The first of these is that " Committee to detect "Conspiracies," already alluded to, which originated in that much talked-of " Hickey Plot," -- the latter, a partisan bugbear which, before long, will descend to the low level of " the Negro Plot," in the same City of New York, in which the conspiracy against the helpless victims was greater than any which had possibly existed among them, against others ; or to the lower level of that "Witchcraft" excitement, in Salem, led by clerical narrowness and bigotry, which had brought so much shame on the Mathers and on Colonial Massachusetts.

Sometime between Monday morning and Tuesday afternoon, [3fay 20, 21, 1776,] -- as no entry of its appointment was made on the Journals of the Provincial Congress, nothing is known concerning the time nor the circumstances of the appointment, unless from inference"-- that body appointed a Committee "to con- "sider of the ways and means to prevent the dangers " to which this Colony is exposed by its intestine "enemies." Beyond the single fact that John Alsop, one of the most determined enemies of Independence and subsequently a recognized Loyalist,^ was a member, if not the Chairman, of that Committee, there is no record of the names of those who constituted it ; and, beyond the information which was contained in its title, there is quite as much obscurity surrounding the purposes for which it was created.

On Tuesday afternoon, [J/firy 21, 1776.] as we have said. Mr. .\lsop submitted (he Report of the Ctmimittee ; ' and it was duly debated, with several motions for amendments, until the following Friday, \_May