Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution
The suggestion which was made in this letter, that those of the revolutionary faction, in Westchestercounty, whose safety was imperiled by the threats of their conservative and law-abiding neighbors, should go before the King's Magistrates and ask that the latter should be put under bonds to keep the peace towards the former, was received with disfavor by Isaac Sears, of New York, and Melancton Smith, of Duchess-county, and Doctor Lewis Graham and John Thomas, Junior -- the latter a son of one of those who
had been threatened with removal from the County
and an attempt was made by them to strike out from the letter that portion "which refers them " [the Committee of Westchester-county'] " to the Civil Magis- "trate;" but the Congress declined to make the
* This remarkable suggestion, that those, in Westchester-county, who were in rebellion, and who were threatened with arrest by those of their neighbors who were not in rebsllion, should go before the King's Justices of the Peace, and ask that those loyal inhabitants who were inclined to support the Home and Colonial Governments and the Laws and to arrest those who were in rebellion, should be p«t under bonds to preserve the peace toward tlie latter, will be duly appreciated by the reader. Whatever the County Committee of Westchester-county may have thought of it, it will be evident to the reader that the Provincial Congress, when it wrote to that Committee and made that suggestion, was not inclined to regard the men of Westchester-county who we're in rebellion as entitled to very much of its respect and sympathy.