Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution

" or, if the regulations of Congress be attended to, " must he be dragged from the committee of his own " county, and from the Congress of his own province, " cut off from the intercourse of his friends, deprived " of the benefit of those evidences which may be " necessary for the vindication of his innocence, and "judged by strangers to him, to his character, and " to the circumstances of his general conduct in life ? " One great grievance justly complained of by the " people of America, and which they are now strug- " gling against, is the Act of Parliament directing "persons to be carried from America to England for " a trial.

And your Memorialist is confident that the " supreme legislative authority in this colony will not "permit him to be treated in a manner so destructive " to that liberty for which they are now contending. " If your Memorialist is to be dealt with according to " law, he conceives that the laws of Connecticut, as "well as of New York, forbid the imprisonment of " his person any otherwise than according to law. If " he is to be judged according to the regulations of the "Congress, they have ordained the Provincial Con- " gress of New York or the Committee of the county " of West Chester, to be his judges. Neither the "laws of either colony nor the regulations of the " Congress give any countenance to the mode of " treatment which he has met with.

But considered " in either light, he conceives it must appear unjust, " cruel, arbitrary, and tyrannical}