The returns were made to the Council of Safety, and Jay carefully scanned them as they came in. On June 20 he wrote Schuyler: "The elections in the middle district have taken such a turn as that, if a tolerable degree of unanimity should prevail in the upper counties, there will be little doubt of having, ere long, the honour of addressing a letter to your excellency. Clinton, being pushed for both offices, may have neither; he has many votes for the first and not a few for the second. Scott, however, has carried a number from him, and you are by no means without a share. You may rely on receiving by express the earliest notice of the event alluded to."[17] When the voters from Orange and other southern counties came in, however, Jay discovered that the result did not follow the line either of his wishes or of his suggestions. On the contrary, Clinton was elected to both offices by a considerable plurality.[18] [Footnote 17: John Jay, _Correspondence and Public Papers_, Vol. 1, p. 142.] [Footnote 18: "A fragment of the canvass of 1777 shows the returns from Albany, Cumberland, Dutchess, Tryon, and Westchester, as follows: Clinton, 865; Scott, 386; Schuyler, 1012; Jay, 367; Philip Livingston, 5; Robert R. Livingston, 7. The votes from Orange and other southern counties gave the election to Clinton."--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1886), p. 164. Subsequently, when the Legislature met at Kingston on September 1, Pierre Van Cortlandt as president of the Senate performed the duties of lieutenant-governor.] The result of the election proved a great surprise and something of a humiliation to the ruling classes. "Gen. Clinton, I am informed, has a majority of votes for the Chair," Schuyler wrote to Jay, on June 30. "If so he has played his cards better than was expected."[19] A few days later, after confirmation of the rumour, he betrayed considerable feeling. "Clinton's family and connections do not entitle him to so distinguished a pre-eminence," he wrote, showing that Revolutionary heroes were already divided into more democratic and less democratic whigs, and more aristocratic and less aristocratic patriots; but the division was still in the mind rather than in any settled policy. "He is virtuous and loves his country," added Schuyler, in the next line; "he has ability and is brave, and I hope he will experience from every patriot support, countenance and comfort."[20] Washington understood his merits. "His character will make him peculiarly useful at the head of your State," he wrote the Committee of Safety. [Footnote 19: John Jay, _Correspondence and Public Papers_, Vol. 1, p. 144.] [Footnote 20: John Jay, _Correspondence and Public Papers_, Vol. 1, p. 146.]