On this Occasion, we are again impelled to call on your Candour, and to ask (beset as we are by avowed Enemies, and infested with concealed Traitors, who with Facility maintain criminal Intercourse, scatter the Seeds of Disaffection, and take Advantage of the Credulity of the Honest, but uninformed) whether it is not absolutely necessary, to be attentive to their Motions, to compare Intelligence received from different Quarters, to counteract the various Machinations they are incessantly practising to subjugate us to British Tyranny, that the Legislature should delegate such powers as these Commissioners are invested with. From a Persuasion that you conceived their Proceedings may, in some Instances, have been improper, we do you the justice to believe, that hence your Complaints have originated; and we flatter ourselves, that on a more serious Consideration, you, as Friends to your Country, will be impressed with the Necessity of such Powers, and that they will be obnoxious to none but the Disaffected. The Proceedings of these Commissioners will, however, be submitted to the Inspection of a Committee of both Houses, in Order to discover whether they have abused their Authority."' Quite in contradistinction to some of the complaints was a petition received in the assembly, on March 5, 1781, from the field officers and 1 Srnalt l "otes (fourth session), pp. 72-76.

Introduction 29

other officers of the militia, and sundry other inhabitants of the east district of the manor of Rensselaerwyck, against a number of inimical persons who had convened there, advising the inhabitants to lay down their arms and give submission to the government of the King of Great Britain. These petitioners requested that the commissioners for conspiracies be given legal authority " to send such disaffected persons to serve on board of the fleet of his most Christian Majesty, or of the United States." 1