Home / Dawson, Henry B. Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution. Morrisania, NY: (privately printed by the author), 1886. / Passage

Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution

Dawson, Henry B. Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution. Morrisania, NY: (privately printed by the author), 1886. 252 words

The greater number of those who had held places of honor and emolument, in the Colonial Government, notwithstanding it was politic to keep quiet, was also, more or less '' disaf- "fected;" and the multitude, whose timidity would not permit them to entertain a thought that Independence would be worth what it would evidently cost to secure it, was not very loud-toned in its favor, even if it did not, very often, lean toward " disaffection.'' Lastly, the inhabitants of the State, very generally, anxious only to attend to their business and their farms, without the distress and misery which a Civil War would necessarily produce, and seeing no advantage to themselves or to their families by the violent overthrow of one Government and the equally violent establishment of another Government -- the great majority, by far the greater number, if not the almost entire body, of the farmers of Westchestercounty, was of that class -- preferred to remain as they had been, before they had been outraged by the new regime; and, therefore, were classed as "disaffected." There was reason, therefore, for the more tender anxiety of the Convention, composed of those who were cowards by instinct, since " its chickens had "come home, to roost;" and, as we shall see, its anxiety was not relieved by what it was subsequently required to experience. Governor Tryon was enlisting as many as he could entice into the service of the King, both in New York and in other States j 1 and