for Detecting Conspiracies summoned Peter Van Schaack and his brother to appear to ask whether they consider themselves to be subjects of New York or of Great Britain, and either impose an oath of allegiance or remove them to Boston. On 9 January 1777, he appeared before the committee and was asked to take an oath of allegiance to the independent state of New York. He refused, but explained his reasons. "I am condemned … upon a charge of maintaining an equivocal neutrality in the present struggles…. When I appeared before the Albany Committee, I refused to answer the question [of my allegiance]…. The reason … it is premature, to tender an oath of allegiance before the government to which it imposes subjection, the time it is to take place of the present exceptionable one, and who are to be the rulers, as well as the mode of their appointment in future, are known…. I hold it that you cannot justly put me to the alternative of choosing to be a subject of Great Britain, or of this State, because should I deny subjection to Great Britain, it would not follow that I must necessarily be a member of the State of New-York; on the contrary, I should still hold that I had a right, by the “immutable laws of nature,” to choose any other State of which I would become a member." In June 1778, Peter Van Schaack received permission from Governor Clinton to visit England to obtain medical attention for his failing eye sight. Shortly thereafter, the Legislature of New York passed the Banishing Act. It required that “all such persons of neutral and equivocal characters in this State” take an oath acknowledging New York to be a free and independent state. If they refused, they were to be sent behind enemy lines, their names recorded in the office of the Secretary of State, their property assessed double taxes in perpetuity, and their return to the State punished by a conviction for “misprision of treason.” Peter was summoned before commissioners of conspiracies at Albany, and on 18 July 1778 refused to take the oath. The Commissioners ordered his banishment pursuant to the Act. On his way to New York City to depart for England, he met Governor Clinton who gave him assurances that the Banishing Act did not apply to him and presented Peter a certificate explaining that