It will l)e seen that James Duane did not disgrace himself or his name by placing the latter, with those of his four aristocratic associates on the ticket for Delegates to the proposed Congress, on the letter through which those four bartered the little of political and personal integrity and the modicum of unselfish ]>rinciples which they respectively possessed, for a small mess of very thin official pottage ; and, in that instance, his backwardness was honorable and timely, since there is every reason for the belief that, at that time, he was not master of himself; that he had, already, been purchased by another ; and that, then, he was, in fact, only the servant of his master.

History has revealed'' what, otherwise, would have remained, concealed, in the files of the Colonial Land Papers, in the Secretary's Office, in Albany,' concern-

York during the Revolutionary War, [i., 449-467,) which has been prepared with great labor, and which contains carefully-made copies of many of the original handbills and placards which were, then, scattered throughout the city.

^ Philip Livingston, John Ahop, Isaac Lore, and John Jay to Abrahitm Brasher, Theophilus Anthony, Fraucia Van Di/rk, Jeremiah Piatt, and Christopher Luyrkinch, " New York, July 26, 1774."

5 Proceedings of a Meeting of a nund/er of Citizens convened at the " House of Jl/r. Marriner," at which the nominations by the Committee of Correspondence were acquiesced in, by those who assumed to represent the unfranchised inhabitants of the City, " New Y'okk, 27 July, " 1774."