To such a pitch had the resolute spirit of the colonists readied after sixty years of representative government, that upon the arrival of the royal Governor Osborn, in 1753, he was greeted by the city corporation with an address in which was expressed the significant expectation that lie would be as "averse from countenancing as we from brooking any infringements of our inestimable liberties.'' It happened that Osborn had been particularly directed by the British government to curb the aggressive tendencies of the colonists. He was a man of peculiarly sensitive soul, and the use of such terms in an official address of welcome from the capital of the province over which he was to rule greatly disturbed him. Inquiring of some of the principal men about the general political conditions, he was told of the extreme obstinacy of the assembly, notably in the matter of voting supplies -- an obstinacy from which it would never recede one step, however commanded, wheedled, or threatened. It was well established at the time that Governor Osborn's sensational suicide was due to despondency over the gloomy prospect thus held

HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

before him. A tragical episode of another kind, the " battle of Golden Hill," New York City (January 19 and 20, 1770), resulting in the shedding of the hrst blood of the Revolution, is directly traceable to the grim policy of the New York provincial assembly in relation to money grants. The assembly had persistently refused to provide certain articles, such as beer and cider, for the use of the British garrison quartered in New York City, and this conduct had greatly incensed the soldiery, who had borne themselves toward the populace of the city with a particularly swaggering demeanor, besides committing overt acts of serious offensiveness. Hence arose extreme bad feeling, terminating in the Golden Hill affair.