Home / Scharf, J. Thomas, ed. History of Westchester County, New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I. Philadelphia: L.E. Preston & Co., 1886. / Passage

History of Westchester County, New York, Vol. I

Scharf, J. Thomas, ed. History of Westchester County, New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I. Philadelphia: L.E. Preston & Co., 1886. 263 words

" I have waited with great impatience, exjiecting " that some able hand would have undertaken the " benevolent task to warn you to beware of the con- " duct of some of the basest villains that ever dis- " graced any society, and draw the attention of the " inhabitants to its danger ; but finding that although "now some months are elapsed since the commence- "ment of the measures of these traitors, &c., yet none " has appeared to sound the friendly alarm to the " very indolent inhabitants, I have attemjjted what " I so ardently wished might have been done by some "more able hand. While we are straining every " nerve to baffle foreign attempts to enslave us, surely "it must be very criminal in the descendants of " Britons, who ought t ) love life and liberty alike, to " be so assiduous in exerting themselves to enslave "their fellow-subjects.

"It may not be improper to inform you, Gentle- "men, of the springs and motives which induce these " principal movers to forget their duty to God, their "fellow-countrymen, and their posterity.

" They, anxious to secure to themselves and their "posterity power and authority, and to engross some " (jlfices or pensions from or under the Crown, have " made a sacrifice of all public virtue on the altar of "self-interest. This desperate spirit it was that in- " duced these traitors or mercenary hirelings to exert " tlieir influence to bring about the detestable meas- " urcs proposed by a certain j)aper handed about here