It was a reasonable consequence, under existing circumstances, we repeat, that quiet men should become excited and excitable men angry, and that all should become alarmed and indignant, when a mere handful of their neighbors, without their " consent" and without the slightest warrant of Law and without the slightest necessity, usurped and maintained such unheard-of authority as was created in these enactments; and it was equally reasonable, under the circumstances which then existed, that there should be neighborly consultations and neighborhood organizations, as well as personal efforts, for the support and protection of

The names of those who were arrested and imprisoned, which are named in the text, were copied from a single Petition for relief, (Historical Manuscripts, etc.: Petitions, xxxiii., 108); but there were many others. The names of.those farmers, in Salem, whose Farms, Stock, Tools, Crops, Household Furniture, etc., were thus seized and Bold, were taken from the same Historical Manuscripts, etc. : Miscellaneous Papers, xxxv. 307, in which the properties aro mentioned, in detail.

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

the personal and domestic and political Rights which those farmers indisputably possessed, under the Constitution and the Laws of the Kingdom -- they would have been unworthy of their manhood and of their families, of their homes and of their Rights, had they failed to become excited and alarmed, to have armed and organized and fpught, for themselves and their wives and their little ones, for their homes and their properties and their Rights, whenever and by whomsoever and under whatever pretence of illgotten authority, these might have been assailed. It was a mistake, as well as a crime, therefore, to assume authority for the arrest and imprisonment of men and for the sequestration of their properties and the impoverishment of the aged and of the dependent and helpless, without a shadow of legal authority and in audacious defiance of it ; without a shadow of existing necessity, even from the standpoint of the Rebellion, for the enactment of such extreme measures ; and with a reasonable assurance that a manly selfrespect among those who were proscribed, would be surely aroused, not only for their own and their families' protection, but, as far as they could do it, for the suppression of that haughty lawlessness which had presumed to create and to enforce so grave an enactment of despotism.