Luke Babcock, who preaches and prays for Colonel Philipse and his tenants at Philipseburgh." Tn his analysis of the signers of the protest he showed that no fewer than one hundred and seventy of the three hundred and twelve were persons not possessing the least pretensions to a vote, many of them being lads under age; while of the one hundred and forty-two who were freeholders many held lands at the will of Colonel Philipse, " so that," he concluded, " very few independent freeholders objected to the appointment of deputies." Theaccuracy of this analysis was never challenged; and it thus appears that with all the advantages of prestige enjoyed by the conservative leaders they were able to muster scarcely a hundred disinterested voters in opposition to a po litical programme which they had announced to be " replete with ruin and misery." Moreover, several formal recantations of the protest by persons who had signed it followed, showing that, as in the case of the Rye protestants of the year before, various individuals who had been drawn into support of Tory principles were speedily brought to a realizing sense of the odiousness of their behavior. Among the recanters was Jonathan Fowler, one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas of the county, who, in a published card, declared that " upon mature deliberation and more full knowledge of the matter" he had come to the conclusion that the sentiments expressed in the protest were "not only injurious to our present cause, but likewise offensive to our fellow-colonists, " and therefore repudiated and testified his abhorrence of them. The New York provincial convention for the appointment of delegates to the congress at Philadelphia met in New York City on the