I "And whereas we are informed that a Complaint hath been made to " the Commitee by a few of the Inhabitants against the said Mr. John "Cock out of Spite and Malice and as we conceive what has been aleg* "against him was before the .'Signing the Association, we are well " assured that Since his Signing the said .\s80ciation no person Can ac " cuse him of breaking the same by any ways or means whatever.

" Therefore we the Petitioners and Sul>scribers Do Humbly beg the " Indulgence of This Honourable House To Grant unto M'. John Cock i " the Commission of Captain for the Conijiany aforesaid as we are Con- ! "vinced he was chosscn agreeable to your said Resolve and your Peti- '• tionei-s as in Duty Itound shall ever piay.

THE AMERICAN llEVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

those who Imd voted for Cock, at the Election, was induced to join witli Goorpe Hadley, the latter in a second Affidavit, sliowinp; that Cock "had damned the " Provincial Congress of this Colony, and spoke dis- " respectfully of them ;" and these were laid before the Colonial Committee of Safety, in opposition to the Petition of the fifty-nine and to the claim of the Captain-elect. The result was probably foreseen by the Petitioners and their successful candidate -- why should the carefully expressed will of filty-uine respectable men, declared in conformity with the published terms of the Congress itself, be permitted to stand in the way of a Van Cortlandt, the latter with nothing else than two e.r-parfe Affidavits to sustain the evidently ridiculous charge of wrong-doitig in the successful canilidate? and why, also, should those other successful candidates who had, also, been elected by the same great majority and at the same time, without even the semblance of an accusation against either of them, be permitted to receive their Commissions?