It is not iu " the nature of things to be otherwise ; for no man tliat entertains " a hope of seeing this di.ipute speedily and equitably adjusted by " Commissioners will go to the same expense and run the same hazards " to jireparo for the worst event, as he who believes that he must "conquer, or submit to unconditional terms and the like concomitants, " such as confiscation, hangiug, and the like." (General Washinrjl/m lo his brother, Attgustine Washintjt^m, "Philadelphia, 31 May, 1776.")

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

Although an official copy of that Preamble and Resolution was evidently sent to the Provincial Congress of New York, no mention was made of the receipt of it, on the Journals of that body ; but, on the twenty-fourth of May, " the order of the day being " read, the Congress proceeded to take into considera- "tiou"the Resolution and the general subject to which it particularly related.'

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The Provincial Congress having " considered " the Report, it also adopted it, evidently without debate or a division of the house, -- Westchester-county was unrepresented in that exceedingly important vote, owing to the absence of a quorum of its Deputation ; -- and, after the Congress had ordered the Resolutions to be published in all the newspapers in the Colony and in handbills, the latter for distribution in the rural Counties,' it appears to have dismissed the entire subject from its further attention.

The Resolutions which were thus adopted and published, form the foundation of the entire structure of the Consfifution of the Slate of New York, in all its varied forms; and, for that reason, we have not hesitated to find places, in this narrative, for all which concerned them. We are not insensible of the fact, however, that the fair words which they contain were deceptive; that the voice and the votes to which the election of the proposed founders of a State was thus referred, were not those of ''the Inhabitants" who had figured so largely in the preliminary Report, but only those of the Freeholders and those of the tenantry who were of the wealthier class, to the exclusion of the tenantry of small properties and of the Mechanics and Working-men of the Colony, and certainly to the exclusion of those who had been officially proscribed and officially outraged, and for whom, under subsequent action of the Congress, yet more atrocious proscription and persecution and outrage were held in reserve.