During its lifetime the general condition of affairs steadily grew more critical, events of commanding importance transpired, and developments ofportentous significance to the people of New York and Westchester County resulted. In the early part of this period the invasion of Canada by the American troops was brought to a disastrous end before the walls of Quebec,1 but tin1 collapse in that quarter was more than compensated for by the surrender of Boston to General Washington in March. Thereupon the war, which had previously been localized in New England, was terminated there for the time being. It needed no keen prevision to forecast its course in the near future. New York City, as the central point of vantage, commanding a waterway which completely divided the rebellions colonics, would unquestionably be attacked as soon as a sufficient expeditionary force for the purpose could be gathered. Any other plan of campaign was unthinkable. New York Avas the only quarter from which offensive operations could be conducted with equal facility against every section of the country. With New York in their hands, the British would be prepared for any emergency that the strategy of Washington or the fortunes of battle might produce. Absolutely secure against recapture from the sea, since the Americans possessed no tleet, and almost completely incapable of being invested by land, that city would certainly remain theirs to the last. Even if extensive campaigns should fail, and pitched battle after pitched battle should go against them, with New York as a base they could still wage the conflict with great advantage of position. Such was tinreasoning which naturally occurred to intelligent men after the fall of Boston, and it was fully sustained by results. If the British had not captured and held New York, it is in every way historically improbable that they could have made even a respectable struggle for 1 The lamented General d M. whose death in this expedition will always be remembered as one of the capital tragedies of the Revolution, was a resident of our county, and seme of the most important associations of the War of Independence cluster around the place where his heme st 1.