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

On February 20, 1782, a memorial to the legislature was drawn up by Fonda, Beeckman and Stringer, commissioners for conspiracies in Albany County, praying that provision be made for defraying contingent charges and for compensating them for their services. It was presented in both senate and assembly and referred to special committees. 2 Copies of a petition were circulated among the inhabitants of Westchester County early in 1782, directed against

the commissioners for conspiracies. It recited that, while the extraordinary powers with which they were invested might have been justified and permissible at an early period of the war, when a constitutional form of government did not exist, they were now but " a dead Cost to the Public and entirely unnecessary." The petitioners believed that through the vigilance of that county's whig population and the zeal of its civil and military officers, toryism would be repressed more effectively. They conceived the existence of commissioners for conspiracies to be contrary to the intent of the constitution of the State, which " declares the civil and military Authority sufficient to govern the People, where each Subject may have a fair and impartial Trial by Jury; That grand Bulwark is here taken away by that Assembly Journal, 1781 (Albany, 1820), p. 50. 7 Senate Votes (fifth session), p. 39; Assembly Votes (fifth session), p. 52.