5 In all the political operations of that period, the several Counties of the Colonies were regarded as entirely independent bodies, each controlling itself to the extent, even, of sending independent Delegates to the Continental Congress -- the centralization of authority, indeed, was the fundamental grievance against which all the Colonies were, then, raising their remonstrances and their opposition to the measures of the Home Government-- and it must not be supposed that, in the instanco referred to, in the text, the Committee sought the direct control of the masses, in any other County than in that of New York-- it sought no more than to secure the control of those, within the several Counties, who did control those masses, within their several neighborhoods ; and, therefore, it sought to

WESTCHESTEK COUNTY.

ments, at the second meeting of the Committee, on the evening of Monday, the thirtieth of May, Peter Van Schaack, Francis Lewis, John Jay, Alexander Mc- Dougal, and Theophilact Bache, three rigid conservatives and two of the revolutionary faction, were appointed " a Committee to write a Circular Letter to " the Supervisors in the different Counties, acquaint- " ing them of the appointment of this Committee, and " submitting to the consideration of the Inhabitants " of the Counties whether it could not be expedient for " them to appoint persons to correspond with this " Committee upon matters relative to the purposes for " which they were appointed ; " ' and, at a Meeting especially called for the purpose, on the following evening, [Tuesday, May 31,] at which thirty-five members were present, that Sub-Committee reported a Draft of a Circular Letter, for the purpose named, which was duly approved by the Committee. Mr. Lewis was ordered to cause three hundred copies of that Circular Letter to be printed ; and it was also ordered that those printed copies of the letter should be transmitted, with all convenient speed, to the Treasurers of the several Counties, with a " line " to each Treasurer, signed by the Chairman of the Committee, requesting his care in the proper transmission of the several letters to the persons to whom they should be respectively addressed ; and that intimation should be given, through the various Newspapers, that such Circular Letters had been duly sent. 2