Ær. 42.] VOICE OF THE COLONIES. 409 the Anglo-Americans really one people, having common interests and common hopes. Called upon as free subjects of Great Britain to relinquish some of the dearest prerogatives guarantied to them by Magna Charta and hoary custom-prerogatives in which were enveloped the most precious kernels of civil liberty-they arose as one family to resist the insidious progress of on-coming despotism, and yearned for union to give themselves strength commensurate to the task. The idea of a general council, as we have already observed, had kindled the enthusiasm of the people in the spring of 1774, and it found voice and expression almost simultaneously throughout the land. Rhode Island has the honor of first uttering its sentiments on the subject publicly; a general congress having been proposed at a town-meeting in Providence, on the seventeenth of May. Philadelphia, where various interests and sentiments combined to produce a cautious conservatism, spoke next. It was only four days after the meeting at Providence when a committee appointed by a town-meeting held in the long room of the City tavern, in Philadelphia, recommended the measure; and on the twenty-third, New York, where, a year earlier, patriotism "seemed to have taken but shallow root, where all political principles were truly unfixed as the wind,"* uttered the same sentiment, at a town-meeting of the people. On the twenty-sixth of the same month, Virginia, the first as a colony speaking by authority through the chosen representatives of the people, recommended, as we have seen, the assembling of a national council; and, on the thirty-first, a county meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, took action in favor of the measure. On the sixth of June, a town-meeting at Norwich, Connecticut, proposed a general congress; on the eleventh a county-meeting at Newark, New Jersey, did the same; on the seventeenth the Massachusetts assembly, and also a large town-meeting held in Faneuil hall, Boston, and presided over by John Adams, strenuously recommended the measure; and a county-meeting at New Castle, Dela * Letter of George Clymer, of Philadelphia, to Josiah Quincy, of Boston, July 29, 1773, published in the Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy, jr., by his son, p 144. ware, approved it on the twenty-ninth. On the sixth of July the committee of correspondence, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, expressed its approbation of the measure. A general province meeting, held at Charleston, South Carolina, on the sixth, seventh, and eighth of July, urged the necessity of such a council; and a district meeting at Wilmington, North Carolina, held on the twenty-first, heartily responded affirmatively. Georgia, alone, of the thirteen colonies, was silent, but not inactive, during that season of preparation. So we perceive, that within sixty-four days, twelve of the colonies spoke out decidedly in favor of a continental Congress; and before the close of summer delegates for the national council were appointed by them all. In Connecticut the delegates were appointed and instructed on the third of June, by the committee of correspondence, acting under authority conferred by the house of representatives; in Massachusetts, on the seventeenth, by the house of representatives; in Maryland on the twenty-second, by committees of the several counties; in New Hampshire on the twenty-first of July, by a convention of deputies chosen by the towns; in Pennsylvania on the twenty-second, by the house of assembly; in New Jersey on the twenty-third, by the committees of the counties, and instructed simply to "represent" the colony; in the city and county of New York on the twenty-fifth, they were elected by a popular vote taken in seven wards. The same persons were also appointed to act for the counties of Westchester, Albany, and Dutchess, by the respective committees of those counties; and another was appointed to represent Suffolk county. The Delaware delegates, or those from the "counties of New Castle, Kent, and Sussex, on the Delaware," were elected on the first of August, by a convention of the freemen, assembled pursuant to an invitation contained in circular letters issued by the speaker of the house of assembly. The house of commons of South Carolina elected delegates on the second of August. On the fifth, a popular convention of the whole colony of Virginia elected the delegates for the "Old Dominion." On the eleventh the general assembly of Rhode Island appointed and com Ær. 42.] THE MINISTRY WARNED. 411 missioned delegates for that colony; and on the twenty-fifth, a convention in North Carolina chose representatives for that province.* These general and decided movements in all the colonies disturbed the royal governors and other dependents of the crown; and the ministry were duly informed of every event having a relation to the subject. The colonists, likewise, through the committees of correspondence, kept Franklin, Arthur Lee, and other Americans in London, as well as the friends of the cause in Parliament, fully advised of all that was transpiring here. Joseph Reed, of Philadelphia, afterward Washington's adjutant-general, wrote friendly but firm letters to the earl of Dartmouth, the colonial secretary, and warned him of the evil tendency of ministerial measures. "What I ventured to predict in my last letter," he wrote to Dartmouth, on the tenth of June, "your lordship will soon find to happen, viz., a perfect and complete union between the colonies to oppose the Parliament's claims of taxation, and relieve the distresses of the town of Boston. The severity of the administration, and the mode of condemnation, gain them many advocates, even among those who acknowledge their conduct criminal. This union or confederacy, which will probably be the greatest ever seen in this country, will be cemented and fixed in a general congress of deputies from every province, and I am inclined to think that strong efforts will be made * The following are the names of the delegates :— New Hampshire. - John Sullivan, Nathaniel Folsom. Massachusetts. Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine. Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. — Stephen Hopkins, Samuel Ward. Connecticut. - Eliphalet Dyer, Roger Sherman, Silas Deane. New York. —James Duane, John Jay, Isaac Low, John Alsop, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Henry Wisner. New Jersey. James Kinsey, Stephen Crane, William Livingston, Richard Smith, John De Hart. Pennsylvania. — Joseph Galloway, John Morton, Charles Humphreys, Thomas Mifflin, Samuel Rhodes, Edward Biddle, George Ross, John Dickenson. Delaware.Cæsar Rodney, Thomas M'Kean, George Read. Maryland. — Robert Goldsborough, Samuel Chase, Thomas Johnson, Matthew Tilghman, William Paca. Virginia. - Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton. North Carolina.-William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, Richard Caswell. South Carolina. - Henry Middleton, John Rutledge, Thomas Lynch, Christopher Gadsden, Edward Rutledge. to perpetuate it by annual or triennial meetings, a thing which is entirely new. The business proposed for the intended congress is to draw up what upon a former occasion, or perhaps upon any other, would be called a bill of rights..... Your lordship, I think, may consider it as a fixed truth, that all the dreadful consequences of civil war will ensue before the Americans will submit to the claim of taxation by Parliament." Others in America, and true friends of Great Britain, in London, who were acquainted with the colonists, solemnly warned the misguided ministry of the penalty of their folly and wickedness, but in vain. Gage, Dunmore, Wright, Penn, and other royal governors, affected to make light of the popular demonstrations; and these and subordinate hirelings, and other friends of the crown, were continually counteracting the effects of really friendly messages, by deceptive boasts of the strength of Britain's arm, and the weakness and cowardice of the Americans. "I understand," wrote Stephen Sayre, sheriff of London, to Lord Chatham," that the soldiery in America do all they can to provoke the inhabitants to outrage and violence. The officers write to their friends in England, that the Americans are cowards to a man; that by a little spirit on the present occasion, all disputes may be silenced by the sword," etc. In reply, Chatham exclaimed, on the fifteenth of August: "What infatuation and cruelty to accelerate the sad moment of war! Every step on the side of government, in America, seems calculated to drive the Americans into open resistance, vainly hoping to crush the spirit of liberty, in that vast continent, at one successful blow; but millions must perish there before the seeds of freedom will cease to grow and spread in so favorable a soil; and, in the meantime, devoted England must sink herself under the ruins of her own foolish and inhuman system of destruction."* Thirteen days later, Chatham again wrote: "When, then, will infatuated administration. begin to fear that freedom they can not destroy, and which they do not know how to love? Delay is fatal, where repentance will come too late. I fear the bond of union between us and America will be cut for ever."+ *Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham, iv., 359. + Ibid., iv., 360. ÆT. 42.] THE WEAPON PREPARED. 413 At that moment the hand was bared to wield the weapon that should accomplish the severance! At that moment, the delegates of twelve colonies had been appointed to attend the Continental Congress that was to meet in Philadelphia, eight days later, to forge that keen and unyielding weapon. The great Chatham, who "Loved his country, loved that spot of earth Which gave a Milton, Hampden, Bradshaw birth" and was, until the last, opposed to American independence, because he wished to see the British realm preserved in its integrity, clearly foresaw in the horoscope of his country's destiny the impending storm. He shuddered as he perceived the half-blind ministry sporting with the lightning and laughing at the thunder, while with mock-heroic frowns they bade their servants to hush the tempest by imbecile proclamations and insane menaces. The people of the colonies had learned the true value of ministerial dicta, and the weakness of their minions who echoed their mandates; and, with the manly dignity of creatures conscious of the impress of God's image upon their brows, they walked erect and defiant, like the holy children of old, in the fiery furnace into which they had been cast, for they knew that a redeemer would walk with them. So from twelve colonies the chosen representatives of the people, full of wisdom, full of zeal, and full of love for God and man, went up to Philadelphia-the city of brotherly love-and there, with solemn ceremonials, planted the seeds of our mighty Banyan-Tree of the West, whose deep-rooted branches are rapidly overspreading the continent. Let us see how the great husbandry was accomplished. Now fairly embarked upon the broader sea of public life, and fully committed to the cause of his country, Washington, with his usual assiduity, commenced preparations for usefulness in the grand council to which he had been elected. Before he left Williamsburg, in August, he wrote to Richard Henry Lee, and asked him if he did not think it necessary that the deputies from Virginia should be furnished with authentic lists of the exports and imports of the colony annually, more especially to and from Great Britain. Assuming that Lee would agree with him in opinion, he requested him |