The avowed purpose of that band of acknowledged "banditti"' 2 was "to disarm the principal tories " there," [at East and West Chester,] " and secure the "persons of Parson Seabury, Judge Fowler, and "Lord Underhill," three residents of Westchestercounty ; and it is said they were joined, on their way, by other parties of men, numbering about eighty, under the leadership of " Captains " Rich-
1 " On the 20th of this month, sixteen respectable inhabitants of this "town, in company with Captain Seaes, set out from this place, for "East and West Chester, in the Province of New- York, to disarm the "principal tories there, and secure the persons of Parson Seabury, " Judge Fowler, and Lord Underhill." * * * (The Connecticut Journal, No. 424, [New-Haven,] Wednesday, November 29, 1775.)
Frank Moore, in his Diary of the American Revolution, (i., 173-175,) published a mutilated version of that editorial article, from the original of which the above waB extracted -- tho other portions of the latter of which will be used hereafter -- and credited it to The Pennsylvania Journal, published in Philadelphia, on the ninth of December.
3 In the preceding September, Lord Dunmore, then at Norfolk, in Virgiuia^had helped himself to the type and printing-press of John Holt, in that Town ; and it was said of the thief and his confederates, " a few " spirited gentlemen in Norfolk, justly incensed at so flagrant a breach "of good order and the Constitution, and highly resenting the conduct "of Lord Dunmore and the Navy Gentry, who have now commenced "downright Pirates and Banditti, ordered the drum to beat to arms," etc. (Extract from a contemporary publication, in Force's American Archives, Fourth Series, iii., 847.)