come down among the debrit of that period, since it cannot be regarded as a crime that some of them, unbidden, in that era of disregard of law, helped themselves to the freedom, belonging to themselves, of which their Officers had fraudulently deprived them -- it cannot be consistently pretended, by any one, that the Officers of those Companies were reasonably representative men of the great body of the farmers of Colonial ^V'estehester-county, of that or of any other l)eriod : whether or not they may be regarded as representative men of that other and smaller class of the inhabitants of that County, in 1775-76, of those whose "patriotism" was only ill-concealed selfishness, of those whose devotion to " the common cause" was graduated with nothing else than with the jjromised profits of the investment, of those whose zeal was tempered with nothing as effective as with an Office of some sort, the reader can determine for himself, from the evidence which has been already adduced, illustrative of the character and conduct of the revolutionary faction, within that County, during that later Colonial Period.

Among the multitude of requirements, made by General Lee, either on his own motion or at the prompting of those who pandered to his baser inclinations, and which were obsequiously obeyed by the Provincial Congress, was one, made early in March, 1776, for "a Magazine of Provisions and Military •' Stores, to be established in Westchester-county," the requisition being supplemented with a recommendation that " the Deputies of Westchester-county " purchase and deposit, in diff'erent stores in that " County, twelve hundred barrels of good salted Pork, "wherever it is to be bought; and that the said " salted Pork be repacked and pickled by a sworn " Packer of New York ; and that the Deputies of "Albany-county purchase eighteen hundreil and fifty " bushels of good Peas, and send them to the Depu- " ties of Westchester-county, to be by them stored in " the same manner." '