Besides these, tlie chief purpose of the Committee was to relegate the unfranchised masses of the City of New Y'ork, of all classes, to the obscurity and dependence of vassals ; and to place itself at the head of all the political elements of the Colony, as the autocratic, anti-revolutionary ruler of both the Colonists aud the Government -- in all of which, unquestionably, James Duane's and John Jay's were the master niinils, within the Committee, and William Smith's that which was not within it.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.
11)3
ultra-democratic Chairman was made harmless, in the interest of the conservative aristocracy, by the addition of three of the most conservative members of the Committee, as his associates ; and what was known to have been the decided preference of the revolutionary portion of the unfranchised Workingmen of the City, by whom the policy and the action of the Town of Boston were known to have been generally approved, was openly, if not defiantly, disregarded.
At eight o'clock, in the evening, the Committee assembled in an adjourned Meeting, thirty-eight of the fifty-one members being present; and the Sub-committee, which had been appointed at the forenoon session, reported the following draft of a letter, as suitable for a response to the letters received from Boston :
"New-Yoek, May 23, 1774.
" Gextlemex :
" The alarming Measures of the British Parliament, " relative to your ancient and respectable Town, " which has so long been the Seat of Freedom, fill the "Inhabitants of this City with inexpressible Alarm.