In this vindication of these gentlemen, the Council, with much spirit, joined. In course of time provision was made by special enactment,' by which, where the usual form of oath could not conscientiously be taken, affirmation should be allowed. Thus future misunderstanding was prevented. The excitement that characterized this special election did not, it would seem, attend that of the next year, when Frederick Philipse and Judge Morris were re-elected. In 173S, the Judge resigning, yU: Willett was again restored.

Perhaps no subjects more engaged the thoughts of the New York colonist in the decade before 1763 than the encroachments of the French upon the frontiers of several of the English colonies, his own included, and then the seven years' war which was the consequence. Every county and town cheerfully made up its contingent. The names on the muster-rolls, which have been so wonderfully preserved, indicate how largely Westchester County contributed to swell the armies sent forth in the .several campaigns. As the fortunes of the several battles, sieges and marches varied, the firesides of these country homes were illumined or darkened. When, for example, the capitulation of Fort William Henry, in August, 1757, was reported (seven officers and fift}' men of the garrison, all New Yorkers, thereby becoming prisoners of war), a deep thrill of indignation stirred every breast/ but the feeling was more intense when the word came that "the French General Montcalm, under his own eyes and in the face of about three thousand of his regular troops, suffered his Indian allies to rob and strip officers as well as men of all they had, and left most of them naked."