To both it and the Colony, the final determination of the Joint-Commission appointed to settle the boundary question after the Dutch surrender, that the ea.stern part of Long Island was included in the Duke of York's Patent and was a part of New York, was a blow as severe as it was unwelcome, and the people of that region protested against it, but in vain. Although this decision severed the civil connexion between Suffolk County and the Colony of Connecticut, it did not affect the ecclesiastical connexion between them except that it ended the latter's power to enforce its church laws there by the civil arm. And its effect is perceptible to this day, notwithstanding the fact, that Presbyterian ism came there about 1717, and that, since the American Revolution, several other forms of Christian belief have obtained a foothold in that County. So strong was, and is, this old feeling, that the editor of the Southampton Records, published in 1877, says in his preface to the second volume, " Had the wishes of the i)eople been consulted, this union would have still continued, and to-day our delegates to the Legislature, would ascend the Connecticut River rather than the Hudson." ''

These were the causes, the efficiency of which can-

- Book of the General Laws, collected out of the Records of the GeneraL Court, pp. 21, 22. Brinley'a Beprint of 1865, of tlie ed. of lliT.'i. 3 Jlr. W. S. Pelletrcau.

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

not truthfully be denied, why the English Governors of the Province of New York, in obedience to the "Instructions " of the English King, could take no steps to establish the Church of England, except in those 2)arts of that Province, where it could possibly be done.