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New York organized a Committee of Public Safety,—first of a hundred, and then of a thousand,—of her representative men, as a solid guaranty of her ardent sympathy with the opening struggle, declaring that “all the horrors of civil war could not enforce her submission to the acts of the British crown.” The Custom-house and the City Hall were seized by the patriots. Arming and drilling were immediate; and even by candle-light and until late hours, every night, impassioned groups of boys, as well as men, rehearsed to eager listeners the story of the first blood shed at Concord and Lexington; and strong men exchanged vows of companionship in arms, whatever might betide. Lawyers and ministers, doctors and teachers, merchants and artisans, laborers and seamen, mingled together as one in spirit and one in action. An “Association for the defence of Colonial Rights” was formed, and on the twenty-second of May the Colonial Assembly was succeeded by a Provincial Congress, and the new order of government went into full effect.