Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution
The author of the latter was very profuse in his very general charge of " falsities contained in this representation ; " but he failed to specify, even a single instance in which the former had presented an untruth ; and every one will perceive that he did not except, from the general impeachment, even those portions of the Declaration and Protest which agreed, in their recital of facts, with his own statement of those facts, contained in the official report of the proceedings of that Meeting, at the White Plains, written over his own signature, on the afternoon of the day on which the Meeting was held, and subsequently presented by him, to the Provincial Convention, as the Credentials through which he and his associates were admitted to seats in that body, as, nominally, a delegation from Westchester-county -- if the recital contained in the one was untruthful, therefore, the similar recital contained in the other was, necessarily, quite as untrustworthy as the other. He also impeached the " de- "cency" of what the Declaration and Protest contained ; but, again, he failed to specify in what their " indecency " consisted. He impeached the bona fide of the " enthusiasm " of the protestants, at the Plains ; but he " confessed," and only those who are guilty " confess," that his own companions, those who had given the much coveted place and authority to him, were also noisy, from the effects of other Spirits than that of loyalty to the King -- inasmuch as each of the two factions, at the Plains, claimed to have been noisy as well as loyal, the author of the reply had little reason for making such an objection, unless he desired to secure to his own faction the credit of making all the noise and of expressing all the loyalty which were then produced, by any one.