The liberty-desiring people of the province harbored no kindly feeling for James as proprietor or James as sovereign, and when the news arrived of the Revolution of 1688 and the accession under liberal auspices of William, Prince of Orange, they hailed it with joy, treated James's lieutenant-governor, Nicholson, with scant courtesy, and finally expelled him from his post and organized a temporary government of their own which had all the character and effect of a purely republican regime, although without the slightest taint or suspicion of anarchy. And this popular government of 1689-91, while originating in force, was in no sense a military institution. The chiefs of the training-bands, who were responsible for it in the first instance, immediately summoned a popular assembly, which appointed a strictly civil council of safety. By the will of the general governing body

HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

established with so much courage yet decorum, Jacob Leisler took the principal charge of affairs. The whole policy of Leisler aud his associates was that of conscientious republican riders, who, it is true, held the government in trust for the new king of England, but held it as constituted representatives of the people, whose will, pending the definite expression of the will of the lawful sovereign, they deemed paramount. In a vital public emergency, with which they were quite competent to deal if they had chosen, they preferred to leave the matter to the people, and accordingly called a new legislative assembly. Regarding the existing government of the City of New York as unadapted to the changed order of things, they did not, however, presume to reorganize it by the use of appointive powers, but ordeal a popular election for the choice of a new mayor and aldermen. The spirit and transactions of the Leisler period afford convincing evidence of the very early preparedness of the people of New York for political independence, and also of their perfect capacity for its orderly and creditable exercise.