Clinton recommended certain measures, which did not meet the approbation of either the Council or the Assembly, the most objectionable of which was the demand of an independent support for a term of years, in place of the annual appropriation hitherto made. This produced a rupture between him and those bodies, and he consequently withdrew his confidence from the conservatives, who opposed his measures, so that from 1746 to the end of his administration, in 1753, they were in continual opposition to the dominant party in the colony and in the legislature.

The Chief Justice took an active part in these disputes and exerted all his power in favor of the people and against the Governor, who had thrown himself into the arms of Dr, Colden, and the Chief Justice's old opponents, Mr. Smith and Mr. Alexander. .

The influence: possessed by Chief Justice De Lancey during this period was greater, perhaps, than that which any single individual ever exerted in New York prior to the Revolution. Smith, the author of the History of the colony, the son of William Smith, the elder, the rival and opponent of Chief Justice De Lancey, thus speaks of it, as manifested by the result of the election of 1752, which turned upon the questions involved in the controversies with Clinton.! "The influence of the Chief Justice was, nevertheless, so prevalent that he had a great majority of friends and relations in the new Assembly, convened on the 24th day of October, 1752." "It may gratify the curiosity of the reader to know, that of the Members of this Assembly, Mr. Chief Justice De Lancey was nephew to Col. Beekman,