They had a market within a day's journey or a day's sail for all that they could raise beyond their own wants. Their taxes were light and they managed their local concerns for themselves under the easy laws of the Province. They felt no pressure of any kind or from any quarter. Even in the politics of the day there was no high party feeling, still less any undue excitements. They were a happy, contented people perfectly satisfied to be let alone.

When the movements of politicians of New York and other places against the English Ministry began, which resulted, contrary to the wishes of those who first started these movements, in the Declaration of Independence, the people of Westchester as a mass were not in favor of them. Neither were some of those who gave a final assent to them. Hence it was that notwithstanding that Westchester eventually became the Neutral Ground, the people who dwelt in it were more in favor of the old state of things than in the proposed new one. It was natural. It is so in all countries under all systems. Those who excite revolutionary movements to overthrow old governments, are always a minority, and usually a very great minority, of the inhabitants of the Country the institutions of which are changed by violence or war. Hence it was that in 1774 the people of Mamaroneck opposed the action of the Committee of Correspondence, set forth in their circular of 29 July 1774 as also did those of Rye.'