He corresponded personally, as well as officially, with Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, during the critical period of the war of 1756. At his death, his sister, Lady Warren, applied to that statesman to put her yougest brother, Oliver De Lancey, in the office he had filled ; but finding the minister turning a cold ear to her application, she cried with warmth, "T hope, Mr. Pitt, you have had reason to be satisfied with the brother I have lost." " Madam," was the answer, "had your brother James lived in England, he

HON. JAMES DE LANCEY. 1059

would have been one of the first men in it,"! The great fault of his character was indolence. He read but did not like to write. So far from being avaricious or grasping, he even loved his ease more than he loved money. One of the sources of profit to the colonial Government was the fees payable upon the signing of land patents. At the death of Lieut. Governor De Lancey, it is said that so many of these patents awaited his approval, that the signing them gave a large sum at once to his successor, Mr. Colden.

1 This remark was mentioned by Lady Warren to the Lt. Governor's youngest son, John Peter De Lancey, by whom the anecdote was related to his son and son-in-law, Bishop De Lancey, and J. Fennimore Cooper, Esq.

MISCELLANIES

Tue First Cuurce 1n New NetTHerRLAND.--It is stated by the Rev. Mr. Prime, in his History of Long Island, 132, that the church erected at Southold and that at Southampton, ''were the first sanctuaries erected for the worship of the Living God, within the entire province of the New Netherlands." This is entirely a mistake. The earliest of these buildings does not date further back than 1640, whilst it is on record in the Secretary of State's office, that Director Van Twiller caused a church to be erected in New Amsterdam, now New York, as early as the year 1633. ;