On the afternoon of the ninth of July, immediately after the Provincial Congress had adopted the Report of the Committee to whom the Declaration of Independence had been referred, and, thereby, as far as it could do so, had abrogated every Law and every Commission which had rested on the sovereignty of the King of Great Britain, with singular coolness but entirely consistent with the absolutism which had thus been inaugurated and with the disposition and desires of those who then controlled the Congress, the Sheriffs of the several Counties were " authorized " and directed" [not by Law, but only by the oligarchic will and the consequent ipse dixit of the Congress,] "to "retain and keep in their custody ail prisoners, of " whatever kind, which are or may be in their cus- "tody, until the further order of this Convention, " or until such of them as may be confined for " debt, on civil process, shall be released by the " Plaintiffs so brought against them ; " ' and thus provision was made for the safekeeping not only of the victims of earlier lawlessness but of subsequent absolutism, the latter, by the terms of the Resolution, concentrated within the Provincial Congress itself. 2

1 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Tuesday, P.M., White Plains, "July 9th, 1776."

2 It is very evident that James De Lancey , the Sheriff of Westchestercounty, or the Deputy who represented him, obeyed the Resolution of the Provincial Congress by holding in confinement, in the County Jail, those "Prisoners of State" who, for political reasons, had beeu or who