Lodge (History of the English Colonies, 491,) one of the latest specimens of Massachusetts dilettanteism, sneeringly refers to the Assembly of New York as "the close corporation known as the Assembly," as if the General Court of Massachusetts, locked in its Chamber, was not quite as " close ' ' a body, while it was in session, as even he could find. Others, including Frothingham (Rise oftfie Republic, 398) told only of the rejection of Colonel Ten Broeck's Resolution, and, by the suppression of much of the truth concerning the subject, left their less informed readei's to infer, if the latter are not directly told so, that the Assembly was influenced, in that action, by an antagonism to the popular cause.

No one, unacquainted with the facts and depending on any of the above-named historians for information, can possibly learn, from them, that the Vote referred to was taken in the interest of the common cause, as a prelude to what the Assembly intended to do, in its own manner, in support of that cause ; that there was not a " friend of the Government," or " Tory," or member of the " party of the Government," among the members of that Assembly ; that the Colonial Government was not consulted, respecting anything which was done, or to be done, by that Assembly ; and that not even the Congress of the Continent, as will be seen hereafter, more earnestly, more powerfully, or more successfully opposed the Ministry and demanded a redress of the grievances of the Colonies, than that Assembly, in every thing which it did, on those subjects. Pitkin (History of the United States, i.. 324, 325,) and Hildreth (History of the United States, First Series, iii., 56,) notwithstanding they wore New Engenders, did not permit the truth to be suppressed ; but they gave to the Assembly of New York, at least a portion of what was due to it, in honestly written history.