It will thus be seen how rigid and detailed were the arrangements, upon the eve of the breaking out of the war in the Colony of New York, for com pelling absolute submission everywhere to the will of the Revolutionary authorities, and for visiting swift and condign punishment upon all refractory or sullen spirits. 11 is needless to remark that t here was no relaxation of this severe programme during the progress of the war. Yet the extreme limits of the legal processes put in operation against the Tories were imprisonment or deportation to other parts of the country, with the added punishment later, in special instances, of confiscation of estates. There was no resemblance to the sanguinary scenes of the French [{evolution. Life was uniformly respected, unless the offense was of a nature punishable by death under the articles of civilized war. Some of the common Tory suspects arrested in Westchester County who were deemed dangerous, and therefore not tit persons to go at large, were, for the lack of local prison facilities, sent to the forts in the Highlands '< and put at hard labor. The third provincial congress, as the reader no doubt will remember, was a very short-lived body, extending only from the lSth of .May to the 30th of June. It was deliberately planned by the eminent . ' ... ,' , . FLAG OF THE men Who were its controlling members to bring thirteen colonies. its labors promptly to a conclusion, and to have it superseded by a new congress, freshly elected by the people upon the great issue of American independence which was being shaped for ultimate decision at Philadelphia. in anticipation of the Declaration of Independence, the continental congress had, as early as the Kith of .May, adopted a preamble and resolution declaring it to be absolutely irreconcilable to reason and good conscience for the people of the colonies longer to take the oaths and affirmations necessary lor the support of any government under the crown of Great Britain, and recommending to the various colonial assemblies and conventions to take measures