To such an extent did they exert their influence against the patriots, that Congress thought it proper to recommend the executives of the several states to keep a watch upon their movements. That body also earnestly recommended the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania to apprehend and secure the persons of eleven of the leading Quakers of Philadelphia. * Among these was August 23, James Pemberton, whose likeness is here given. HeAugust 28, 1777 remained two years in Virginia, where he wrote a journal, a portion of which is published in the "Friends' Miscellany," vol. vii.
Unlike other Tories, the Quakers were so passive that little positive evidence of their acting against the patriots could be
* The reason given for this measure by Congress was, "that when the enemy, in the month of December, 1776. were bending their progress toward the city of Philadelphia, a certain seditious publication, addressed "To our friends and brethren in religious profession in these and the adjacent provinces," signed John Pemberton, in and on behalf of the meeting of sufferings, held at Philadelphia, for Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the 26th of the 12th month, 1776," was published, and, as your committee is credibly informed, circulated among many members of the society called Quakers, throughout the different states." The paper originated in Philadelphia, and Joshua Fisher. Abel James, James Pemberton, Henry Drinker, Israel Pemberton. John Pemberton, John James, Samuel Pleasants, Thomas Wharton, senior, Thomas Fisher, and Samuel Fisher, of that city, leading members of the society, were banished to Fredericksburg, in Virginia. The Board of War was also instructed to remove the Honorable John Penn, the governor, and Benjamin Chew, the chief justice of Pennsylvania, thither, for safe custody.—See Journals of Congress, iii., 290. The papers and records of the yearly meeting of the Quakers of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which were captured by Sullivan, in an expedition against the Loyalist regiments living on Staten Island, opposite Perth Amboy, gave Congress the first positive proof of the general disaffection of the sect.
Execution of Roberta and Carlisle.—Justice of their Punishment.—Carpenters' Hall.
obtained; and very few of them, suffering from confiscation of property or other penalties, became refugees at the close of the war. John Egberts and Abraham Carlisle, of Philadelphia, members of this sect, suffered death at the hands of the Whigs, in November, 1778.
This act has been cited a hundred times as evidence against the claims to the exercise of uniform humanity on the part of the patriots, and magnified into a foul murder, justified by no plea of public expediency. The facts prove otherwise; for if it was ever expedient to take the life of a dangerous citizen, then Roberts and Carlisle suffered justly. While they abstained from open hostility to the Revolutionary government, and refused to bear arms for the king, they gave secret aid, far more potent to the enemies of liberty. They were employed by Joseph Galloway and his loyal friends as secret agents in detecting foes to the government. While Howe had possession of Philadelphia, Carlisle granted permissions to pass the lines, watched at the entrance of the city to point out obnoxious persons coming from the country, and many were arrested and cast into prison on his bare suggestion.. Under the meek garb and demeanor of the Quaker was a Torquemada, exercising the functions of an inquisitor general. When Howe ordered a detachment, under Lieutenant-colonel Abercrombie, to go out upon the Frankford road, and fall upon a party of American militia, who, he was informed, were lying in the woods, Egberts and Carlisle, who would not bear arms for the wealth of the Indies, acted as guides in conducting Abercrombie to the massacre of their countrymen. According to the rules of war and of state policy, their execution was expedient and salutary in effect. It was a subject for bitter vituperation on the part of the Tories, and even those who would fain have saved them from death were charged with dishonorable motives. "Governor Livingston went to Philadelphia," wrote John Potts to Joseph Galloway, "and urged his endeavors to prevail on the banditti in power there to save Roberts and Carlisle, not from any principle of honor or conscience—you know him too well—but from motives, as he thought, of policy." I think it may be safely asserted that where one Tory lost his life at the hands of the Whigs during the Revolution, fifty Whigs were slain in cold blood by the Tories. The reason is obvious—a heart warmed with love of country is benevolent and humane; its active opposers may fairly be presumed to be mercenary, and consequently cruel.
The supper-bell has rung; let us close the chronicle for to-night, and in the morning go out in search of localities made memorable by events connected with our war for independence.
On Monday morning I visited November 27, 1848Carpenters' Hall, the building in which the first Continental Congress held its brief session. Having had no intimation concerning its appearance, condition, and present use, and informed that it was situated in "Carpenters' Court," imagination had invested its exterior with dignity, its interior with solemn grandeur, and its location a spacious area, where nothing "common or unclean" was permitted to dwell. How often the hoof of Pegasus touches the leafless tree-tops of sober prose when his rider supposes him to be at his highest altitude! How often the rainbow of imagination fades, and leaves to the eye nothing but the forbidding aspect of a cloud of plain reality! So at this time. The spacious court was but a short and narrow
* This building is constructed of small imported bricks, each alternate one glazed, and darker than the other, giving it a checkered appearance. Many of the old houses of Philadelphia were built of like materials. It was originally erected for the hall of meeting for the society of house-carpenters of Philadelphia. It stands at the end of an alley leading south from Chestnut Street, between Third and Fourth Streets.
