All these influences had culminated in the submission to the Continental Congress of a Resolution, "That " these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, " free and independent States, that they are absolved " from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that " all political connection between them and the State " of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dis- " solved. That it is expedient forthwith to take the " most effectual measures for forming foreign Al- " liances. That a plan of Confederation be prepared " and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their " consideration and approbation." It encountered, however, the most serious opposition, among which the Livingstons and their supporters, Delegates from New York, were peculiarly conspicuous ; and, when the third Provincial Congress came to its untimely end, it was still pending, that Delegation, as far as the paucity of its numbers went, appearing conspicuously among those who were not its supporters.

While these various important matters were occupying the attention of the Colonists, General Howe came into the harbor of New York, and occupied Staten-island with his entire command; and the inhabitants of Richmond-county, as that beautiful island was then called, politically, and as it is still called, as might have been reasonably expected, since they were still smarting under the sen-

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

tence of outlawry and the consequent outrages to which they had been recently subjected by the Provincial Congress and its Committee of Safety, received the new-comers, it is said, " with great de- " monstrations of joy, took the Oaths of Allegiance to " the British Crown ; and embodied themselves, under "the authority of the" [Colonial'] "Governor, Tryon, *' for the defense of the Island. Strong assurances were " also received from Long Island and the neighboring "parts of New Jersey, of the favorable disposition of ''the people to the Royal Cause," it was said; and those who had been harried from their homes, and who had sought refuge in the swamps and thickets of the country, victims of the rapine and outrages of lawless and ruthless "patriots," their own countrymen, quite reasonably, hastened to seek the protection of those by whom, under a more judicious policy, they would be enabled to occupy their own homes and to pursue the ordinary routine of their peaceful lives, in quietude and safety.