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.)

operations. The Congress declared, as its opinion, "that Colonel Gilbert Drake sustained a loss, which " accrued in receiving and paying out the public "money, in purchasing Pork, by order of the late "Provincial Congress," without, however, assuming the loss referred to ; and then it voted the gallant Colonel, " the sum of seventy pounds, as a compensa- " tion for his services, expenses, and commissions, in " purchasing the said Pork, as aforesaid," and leaving him officially "whitewashed," with twenty pounds and what, besides, he had made in the operations, snugly secured in his pocket-book. It was proven, in that instance, that influence was useful, even among " patriots ; " and the Chairman of Westchestercounty's County Committee, in the same instance, found it well to have been a Drake. 4

As we have already stated, 5 the third Provincial Congress was alarmed by the entrance of General Howe into the harbor of New York, and precipitately disbanded, without a formal adjournment, although it had previously provided for a reassembling of the Deputies, at the Court House, in the White Plains, on the following Tuesday, {July 2, 1776.] As it did not thus resume its work, it ceased to exist; and, whether for good or for evil, the third Provincial Congress iind all which it did and all which it failed to do became subjects of history.