In this unfortunate dilemma their intrigues became public, and the lessons of hatred and contempt for men in office which they had taught the people for the last few years, reacted so powerfully upon themselves, that "they instantly fell from the heights of popularity into the most abject contempt."! This proof of the absence of principle in their leaders destroyed the opposition. A dissolution of the Assembly soon followed, and in the new elections the conservatives regained their power. This ascendancy was henceforward maintained, and their party became supreme in the colony. The people, disgusted with their old leaders, gave it a cordial support, and the affairs of the Province continued in its keeping for a long series of years.

During this period Chief Justice De Lancey not only discharged the responsible duties of his office to the satisfaction of the colony, and with credit to himself, but was regarded on all sides as the acknowledged leader of the Council,a position he retained throughout the administration of Cosby, Clark and Clinton, and until his own accession to the command of the Province as Lieutenant Governor in 1753, a period of upwards of twenty years.

He was engaged also at times in important public matters in other colonies. Among other trusts of this nature he was appointed by the King one of the commissioners to settle the disputed boundary between Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1741, and was an active member of the board. Neither province was satisfied with the result, and both appealed to the King in council. But the question remained an open one between the parties both as provinces and states, and was determined in 1846 or 1847, curiously enough, upon almost the very line marked out by the Royal Commissioners more than a century before.?