1 The authority which appeal's to have been vested in members of the Provincial Congress, to appoint local Committees where the inhabitants had not ■ done so, probably originated in that. Congress, in an earlier secret meeting of that body ; but no record of any such action is seen on its published Journal-- like the Secret Journals of the Continental Congress, those of the Provincial Congress of New York, could they also be published, would undoubtedly throw different tints of light and color on many a romance, called " history."

2 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Die Luna!, i ho., P.M., May 29">, "1775."

a See pages 82, 83, ante.

ment ; and there is very little evidence, as far as we have been able to find any, which indicates that the several Towns throughout the County paid any attention to the recommendation of the Congress, for the appointment of Town-committees; * and there is no evidence whatever, that any attempt was made, in any of those Towns, to obtain the signatures of the body of the inhabitants of the County, to the General Association which had been enacted by the Continental Congress of 1774, nor to any other such Association 1 ' -- the Provincial Congress had done no more than, nominally, to " recommend " to the inhabitants to sign the Association; 6 it not only did not authorize the employment of force in order to obtain signatures thereto, but it expressly disclaimed, in advance, the entertainment of any such idea ; 7 the Congress itself, by a formal vote, had postponed a formal approval of that General Association as well as all of the other doings of the Continental Congress, who had enacted it ; " and, for these reasons, as well as for others with which the reader is already familiar, the conservative yeomanry of Westchestercounty was not in a hurry to either recognize or sign it.