It is proper that notice shall he taken, in this connection, of the fact that the Provincial Congress, on the twenty-fourth of October, twenty days after that body had returned to its place and to its work and thirty-eight days after its Committee of Safety had adopted and published the Resolution and Orders, "relating to the impressment of Arms," wliich have been thus described and denounced, passed a formal Resolution " disapproving " and, therefore, abrogating them ; ^ but the mischief which had necessarily proceeded from the adoption and publication and attempts to execute that Resolution and those Orders, could not be undone; the wounds which had been inflicted, were too deep to be healed by such an emollient; and an increased and constantly increasing bitterness of feeling, between the conservative and the revolutionary portions of the inhabitants, was every where seen, scattering its baleful and ruinous influence, from one extreme of the County to the other.

The radical changes in the characters and conduct of the previously quiet and orderly and industrious and prosperous inhabitants of Westchester-county, which were j)roduced by the succession of aggressive enactments, made and publislied by the Provincial Congress and by its Committee of Safety, may be seen in the lollowing letter and in wliat followed it, while that Provincial Congress was in session:

" W nrrii Pl.\ins, November 1st, 1775."

" Sir :

" The Committee of Westchester-county, having " been called together upon a re(|uest of some of their " body, upon suspicion of a plot being contrived to " carry oti' several ol' the members and some others " who had shewed themselves zealously iittached to " the Liberties of this country, Mr. Philip Piiikney,' " (who had given very full information, to some of the " Committee, of the plot, and had offered to swear to " it, provided he was brought by the tJommitiee by " an ap])earance of force, and had engaged not to be " out of the way.) uj)on boing sent for, by some of tlie " guard attending the Cominittee, was not to be " found ; whereupon some of the Committee, by order " of the whole, waited upon Mr.