Bolton has not named any authority for his statement, although he was not the flrat to print it, he must be regarded as authorially responsible for it ; and, therefore, it may be proper to say, further, that Pierre Van Cortlandt was not the President of the Congress, nor had he been such, at any time, General Woodhull having been elected its President, and John Haring, of Orange-county, occupied the Chair, as President fro tern., on the last day of its session. In the same connection, it may be said that, although Colonel Pierre Van Cortlandt was elected as one of the Deputies from Westchester-county to the third Provincial Congress, that under Dotice, he never occupied a seat in it, even for a Bingle day.

2 The Resolution of July 2, 1776, separating the Colonies from the Mother Country, was not the earliest declaration of Independence, in the Colonies, by any means. The correspondence of John Adams is well filled with evidence of his corroct judgment of the real character of the earlier enactments of the Continental Congress ; but the Resolution which was introduced into that Congress, early in May, 1776, and adopted on the tenth of that month, and the Preamble to that Resolution, which was adopted on the fifteenth, recommending the adoption of new forms of Government, in the several Colonies, was, assuredly, nothing else than a Resolution of Independence, thinly disguised by the prefix of another

the Provincial Congress of New York, at least long enough to enable the Royal Commissioners for effecting a reconciliation with the Colonies, who were then approaching New York, to exhibit their powers and their inclinations, in that better desired measure. How successfully the scheme was carried out, in the latter body, will be seen, hereafter.