Livingston, asserting its continued loyalty to the Sovereign, its desire to effect a redress of the grievances under which the Colonies were laboring, and its hope that a reconciliation between the Colonies and the Mother Country might be secured, nevertheless, fell back on the Congress and on the line of action on which the Congress had determined, notwithstanding the 'wellknown tendency toward Revolution of all which that Congress had done, and notwithstanding, also, the equally well-known effects of that action, because of its ill-concealed encouragement of Insurrection if not of Rebellion, on a large portion of the Colonists, throughout the Continent, and on the Home Government. Another portion of those members, equally respectable in character and ability, constituting a large majority of the House, and led by Isaac Wilkins, James De Lancey, and Crean Brush, was not less opposed to the Colonial policy of the Home Government, nor less decided and sincere in its opposition to that policy, nor less desirous of effecting a redress of the grievances under which the Colonies were said to have been suffering, nor mere hopeful that a recon-

2 Journal of the Assembly, Die Martis, 10 ho., A.M. , the 10th January, 1775.

* Resolution of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, inviting a Meeting of Deputies, in a Congress of the Continent, June 17, 1774.

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

ciliation between the Colonies and the Mother Country might be effected ; but it also maintained, in opposition to the minority of the House and more consistently with the uniform profession of loyalty to the Sovereign and of respect for the fundamental principles of the Constitution, in both of which all, the minority as well as the majority, professed to be in harmony, that a removal of the causes of the disaffection and a restoration of harmony between the excited disputants could not be secured by the use of such means as the Congress had recommended and authorized, no matter by whom organized and controlled ; and that, for those well-defined purposes, it would be preferable to adopt and employ only those means which would give offence to no one, and only those instrumentalities concerning which there could not be raised any question of their legitimacy nor of their entire fitness, within the law, for the due promotion of the great ends for which, alone, all professed