To urge the warm friends of Liberty to de- " cency and good order, this Congress assures the public that effectiial " measures shall be taken to secure the enemies of American Liberty in " this Colony, and do require the good people of this City and Colony to " desist from all Riots, and leave the offenders against so good a cause to be " dealt with by the constitutional representatives i.f the Colony "-- the subsequently infamous " Committee to detect Conspiracies," then in embryo, having been, undoubtedly, the "constitutional " agency referred to, (Journal of the Provincial Congress, " Wednesday afternoon, June 12, "1776.")

It has been said, apologetically, that the Congress was intimidated ; and that the mob waa the controlling power ; but (he overwhelming military force which was then in the City, with General Washington at its head, indicated no such state of affairs ; and it is undoubtedly true that that series of Mobs, directed by leaders of the Rebellion-- one of whom, if no more, was a member of the Provincial Congress-- against thoBe of the Colonists who were not of the Rebellion, was intended to give to the new-formed " Committee to detect Conspiracies," subsequently so obnoxious to every honorable man, a good setroff in itB work of persecution and outrage.

WESTCHBSTEK COUNTY.

and compelling the latter to seek safety in flight. 1 It assumed judicial functions, in putting some of its victims on " trial," before itself or a Committee of its members ; " sometimes it graciously absolved those whom it had seized on mere " informations ;" 8 and, occasionally, it honored a victim of a local Committee, by listening to an Appeal from the decision of that inferior tribunal, 4 although it was not always exempt from an appearance, at least, of partiality to the Respondent in the Case. 6 In the same connection, it called into existence and inaugurated the " Com- " mittee to detect Conspiracies," that powerful inquisitorial agency of the Rebellion, in New York, whose doings will be noticed more fully, hereafter. ******** Those who had been hoist with their own petard, in becoming the speculative holders of Dutch Tea, which they had smuggled into the Colony, and which they could not, now, dispose of, unless on terms and at prices which would have been disastrous to them, pestered the Provincial Congress with appeals for relief from the enactments of their own friends ; and some of them -- one of them a member of the preceding Provincial Congresses, and another a Delegate of the Colony in the Continental Congress -- were charged with violating those enactments, in their