" number, to determine that there should be no Com- " mittee, than the opposite party had to appoint one, " and might with much greater propriety be said to " shew the sense of the county, than the few who " acted without authority, and in direct opposition to "government, and to the determinations of our worthy "Assembly. And we doubt not but the impartial " public will consider the matter in this light, and " not esteem the act of a few individuals, unlawfully " assembled, as the act (which it most assuredly is " not) of the very respectable, populous and loyal coun- " ty of Westchester." 3

The promoters of the Meeting were evidently only a minority of those present, at the Courthouse, on that memorable eleventh of April ; and it is equally evident that if those who were opposed to them had pursued a different line of conduct and had joined issue with them, on the main question, the weight of the County would have been emphatically cast on the side of the conservatives, and in opposition to the election of Delegates to the proposed Convention. But the majority, very correctly, considered that were it to assert its undoubted power, within the Meeting, and to participate in the proceedings of that Meeting, no matter for what pupose, it would be a tacit acknowledgment of the authority to do so, of those who had called the Meeting ; and it confined itself, therefore, to simply protesting against the entire proceedings, as disorderly and revolutionary, without appearing to have remembered that political revolutions never move backward, voluntarily ; and that there was not the slightest reason for supposing that, in that particular instance, in the absence of all restraint, there would be an exception to that general law.