I hope and believe they will never meet with such trials ; and, if they should, I am persuaded they will be more polite than to copy after so coarse a pattern ! I only meant to help out your next paper with a strange and wonderful occurrence, which may perhaps amuse your gentle readers as effectually as the accounts they have sometimes of hard frosts and huge whales, though they never see such things in these parts.

I am yours, &c.,

Indus.

To his Excellency. William Cosby, Esq., Captain General and Governor-inchief of the province of New York, New Jersies and territories thereon depending in America, Vice Admiral of the same, and Colonel in his Majesty's army, &c.

May it please your Excellency :

In obedience to your commands by F. M., Esq., deputy secretary, to send

Dunlap's Hist. N. Y. vol. i. 295.

308 HISTORY OF THE

you a copy of what I read in the Supreme Court concerning its having a jurisdiction to determine causes in a Court of Equity, and a second message from him to give it under my hand, I send you not only what I read, but what I said on that head, as far as I can charge my memory. What was said, was spoken before a numerous auditory, among which were the grand jury for the city and county of New York, and several other persons of distinction. I chose' this public method to prevent, as much as I could, any misapprehension ; and what I said is as follows, viz. :