With all their boasts of superiority, the Tories of New York have left few names remarkable for anything more meritorious than proud faithfulness to the British monarchy, which faithfulness, moreover -- as, for example, in the lamentable case of our Frederick Philipse, -- was p r o m p t e d quite as often by miscalculating conceptions of the chances of the war as by nervous scorn for sordid selfinterest. On the other hand, the contributions made by X«-w York to the roll of Revolutionary patriots of the more eminent order are impressively numerous. From whatever aspect the state of political society in New York on the eve of the Revoli it ion is viewed, the advantage was with the friends of freedom. The immediate causes of t he Revolution were the enactments of parliament for taxing the c< denies, the unromproiiiising resistance villi which these measures were met in America, and the consequent resentment of Great Britain, leading to new manifestations of various kinds. The triumphant conclusion of the French and Indian War, by which Canada was wrested from France and made a pari of the colonial empire of England, was an unmixed blessing for the people of the thirteen colonies. It put an end forever to a con-

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HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

dition which had been a standing menace to their peace and prosperity--the existence of a hostile neighbor at the north. The colonists had cheerfully borne their part in the great achievement, and, if properly appealed to, would have discharged as cheerfully their share of the resulting indebtedness. But the British government had grown weary of submitting to the caprices of the colonial assemblies inthe matter of money grants, and, in looking to America after the close of the war for financial assistance on a substantial scale, resolved to make that necessity the occasion of some decided changes in the former order of things.