The Congress of the Continent assembled at Philadelphia, agreeably to order, on Wednesday, the tenth of May, 1775 ; and, ten Colonies being represented -- only three of the Delegates from New York having been present, that Colony was not counted -- it was formally organized by the election of Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, as its President, and Charles Thomson, of
1 It was well-said by Henry C. Van Schaack, in hiB Life of his father, " It will scarcely now be credited that powers so undefined and cxtraor- " dinary should have been intrusted to a few individuals, by a people so " jealous of encroachments ; whose sense of liberty was so keen as to " ' snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze ; ' and who, "on their own part, had gone to war against a preamble." -- Van Schaack's Life of Peter Van Schaack, 67.
The barbarities which were officially inflicted on individuals and families, in many instances only for ah opinion extorted by their persecutors, without an overt act or the inclination to commit one, as those barbarities have been officially recorded, were perfectly shocking ; and some of those which were inflicted on residents of Westchester-county, under the guidance of such notable Westchester-county men as John Jay and Gouverneur Morris, will find places in other parts of this narrative.
| Pennsylvania, as its Secretary. 2 The history of its doings, generally, is known to every intelligent person, and need not be repeated, unless in such instances as particularly related to Westchester-county or to those who were within the bounds of that County, during the period of the War of the Revolution.