"That your Memorialist had neglected to open his " church on the day of the Continental Fast.

"And that he had written pamphlets and ncvra- " papers against the liberties of America.

"To the first and last of these charges your "Memorialist pleads not guilty, and will be ready to "vindicate his innocence, as soon as he shall be "restored to his liberty in that province to which only " he conceives himself to be amenable. 2 He considers

1 Vide pages 132, 133, ante.

2 Id our early manhood, after a careful examination of all the evidence

" it a high infringement of the liberty for which the " virtuous sons of America are now nobly struggling, " to be carried by force out of one colony into " another, for the sake either of trial or imprisonwhich was accessible to us, we reached the conclusions that the celebrated political tracts of "A. W. Farmer" [a Westchester Farmer] which were published in 1774, and which created such an intense excitement among the revolutionary faction, were written by Isaac Wilkins, of Westchester, and not by the Rev. Samuel Seabury, also of Westchester, to whom they had been generally attributed. Several years afterwards, those conclusions secured the respect and deference of one whose respect and deference, in such matters, were distinctions of which any one might have been reasonably proud, (Historical Magazine, New Series, iii., 9-- January, 1868 ;) and we have not since seen the slightest reason for revising our early judgment, in that much canvassed question of authorship.