Remembering that the old manorial families of Westchester County rested upon an original foundation of very recognizable aristocratic dignity, which was made possible only by monarchical institutions; that the pride of lineage had, at the time of the Revolution, been nourished for the larger part of a century; and that the disposition of attachment to the king naturally arising from these conditions had been much strengthened by continuous intermarriage with other families of high social pretension and political conservatism, it seems at this day remarkable, or at least a source of peculiar satisfaction, that their preferences and efforts were, on the whole, rather for the popular cause than against it. Even in the formative period of the Revolution, before passions had been stirred by experience and example, and before actual emergency impelled men to put aside caution, it was distinctly apparent that the Tory party was the weaker, both numerically and in point of leadership; and at a very early period of the war, notwithstanding the loss of New York Citv to the American army and the retreat of
HISTORY
WESTCHESTER
COUNTY
Washington into New Jersey, Toryism became an unwholesome thing throughout much the larger part of Westchester County. The influence of the Tory landlords, even upon their own tenantry, was, indeed, a constantly diminishing factor, while that of the patriotic leaders steadily grew. This could not have been the case if the weight of sentiment among the principal families of the county had not been genuinely on the side of American freedom.