Most of all, he disregarded the fact that the Declaration and Protest, to which he assumed to make a reply, had made no pretension to having been made exclusively by " Free- " holders," but, on the contrary, it was thus headed : " We the subscribers, freeholders and inhabitants of "the county of Westchester, having assembled at the " White Plains, in consequence of certain advertise- " ments," etc., from which every appearance of exclusiveness, in the signers of it, was expressly excluded. Finally : he impeached the " independence " of those of the signers of that Protest who were Freeholders, by saying " many also hold lands at will un- "der Col. Philips; " but he conveniently forgot to tell how a mere tenant at will could, thereby, become a Freeholder, or how many, in the Manor of Cortlandt, who were only tenants or who held lands at the will of the Proprietors of that Manor, had been induced by other causes than loyalty to those Proprietors or discontent with the General Assembly, to go to the White Plains, to assist into a place in the revolutionary organization, the young member of that " patriotic " family, Philip, on whom, a few months before, the Royal Governor, William Tryon, had bestowed a Royal Commission of Major, which he then bore ; nor was it convenient for the author of that reply, to state, therein, just how many of the tenants and other retainers of the lordly Lord of the Manor of Morrisania had been induced, contrary to their unassisted inclinations, to ride from the Borough Town of Westchester to the White Plains, on that eleventh of April, to assist in the elevation of himself into an office, no matter what.
The character of Colonel Frederic Philipse, whom he was so swift to impeach, whether regarded as a man or as a gentleman, as a landlord or as a citizen, was quite as pure, and quite as upright, and quite as worthy of