Such are some of the evidences of the entire untruBtworthiness of the greater number of those who, satisfied with that " discipline " to which the Classics have subjected them and without having otherwise qualified themselves for the proper discharge of theirhonorable duties as historians of their own Country, have contented themselves, instead, by repeating what others, also fettered by similar obsolete prejudices and equally indolent, have written, and by willingly propagating the errors which local prejudices or indolence or a faulty education or ignorance have produced, while, with greater usefulness to the world and greater honor to themselves, they might rather have attempted to extirpate them.

1 An evidence of that feeling may be seen in the letter from Thomas Young to John Lamb, dated " Boston, 19th June, 1774, " in the"£awi& " Paperi," New York Historical Society's Library.

s From the days of Doctor Gordon until the present time, as far as our knowledge extends, Hildreth is the only New Englander, among histori-

The Committee of Correspondence, in New York, as it was known to the world, at that time, was created only as a local organization, for only special purposes, and with only a very limited and a very clearly defined authority. 3 But it very soon became evident that some, at least, of those who had promoted the organization of that Committee, only for limited and welldefined purposes, and who had subsequently assumed the entire control of its action, were well-inclined, for the advancement of their individual and family and factional influence and interests, to use every opportunity for the increase of the authority of the Committee, which was or which might be, in any way, afforded ; and that they were not ill-disposed, in the prosecution of their peculiar purposes, to assume and to exercise authority which had not been vested in that or in any other organization, and limited only by their own ill-sustained views of expediency and propriety, cannot be successfully disputed.* Notably among those instances of authority unduly assumed by the Committee, was its early attempt to place itself at the head of all those, in every other County in the Colony, who were inclined to be or who were likely to become disaffected and revolutionary ; which may be regarded as the second successful movement of the rapidly advancing revolutionary elements in the Colony of New York, among those who assumed to regard a revolution, conducted by themselves, as commendable and praiseworthy, while such a revolution, controlled by others, would be regarded and resisted, by them, as worthy only of condemnation and to be extirpated, the latter regardless of every other consequence.