those who had originated aiul promoted it, secretly and rapidly, without alarming those who were assembled at Captain Hatfield's, and before they could be brought to the Courthouse, to defeat those purposes and to relegate the Morrises to that political obscurity iu which, very ungraciously, they had so long and so ingloriously rested. It was, in short, nothing else than a political coup-de-main; but, unfortunately for the honor of those who participated in it, it was not as respectably successful as those who had contrived it, had desired. '

Intelligence of the movement of their opponents very soon reached those who were assembled at Captain Hatfield's Tavern ; and. we are told that, undoubtedly with very little delay, they, also, " walked " down to the Courthouse, although not half of their " friends who were expected had yet appeared." At that time, when the full force of all who thus presumed to act, in so vital a question, in the name of all who were, then, in Westchester-county -- and that, too, without any delegation of authority and, certainly, without any exi)ressed "consent" -- was undoubtedly present and acting, there was not present more than from a hundred to a hundred and twentyfive, Freeholders and others ; and there is evidence that quite as large a number, Freeholders and others, walked down to the Courthouse, from Captain Hatfield's Tavern, and strii)])ed all the novelty and all there was of what was said to have been integrity from the exposed and unsuccessful coup-de-main.'^ The individual respectability of none of these, of either faction, appears to have been imjjeached by any one ; but Colonel Morris subsequently attemi)ted to depreciate tlie political standing of som&of those who were