2 The practice of all, at that period and subsequently, on all such occasions as that referred to in the text, will sufficiently indicate to the reader, that the enthusiasm for the King which was displayed, as much by one faction as by the other, at the White Plains, on that eventful April day, was due quite as much to what had been drunk at the two TavernB, before either of those factions had gone to the Courthouse, as to the love for the King which either of them really possessed. But the Chairman of the Meeting kindly furnished conclusive evidence on the subject, when he wrote, •* much pains, I confess, were, on that day, •* taken, to make temporary enthusiasts, and with other more eshilara- *' ting spirit than the spirit of loyalty." -- (Lewis Morris to the Public^ "Moreisania, May 7, 1775.")
Only culprits " confess" a wrong-doing ; and with this "confession " of one of the principal offenders, on the occasion referred to, the reader will be enabled to understand how small an amount of genuine patriotism there was, in such a crowd, no matter for whom it hurrahed ; and how small the price was with which that crowd had been purchased, to further the purposes of either "the friends of the Government" or those of the revolutionary faction - may he not be enabled to understand, also, something more of those who originated and fostered the revolutionary spirit, in the Colonies, and something more of the means which they employed, call them what yon may, than those, claiming to be *' historians," with a very few really honorable exceptions, have hitherto told to him ?