History of Westchester County, New York, Vol. I

i and the head of that powerful family, moved "that a Memorial to the Lords, and a Representation

1 " and Remonstrance to the Commons of Great Brit-

I " ain may be prepared, together with the Petition "to his Majesty;"^ and, like the Resolution which

-Jouninl of the Hmise, " Die Martis, 10 ho., A.M., the 31st January, '1775."

3 The peculiar force, if not the peculiar assertion of the pohtical standing of the General .Assembly, with which the proposed papers w ere

j vested, in the words of the Resolution, was noticed, in the Parliament, and used as one of the reasons for the Parliament's rejection of them -- in the Hotise of Lords, it was said, "the title of the paper rendered it " inadmissible. It was called ' a Memorial: ' now, ' Memorials ' are pre- " sented from one crowned head to another ; but as to a ' Memorial ' from an American Assembly, it was unheard of, and ought not to be read.'"

! In the same debate, it was said, also, by another Peer, that " the title " given to the paper was suspicious : a * Petition ' from the same Assem- "bly had been presented (o the King, the Colonies not denying the "supreme Rights of His Majesty ; a ' Hemonstrance' to the Commons; " and, now, a ' Memorial ' to the Lords. They dropped the usual word " ' Petition,' lest, from that, it should be imagined that they acknowl- " edged the supreme power of those branches of the Legislature." -- (Speeches of the Earl of Denbigh and Rirl Goiter, in the Honse of Lords, May 18, 177.5.)