^ It is proper to say, in this connection, that th« insincerity of the Pro Tincial Congress was never more boldly presented than in its Order concerning the disposition which was to bo made of the letter which it had just ordered to be written to the Governor of Connecticut, in the matter of the raid of Connecticut's rutTians -- instead of ordering it to be forwarded tu the Governor, it " Ordekec, That the said letter be engrossed and signed " by the President, so as to lie ready to be transmitted, when niREixEn." (Journal of the Provincial Congrat, "Die Uartia, 3 ho., P. M., Deer. 12, "177o.")

Just ii-hen the Congress "directed" it to be "transmitted," is not known.

under the leadership of Thomas Smith, one of the

distinguished body of political acrobats of that name'^ -- made no reply whatever to its letter, until the following June, when he adroitly turned the scale against the complaining Provincial Congress, by reminding it that the leader of the banditti was a resident of the City of New York,^ doing business in that City, and, also, a member of the complaining Provincial Congress; that he was, therefore, amenable, directly, to the Congress itself, for what he had done; and that it was not expedient, then, to call the rest of the banditti to account* -- a conclusion which was perfectly reasonable while the complaining Congress complacently permitted the leader of the party, who was the principal offender, to go at large, witliin its own jurisdiction, without question concerning it. The long process of intercolonial diplomacy, on what, in this instance, would have becii an interesting topic, had the parties in that diplomatic correspondence been honest and consistent, might have been productive of u,seful results ; but they were neither consistent nor honest; and, like the greater part of other diplomacy, it consisted of little else than empty word-;, really meaning nothing and, really, producing nothing.*