WESTCHE8TEE COUNTY.

ing any recess, until the thirtieth of June, when, because of supposed danger, in the City of New York, it adjourned to meet at the White Plains, on the following Tuesday, [July 2, 1776] ; x but the Journals very clearly indicate that no such adjourned meeting was attempted -- the Deputies had more important business requiring their personal attention ; and the third Congress was permitted to pass away, without further ceremony.

The third Provincial Congress was distinguished by the entrance into it, among the Deputies from the City and County of New York, of John Jay, James Duane, John Alsop, Philip Livingston, and Francis Lewis, notwithstanding all of them were, also, Delegates from the Colony to the Continental Congress, then in session, in Philadelphia ; and because three of those five are now known to have resisted the earlier movements toward Independence, in that Congress, 2 and to have, also, resisted the later movements in that direction, in the Provincial Congress, it is a reasonable conclusion that the hegira of those three, if not that of the whole number, had been made for the purpose of obstructing the adoption of that increasingly popular measure, as well as that of the establishment of a new form of government, through

of the requisite three, only Mr. Schenck appeared from Duchess-county ; and of the requisite two from Orange-county, only Mr. Little appeared.

1 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Sunday morning, June 30, "1776."

Mr. Bolton, {History of Westchester-cowity, original edition, ii., 359 ; the same, second edition, ii., 564,)said of the imaginary journey of the Deputies, from the City of New York to the White Plains, between the adjournment of the Congress and the day on which it was to be re-assembled, "The journey between New York and the Plains was per- " formed by the members on horseback, Pierre van Cortlandt, the PreBi- *' dent, riding at their head.