There were, of course, plenty of applications from those of the well-born, among the revolutionary faction and from among those who had been instrumental in bringing the Livingstons and the Morrises and others into authority, for each of the offices, in each of the four Regiments into which the levy on New York was arranged ; but there was an evident backwardness, among the masses, from the beginning, in enlisting for "the private station;" there was a greater anxiety, among those who did enlist, concerning their pay and bounty and " under clothes,"' than for the welfare of the Colony ; and, generally, there was very little inclination, any where, among those who had them, to exchange their peaceful occupations and their domestic comforts and their quiet homes, under such circumstances as then existed, for a distant encampment or a distant military post and the sometimes laborious and not always well-supplied and always irregular lives of soldiers, in garrison as well as in the field.

Of the four Regiments thus ordered, on the Continental Establishment, only the Fourth, or Duchess, appears to have had any connection with Westchestercounty-- James Holmes, of Bedford, an experienced

1 Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Die Mercurii, 9 ho., A.M., May "31st, 1775."

2 Journal of the Continental Congress, " Thursday, May 25, and Friday, " May 26, 1775-- pages 98, 99, ante.

soldier of the former War, was its Colonel; 3 and Philip Van Cortlandt, of Cortlandt Manor, who held, also, a Royal Commission of Major in the Colonial Militia, was its Lieutenant-colonel; 4 Barnabas Tuthill, of Southold, Suffolk county, was its Major; Benjamin Chapman was its Quarter-master ; and Ebenezer Haviland was its Surgeon. 6 Of the ten Companies of which the Regiment was composed, three were largely from Westchester-county -- of one of these Jonathan Piatt, of Bedford, was Captain,' David Dan, of Poundridge, was First Lieutenant ; 8