It is true that Kings, Queens, Suffolk, and Richmond Counties contained a large Loyalist population -- perhaps as numerous and important, proportionately, as that of Westchester. But with the capture of New York City in the summer of 1776 these island counties came under the complete protection of the British forces, and their Tory inhabitants were consequently exempted from the inquisitorial observation and regulation through a long term of years which the British sympathizers in Westchester County had to suffer. There is no doubt that many of the individual proceedings in this connection in our county were fully warranted. It should also be remembered that such doings are the inevitable concomitants of war -- especially civil war, -- even at the present day and under the most enlightened and generous governments. Yet the history of this aspect of the Revolution in Westchester County is peculiarly distressing. The proscriptions were appalling in number, and whatever individual justice, wisdom, or necessity attached to special cases, the characteristic spirit of the Revolutionary authorities was without question merciless. A certain satisfaction, though but a melancholy one, is afforded by the reflection that the British, so far as they had the power to pursue retributive practices here, were even more vindictive in their spirit and barbarous in its execution. The Americans at least seldom burned private mansions or devastated estates, which the British did not fail to do in their raids; and, indeed, the Westchester raids of the British were often exclusively for these j:)recise purposes. Summary arrests by the British in this county of persons not in arms, but deemed obnoxious for political reasons, were also very frequent; and many a Westchester patriot, including some of the most honored sons of the county, perished miserably in the loathsome dungeons and frightful prison-ships which the English commanders maintained for political captives.