The subject was one of those which, by hook or by crook, the Secretaries of the Provincial Congress were apt to pass, without making an official record of them ; and we have found no mention of it, on the Journal of the Provincial Conyrexsi until a special Committee who had been previously appointed " to " take into consideration the case of Colonel Gilbert " Drake, relative to a loss of fifty pounds he sustained " in receiving and paying out the monies deposited in "his hands, for the purpose of purchasing and laying " up in store a certain quantity of salted Pork, pur- " suant to an Order of the late Provincial Congress," made its report, on the fifteenth of June. In that Report, the facts were duly recited, very much to the depreciation of the vindictive Colonel's manliness, although it recommended that he be allowed for his loss, and that he be also compensated " for his other " services," the latter having been asked for, by no others of the Deputies who had also traversed the County and had made similar purchases and had been contented with what they had respectively made, in the

1 Vide pages 157-159, ante.

2 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Die Mercurii, 9 ho., A.M., Au- "gust 14,1776."

3 Gilbert Drake seemed to care very little for the respect of posterity ; and his ill-conduct in the management of his monetary dealings with others, after the establishment of the Peace, led the Grand Jury to indict him, on a charge of extortion, (Records of the Court, in manuscript, County-clerk's office, at the White Plains.)