The tenure under which so many of those Westchester-county farmers held their lands, which did not permit them to enjoy the rights of Freeholders, at the Polls, had, from the beginning, removed that portion of the inhabitants of the County from the arena of politics, without having created any discontent ; and, to a great extent, it had served, also, to increase that Conservatism, even in political affairs, which would have undoubtedly controlled even those who were Tenants, under any other circumstances. > )4 , here is not, indeed, any known evidence of the existence, at any time, within the County, of any material excitement, among the great body of those farmers, on any subject; 4 and, consequently, there is very little, if any, evidence that the excitement of the earlier opposition to the Home Government, which had so seriously disturbed the peace of the neighboring City, as well as that of other Towns and Cities, on the seaboard, prior to the Summer of 1774, had found any active sympathy, in West-

8 Except wherein our authorities for particular statements have been already given, we have depended, for what we have stated, in this and in the two other paragraphs which immediately precede this, on the knowledge which we have acquired, concerning Westchestercounty, its inhabitants, and its history, from the numerous books and manuscripts and newspapers, bearing on those subjects, which have fallen into our hands and been examined by us, duriug more than forty years past ; on the information, relating thereto, which was given to ub, personally, in our earlier life, by aged natives of the County, some of them dear relatives, and one, if no^ more, whose personal recollections extended back, beyond the Declaration of Independence ; and on what remained of the character and habits of its Colonial inhabitants, in those old families who continued to linger within the County, when we first knew it.