Having disposed of the subject of Independence in the curt and crispy Resolution which headed the series which was reported by the Committee, the Provincial Congress turned to other subjects of vastly less importance ; and, two days afterwards, on Thursday, the eleventh of July, very probably, no record of the fact having been found, the publication of the Declaration was made, otEcially, at the White Plains, in conformity with the second Resolution of the series, on that subject, which had been adopted by the Congress.'

The great importance of that Resolution which gave the sanction of the Colony of New York to the Resolution for Independence which the Congress of the Continent had adopted on the second of July,

' Bolton stated, in bis JIMtri/ nf n'eslclwlt r-cnuiiti/, (ori)pnal pdition, ii., 359, 3r>0; llie oimr, second edition, ii., 5I>4,) that, on the occ(i£ion referred to, "the Urclantliim was read by John T)ionias, Esq., and " seconded by Michael Varian and Sanim l t'niwford, two prominent " Whigs of Scarsilale." But he luis given no authority for the statement ; and unless by " John Thomas, Ksq ," the reailer of the Dcclnrnliim ou the occasion referred to, he meant the younger of the two who bore that name, we must be excused for doubting the accuracy of the statement.

was seen in the immediate abrogation of all the forms of Law and Government which had previously been seen throughout the Colony, from the earlier period of the settlement by Europeans within its territory; and the substitution, in their stead, of nothing else than the government of unrestrained force, the Law of the stronger. A general Jail-delivery, in the City of New York, signalized the "new departure" -- where there was no longer any Law, there could not be any breaches of the Law, either in the matter of pecuniary obligations or in that of any other obligation -- and as every civil Commission was cancelled by that Resolution of Independence from the Crown of Great Britain, on the authority of which royal authority every such Commission was based, every Court of Justice was closed, every function of Government was paralyzed, and because no new form of local Government and no new system of Statutes had been provided to take the places of the others, which had been thus violently set aside, there was nothing but confusion and uncertainty; and had not the general conservatism of the Colonists prevailed and jireserved the general peace, the advent of Independence, throughout the Colony of New York, would have been signalized by many a local scene of terrorism and of bloodshed.