W. Livingston, Captain in Fanning's King's American Regiment, were not the better exponents of the real opinions of that office-seeking family of Livingstons ; and who can doubt, with the roster of subsequent office holding Livingstons before hiin, that much of additional influence, in favor of the Home Government, might have been secured from that family and its adherents, had that Government been as g-nemus in the disposition of offices to members of that peculiarly office-seeking family, as the revolutionary authorities and the subsequent State Government, in New York, unquestionably were ?

6 Minutes of the Proceedings during tlie recess of the Provincial Congress, "New Yoek, Friday, Dec. 1st, 1775."

o Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Wednesday morning, December " 6th, 1775."

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

only five of the fourteen Counties then present, the Journal of the Provincial Congress bearing testimony to that fact, it will be seen and understood that the record which stated that " the Deputies from a majority of the Counties appeared," is a false record ; that there was, really, no quorum present, even under the rule and usage of that revolutionary body ; and that, tested by that rule and that usage, even from the convenient standpoint of rebellion, the Congress was not properly constituted and was without due revolutionary authority -- of course, it possessed no other authority, in the slightest degree. 1

What was thus called a Provincial Congress, elected Colonel Nathaniel Woodhull, of the County of Suffolk, to be its President ; and John McKesson and Robert Benson, the Secretaries of the former Provincial Congress, were elected Secretaries of that. 2 It assembled, day by day, until the twenty-second of December, when it took a recess, leaving a Committee of Safety to discharge some of the duties which it had undertaken to perform. 3 That Committee, of which Colonel Pierre Van Cortlandt, of Westchestercouuty, was the Chairman, continued in session, until the twelfth of February, 1776, when the Provincial Congress was again assembled ; i and that Congress continued in session, until the sixteenth of March-, in that year, when it took another recess, leaving, as before, a Committee of Safety, to discharge some portions of its self-imposed duties, during its absence. 5 That Committee, of which Joseph Hallett, of the City of New York, was the Chairman, continued in session, until the 8th of May, 1776, when the Provincial Congress was again assembled -- it is written that " several matters of the utmost importance,