ethnic backgrounds divided into two well-defined factions. In general, the small shopkeepers, small farmers, sailors, poor traders and artisans allied against the patroons (landholders), rich fur traders, merchants, lawyers, and crown officers. The former were led by Leisler (himself a wealthy man), the latter by Peter Schuyler, Nicholas Bayard, Stephen Van Cortlandt, William Nicolls, and other representatives of the aristocratic Hudson Valley families. The Leislerians claimed greater loyalty to the Protestant accession. In 1688, Governor Dongan was succeeded by Lieutenant-Governor Francis Nicholson. In 1689, the military force of the city of New York consisted of a regiment of five companies, with Leisler as one of the company captains. He was popular with the men and was probably the only wealthy resident in the province who sympathized with the Dutch lower classes, which were agitated by