1 "The thought that we might be driren to the sad neceaiity ot break- " ing our coniwtiiiii with Great Britain, exclusive of tin- carnage anri " destruction, which it was ea-sy to see luust attend llie separation, always " gave n>e a gri'at deal ot grief. And even no%v, I would cheerfully re- " tire fnim pulilic life, forever, renounce all chance for honors or "profits from the public, nay, I would cheerfully contribute niy little "property, to ol>t<iiu peace and lilierty." -- (./»/»m .IiJumi* Io ku Wife, "October, 177.'>.")

and seen in the agricultural and prosperous and peaceful County of Westchester, in New York. But the end of such outrages had not yet come.

While the excitement occasioned by the enactments of the Provincial Congress, authorizing local Committees to seize and imprison ami disarm and deprive of their estates those who should become obnoxious to those local demagogues and against whom, by fair means or l)y foul, an accusation of nnfrieiully thoughts or words against the Rebellion could possibly be trumped up, was at its height, and while some of the inhabitants of the County were already suffering from imjjrisonment, attended by the most distressing circumstances, under the provisions of those enactments, the Committee of Safety, whom the Provincial I'ongress had left on duty, with a limited authority, during a brief recess of the latter body, still further aroused the excitement and the indignation of the greater number of the Colonists in New York, of nearly all of those within Wcstchester-county, by the publication of the following Resolution and Orders :