those staid, well-to-do, and contented farmers who occupied that County, and to draw any portion of them from the quiet of their rural homes into the .'seething vortex of partisan excitement, concerning measures of the Home Government which did not affect them nor their interests, in the slightest degree -- a departure from the ways of their fathers, which, before many months had elapsed, transformed that quiet, and neighborly, and law-abiding community into one of entire unrest and disorder, of the most intense partisan bitterness, and of the most complete disregard of all law, human and divine; converting what had been a quiet, and well-cultivated, and pro- <luctive agricultural region into one over which were spread the evidences of partisan law'Iessness, of vigilant suspicion and distrust, of sullen neglect, and, too often, of hopeless and lamentable ruin. The purl>oses, api)arent or concealed, of those who created the Committee of Correspondence in the City of New

^ Letter of the Committee of Corregpoudeitce of Xen- York to the Cotituiittee in Charleston, " New York, July 26th, 1774," Postscript, dated " July " 28th ;" the same to the Committee in Philadelphia, "New York, July iSth, " 1774 ; " the same to Matthew Tilghman, Chairman of the Mnrylaml Committee, " New Y'oek, July 2Sth, 1774; " Lieutenant-goremor Colden to the Earl of Dartmouth, " New York 2 August 1774;" the same to Gorenior Tri/on, " Spkino Hill 2 August 1774; " the sameto the Earlof Dartmouth, "New York 7tli Septr 1774 ; " the same to Governor Tryon, " Septr 7th *'1774;'' Jones's Histori/ of Sew York ihiring the Jifrohitionarif ^Var, i , 34, 35 ; Baucroft's Historij of the Vniled Slates, original editiou, vii , 83 ; the same, centeuary edition, iv., 358.