family and party and sect, united only in that one opposition to the Colonial policy of the Home Government 2 -- of "the Gentlemen in Trade," as they sometimes called themselves -- within the several Towns and Cities on the Atlantic seaboard, to some of the long-established Laws of the Kingdom, as well as to those which had been enacted, since the close of the War with France and Spain, for the purpose of meeting the necessities of the Mother Country, occasioned by the enormous expenses of that eventful contest -- the unfranchised Mechanics and Workingmen of that period, within the Cities and Towns referred to 3 (sometimes, courted and caressed by those

2 It is proper for us to say that that opposition to the Colonial policy of the Home Government, as it was developed within the City of New York, overpowered every difference of family or of sect or of party which had been previously known ; and that the De Lanceys and the Livingstons, the Churchman and the Dissenter, the Jacobin and the Georgian, for the purposes of that opposition and of whatever might be necessary to establish its power, became as one man -- one in purpose, one in determination, one in action, one in everything.

8 Inasmuch as frequent mention will be made, in this narrative, of these unfranchised Mechanics and Working-men, it is proper that, in this place, we should explain our meaning of the phrase, in order that the reader may not be misled, concerning it.