Livingston, Smith & Scott – it sounds like a law firm and it pretty much was. New York, 1765.

They were known as the "Presbyterian Whig Triumvirate" – Williiam Livingston, William Smith, and John Morin Scott. They founded the New York Society Library in 1754, and produced a publication, the Independent Reflector.

Scott was (perhaps) the first to entertain the possibility of "Great Britain and her colonies" in America one day separating – "the connection between them ought to cease". A 1765 article anonymously attributed to "Free Man" was thought to be the handiwork of Scott. George Bancroft, in his History of the United States, quotes extensively from the article, and concludes with this –

"There never can be a disposition in the colonies to break off their connection with the mother country, so long as they are permitted to have the full enjoyment of those rights to which the English constitution entitles them. They desire no more ; nor can they be satisfied with less." 

Such were the words in which the sober judgment of New-York embodied its convictions. They were caught up by the impatient colonies; were reprinted in nearly all their newspapers ; were approved of by the most learned and judicious on this continent ; and even formed part of the instructions of South Carolina to its agent in England.

Thus revolution proceeded. Virginia marshalled resistance ; Massachusetts entreated union ; New- York pointed to independence.

• The Whigs of Colonial New York is online at JSTOR, here.