While the politicians, in Rye, were discussing, with more or less satisfaction, the result of their doings, to which reference has been made, those in the Borfroni his Ordination, iu 1704, until his death, in 1727, was a Missionary in the employ of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in London. The father of John Thomas, Junior, was Uon. John Thomas, who, from 1743 until the dissolution of the Colonial Government, in 1776, was a Member of the General Assembly of the Colony, representing the County of Westchester ; and, from May, 175.j, until the dissolution of the Colonial Government, in 177(5, he was the First Judge

of the Colonial Court of Common Pleas for the Couuty of Westchester

both of whicli otlices could have been held by no one who was not welldispo.sed to the Colonial and Home Governments; and neither of which was surrendered by him, while he lived.

The following extract from a letter from Timothy Wetniore, the Venerable Society's Schoolmaster at Rye, to the .-Secretary of that body, at London, dated "Rye, May 6, 17(11," affords additional evidence of the political tendencies of the Thomas family, and of its hankerings after the power to manipulate the "iwtronage" of those in authority, throughout Westchester-county : " Mr. Thomas, who is one of the Representa- "tives in this County, and who, in Governour De Lancey's time, being " favoured with all the Administration of all Offices in the Country, civil "and military, by the help of which he has procured himself a large in- "terest in the County, especially in the distant and new Settlements, " which abound with a Set of People governed more by venality than "any thing else. This Gentleman, although one of the Society's " Missionaries' Sons, is so negligent and indifferent toward Religion "(in imitation of some of our great Men) that it has been a steady "Method with him, for years, not to attend Publick Worship, perhaps " more than once or twice iu a year, whose example has been mis- "chievous.