Having fully accomplished its preliminary purpose in securing from the legally constituted Legislature of the Colony a rejection of the several revolutionary Resolutions which it had submitted, and in, thereby

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

affording a pretext to those of its confederates, not of the General Assembly, for the assumption, by them, of authority, nominally in the name of the body of the Colonists but really in known opposition to the inclinations of by far the greater number, to call a Convention of the Colony, in the interests of Rebellion, in which should be reposed the uncontrolled power of exercising the various functions of an independent, despotic Government, without any limitation, and in open disregard of the existing, legally-constituted Government of the Colony -- having accomplished that preliminary purpose, the minority of the Assembly discontinued the submission of Resolutions of any character ; and, as will be seen, all its labors were subsequently devoted to .the promotion of its factional purposes, only, in the consideration of the papers which the House had ordered to be prepared and laid before it, in which, however, the majority afforded very slight reasons for complaint.

On the appointed day, [March 1, 1775] the Assembly, in Committee of the Whole House, Colonel Benjamin Seaman, of Richmond-county, occupying the Chair, commenced the consideration of the State of the Colony's Grievances, which had been reported by the Special Committee which had prepared it ; l and after having spent the entire day thereon, as well as the whole of the following day 2 and the greater portion of the succeeding day, 3 also, in Committee of the Whole House, the latter day's session was closed by the adoption of the Report, by the Assembly, with a single Amendment, which was submitted by Colonel Philip Schuyler, and supported by nine of the minority, and five of the majority -- the only Amendment which was submitted by any one -- a marked feature of the proceedings having been that the amended State of the Grievances of this Colony was adopted by the House, without a division. 4