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. Whether the majority, in that instance, acted wisely or unwisely, is a question which the reader must determine for himself: it is not, in the slightest degree, probable, however, that the great movement which was then in progress, and which ended only in the entire separation of the thirteen Colonies from the Mother Country, was either assisted or obstructed, in the slightest degree, by that peculiar opposition, from the conservative yeomanry of Westchestercounty.

The Provincial Convention duly assembled at the Exchange, in the City of New York, on the twentieth of April, 1775, the Counties of New York, Albany, Ulster, Orange, Westchester, Duchess, Kings, Suffolk, and two Towns in Queens, being, more or less, represented by Delegates-- of the Delegation which had

s This very important paper was published in mriugto,,; Xm-York Gazetteer, No. 105, NKw-York, Thursday, April 2n, 1775, and, in Gaine's Xeu- York Gazette : and the Weekhj Ihramj, No. 1227, Xew-Yoek, Monday .April 17th, 1775.