Comfort Sands, who by this purchase became interested in Brooklyn, was born at Sands Point, L. I., in 1748. After serving a clerkship he went into business on his own account in 1769. When he resigned his position as auditor, he resumed business in New York. Having served in the Provincial Congress, at the close of the war he was again called into service. He was a member of the Assembly in 1784-85, 1788, and 1789. Egbert Benson, of Queens County, was appointed attorney-general by an ordinance of the Constitutional Convention, May 8, 1777. The council of appointment afterwards ratified the act, and on the 15th of January, 1778, granted and issued to him a commission. He filled this responsible trust until May 14, 1789. Egbert Benson was a man of culture. He graduated at Columbia College in 1765. He was a classmate of Robert R. Livingston, with whom he was ever on intimate terms. They served together in the different conventions for the common cause. He was subsequently judge of the New York Supreme Court, and justice of the United States Circuit Court, New York. The treaty of peace between the American and British commissioners was signed on September 3, 1783. On November 25, following, the British troops formally evacuated New York and Brooklyn, and the flagstaff of the Pierrepont mansion on the Heights, which had been used for signaling during the battle of Brooklyn, once more floated the American flag. FOOTNOTES: [1] See appendix in second volume for explanation of system of Dutch family names. [2] _American Ancestry_, vol. v., 1890. [3] _A History of Long Island, from its First Settlement by Europeans, to the year 1845, with Special Reference to its Ecclesiastical Concerns._ By Nathaniel S. Prime. 1845. [4] Richard M. Bayles, in _Long Island Magazine_, September, 1893. [5] At the time of the discovery the Iroquois, or League of the Five Nations, claimed to have subdued and mastered all the Indian tribes from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. The Iroquois occupied in particular the middle and upper region of New York State. The earliest of the general histories of this remarkable confederacy was written by Cadwallader Colden, who died on Long Island in 1776. [6] _New York Historical Society's Collections_, vol. iii. p. 324. [7] _Antiquities of Long Island_, p. 29. [8] Among Brooklyn's manufactures in recent years rope-making has taken a prominent place. [9] _A History of the City of Brooklyn, including the Old Town and Village of Brooklyn, the Town of Bushwick, and the Village and City of Williamsburgh._ By Henry R. Stiles. 1867. [10] Van Twiller. [11] _Address before Long Island Historical Society_, 1880.