By the Act of May 8, 1099, it was provided that Representatives to the General Assembly "shall be chosen in every City, and County, and "Manor of this Province, who have Right to chuse, by People dwelling "anil resident in the same Cities, Counties, and Manors; whereof, "every one of them shall have Land or Tenements improved to the "valne of Fortij Pounds in Free-hold, free from all Incumbrances, and "have possessed the same Three Months before the Test of the said "Writ" [fur an Election;] "and they which shall be chosen, shall be "dwelling and resident within the same Cities, Counties, and Manors ; "and such sis have the greatest Xuniber of them, who shall have Lands " or Tenements improved, to the Value of Forty Pounds in Free-hold, "free from all Incumbrances, as aforesaid, shall be returned by the "Sheriffs of every City, Counties, and Manors, Representatives for "the .\ssembly, by Indentures sealed betwixt the said Sheriffs and the "said Chusers, so to be made."-- (Lu its of Xew Yorlc, Chapter LXXIV., Section I., Livingston and Smith's edition, Xew-York : 1752, 29, 30 ; the Slime, Chapter LXXIV., Section I., Van Schaack's edition, Xew- York. 1774, 2S.)

By the Charter of the City of Xew-York, granted by Governor Dongan, in 1686, the Mayor and three or more of the Aldermen were authorized to make Freemen of the City from among certain specified classes, on the payment, in each instance, of Five Pounds, not an insignificant sum, at that early period.* Xo person could do busine,^« of any kind, within the City, unless he were a Freeman of the City ; and as the Freedom of the City also vested in those who held it the Right to vote for Representatives of the City in the General Assembly, it will be seen that, within the City, the unfranchised were only those Freeholders who were not Freemen and whose Real Estate was encumbered with debt ; those Freeholders whose inexpensive homes were not worth Forty Pounds-- a large sum, for that period ; those who labored for others, as Clerks, Journeymen, or Laborers ; and those of that shiftless, characterless class, who enctimbered the City of Xew York, during the Colonial Period, as similar cla-sses continue to encumber every City, especially every Seaport, holding itself in constant readiness to join in any act of violence into which such as Alexander McDougal and Isaac Sears, of the period under consideration, shall incline to lead them.