Unknown-1752
Attorney General of New York, 1723-1752
Richard Bradley, an Englishman by birth, arrived in the Province in March 1723, carrying a commission from the Crown appointing him Attorney General in place of David Jamison, deceased. In actuality, Bradley replaced James Alexander, whom the Governor had appointed Attorney General pending the arrival of the Crown commission.
Some sources indicate that Richard Bradley was a graduate of Cambridge University, England and he is believed to have been called to the English bar. Bradley was in office during a turbulent period in the history of the Province and, as Attorney General, was the prosecutor in both the Trial of John Peter Zenger (1735) and the Trials Relating to the New York Slave Insurrection (1741).
The New York Assembly was opposed to the continuation in office of Richard Bradley, believing that he was “in the habit of filing informations on his own notion with a view rather to squeeze money from those he prosecuted than from any just cause.”
On June 4, 1726, Richard Bradley and Millan Jovan received a patent to over 4,000 acres of land in Plattekill, Ulster County. Another grant, dated March 26, 1739 and known as the “Richard Bradley Children Patent” gave title to over 2,000 acres in Orange County to “the daughters and younger son of our Attorney General of our Province of New York.”
Richard Bradley continued in office until his death in New York on August 28, 1752.
Sources
Rutherford, Livingston. John Peter Zenger: His Press, His Trial, and a Bibliography (1904)
Paul Hamlin and Charles Baker. The Supreme Court of the Province of New York, 1691-1704 (1959)