With a complete knowledge of the small number of those who had previously assumed to represent the masses of the unfranchised inhabitants, and with as complete a knowledge of the? general harmlessness of those masses, in the absence of their self-constituted leaders, the high-toned promoters of the unpublished scheme of abridging the political power of the great body of the people had disarmed the former of their animosity, by rendering them harmless, as the helpless minority of the Committee of Fifty-one 1 -- an empty honor with which, however, for the time being, they were evidently satisfied -- while the latter were made contented, for a short time, also, by receiving a recognition of their political pretensions, in the privilege which was extended to them of confirming or rejecting the nominations made by the Caucus, among whom, with two* or three exceptions, the names of their self-constituted leaders were conspicuously presented. a

1 Lieutenant-governor Colden to Governor Tryon, "Spring-hill 31st '■' May, 1774 ; " the same to the Earlof Dartmouth, "New York June 1st " 1774 ; " Jones'B History of New York during the Revolutionary War, L, 34 ; Leake's Memoir of General John Lnmb, 87 ; DawBon's History of the Park and its Vic'nity, 33 ; Bancroft's United States, original edition, vii., 41, 42 ; the same, centenary edition, iv., 327 ; etc.

Of the fifty-one members of the Committee, a very great majority were of the aristocratic, conservative, an ti- revolutionary portions of the inhabitants. On the fourth of July, when a test question was before it, thirtyeight members being present, only thirteen votes were cast by those who assumed to represent the unfranchised inhabitants ; and in the greater contest, three days afterwards, on Mr. Thurber's Resolution, disavowing the proceedings of the great popular "Meeting in the Fields," over which Alexander McDougal had presided, only nine votes were cast in opposition to the vote of disavowal.