" despatch," * although the Offices were only those of the Militia, not in active service and, with a small exception, not likely to be so. The " despatch " was " necessary," however, since a full-fledged Brigadiergeneral would be a more imposing candidate, when the election should be held for the Brigadier-general of the four Battalions who had been culled into the service of the Continent ; and it was not a characteristic of the Morris family to be backward when its own interests required attention and action, at the front. We shall see, hereafter, how well this well-laid scheme was counter-schemed by more astute aspirants; how General Lewis Morris reaped all his military honors, what there were of them, in the Militia of Westchester-county ;^ and that Brigade-major Lewis Morris, Junior, secured all the laurels which he possessed, as an Aide of General Greene, a place for which he was indebted to the personal favor of that Officer.

Two days after the unseemly movement of the Morrises, [June 9, 1776,] the Provincial Congress proceeded to the election of a Brigadier-general for the command of the three thousand men who had been called from the Militia of New York, for the reinforcement of the Continental Army, under General Washington, who was then in that Colony ; but General Lewis Morris, notwithstanding his artfulness^ -- that species of " art " of which his step-brother, Gouverneur, had written to Mr. Penn, in May, 1774 -- was not even mentioned -- even Westchestercounty indicated that he was not a favorite, beyond a known limit; and its Deputation in the Provincial Congress did not jjander to his inordinate ambition. The canviiss was, indeed, confined to two candidates, John Morin Scott, of the Citj' of New York, one of that celebrated "triumvirate" of the earlier periods of the Revolution and a lawyer of the highest standing, and " General " ^ Nathaniel Woodhull, of Suffolk, a veteran of the French and Indian War, and, at the time now under notice, President of the Provincial