Although the Assembly had been prorogued to meet on the tenth of January, 1775, the members from the distant Counties were not present on that day, nor on several succeeding days; and, on the twentieth of that month, a "Call of the House" was ordered to be made on the seventh of February ensuing ; and the Clerk of the House was ordered to write to the absent Members, to require their punctual attendance on that day, 1 both factions of the House evidently understanding that that particular " Call of " the House " carried with it, in honor if in nothing else, the additional provision that no leading question which was likely to be brought before the Assembly, during that Session, should be thus introduced, until after that " Call " should have been made, agreeably to that Order. 2 It appears, however, that the minority was strengthened by the arrival of two of the absentees, within a few days after the "Call" had been ordered and nearly a fortnight before the day on which it was ordered to be made -- at which time, too, it appeared to the minority that it had temporarily acquired the control of the House -- and the majority was surprised, on the twenty-sixth of January, by

i ! Journal of the Home, " Die Veneris, 10 ho., A.M., the 20th January, "1775."

2 "It was some Days before asufflcient number of Members got to Town " to make a House, and there are Btil] twelve of their number absent, '* which has occasioned the Ilouse to put off the farther consideration of "their Important Business to the 7th of next Month, at which Time "they have ordered all their Members to attend." -- {Lieutenant-governor Colden to the Earl of Dartmouth, " New York, 21January, 1775.")