Hildreth {Histoni of the Vnited States, Fii-st Series, iii., .35) said that the old Committee of the " Sons of Liberty " "was dissolved and a new one elected," withcuit alluding to either the Caucus or the Meeting at the Coffee-house ; although, in fact, the Committee of Correspondence of an early date had ceased to exist when the Stamp-Act was repealed ; and neither that nor any other Committee was alluded to, in the slightest degree, during the proceedings now under consideration ; notwithstanding those who had composed the Committee, in their individual capacities, in many instances, are known to have participated in both the Caucus and the Meeting at the Coffee-house. Bancroft [Hittory of the UuiteiJ States, original edition, vii., 41 : the same, centenary edition, iv., 326) made " the old Committee " of "the Sons of

THE A.MERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

18T

By the direct action of the body of the inhabitants of the City, thus duly called, and assembled at the Coffee-house, for that specific purjiose, all the discordant elements of the party of the Opposition to the Home Government, in New York, were seemingly consolidated and placed under the leadership of the Committee of Fifty-one, which was, then and there, appointed for that ostensible purpose ; and those who had taken alarm at the growing audacity of those who were assuming to be the leaders of the unfranchised masses, were gratified with ample evidence of the fact that the well-considered " art" which those who had planned the Caucus at Sam. Francis's and the Meeting at the Coffee-house had employed, in order to check the rising pretensions and power of the working, revolutionary multitude, in political affairs, had been crowned with an abundant success. There had been, indeed, a display of wise caution and great tact, as well as of well-concealed duplicity, in all which had been done by those aristocratic, conservative politi-