Desecration of Carpenters' Hall.—Congress Hall.—Prevalence of a Desire for Union.
alley; and the Hall, consecrated by the holiest associations which cluster around the birthtime of our republic, was a small two-story building, of somber aspect, with a short steeple, and all of a dingy hue. I tried hard to conceive the apparition upon its front to be a classic frieze, with rich historic triglyphs; but it would not do. Vision was too "lynx-eyed," and I could make nothing more poetic of it than an array of impudent letters spelling the words
What a desecration! Covering the façade of the very Temple of Freedom with the placards of groveling mammon! If sensibility is shocked with this outward pollution, it is overwhelmed with indignant shame on entering the hall where that august assembly of men—the godfathers of our republic—convened to stand as sponsors at the baptism of infant American Liberty, to find it filled with every species of merchandise, and the walls which once echoed the eloquent words of Henry, Lee, and the Adamses, reverberating with the clatter of the auctioneer's voice and hammer. Is there not patriotism strong enough and bold enough in Philadelphia to enter this temple and cast out all them that buy and sell, and overthrow the table of the money-changers?"
The hall in which Congress met is upon the lower floor, and comprehends the whole area of the building. It is about forty-five feet square, with a recess in the rear twenty-five feet wide and about twelve feet deep, at the entrance of which are two pillars, eighteen feet high. The second story contains smaller apartments which were used by Congress, and occupied by the society as committee rooms. In one of these, emptied of all merchandise except a wash-tub and a rush-bottomed chair, let us sit down and consider the events connected with that first great Continental Council.
We have already, in former chapters, considered the causes which awakened a desire in the colonies for a political union, and which impelled them to resistance. For many years a strong sympathy had existed between the several colonies, and injuries done to one, either by the aggressions of the French and Indians, or the unkind hand of their common mother, touched the feelings of all the others, and drew out responsive words and acts which denoted an already strong bond of unity. Widely separated as some of them were from each other by geographical distance, and diversity of interest and pursuits, there were, nevertheless, political, social, and commercial considerations which made the Anglo-Americans really one people, having common interests and common hopes. Called upon as free subjects of Great Britain to relinquish, theoretically and practically, some of the dearest prerogatives guaranteed 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
First Movements toward a General Congress.—Election of Delegates.—Names of the Representatives of each Colony.
progress of on-coming despotism, and yearned for union to give themselves strength commensurate to the task. Leading minds in every colony perceived the necessity for a general council, and in the spring of 1774, the great heart of Anglo-America seemed to beat as with one pulsation with this sublime idea. That idea found voice and expression almost simultaneously throughout the land. Rhode Island has the distinguished honor of first speaking out publicly on the subject. A general Congress was proposed at a town meeting in Providence on the 17th of May, 1774. A committee of a town meeting held in Philadelphia on the 21st, four days afterward, also recommended such a measure; and on the 23d, a town meeting in New York city uttered the same sentiment. The House of Burgesses of Virginia, dissolved by Lord Dunmore, assembled at the Raleigh Tavern, * in Williams-burgh, on the 27th, and on that day warmly recommended the assembling of a national council; and Baltimore, in county meeting, also took action in favor of it on the 31st. On the 6th of June, a town meeting at Norwich. Connecticut, proposed a general Congress; on the 11th, a county meeting at Newark, New Jersey, did the same; on the 17th, the Massachusetts Assembly, and, at the same time, a town meeting in Faneuil Hall, in Boston, strenuously recommended the measure; and a county meeting at New Castle, Delaware, approved of it on the 29th. On the 6th 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 6th, 7th, and 8th of that month, urged the necessity of such a Congress; and a district meeting at Wilmington, North Carolina, held on the 21st, heartily responded affirmatively. Thus we perceive that, within the space of sixty-four days, twelve of the thirteen colonies spoke out decidedly in favor of a Continental Congress, Georgia alone remaining silent. ** The Massachusetts Assembly designated the 1st of September, 1774, as the time, and Philadelphia as the place for the meeting of the Congress. *** Other colonies acquiesced, and at Philadelphia the delegates convened.
"Now meet the fathers of this western clime,
Nor names more noble graced the roll of Fame.
When Spartan firmness braved the wrecks of time.
Or Rome's bold virtues fann'd the heroic flame.
"Not deeper thought th' immortal sage inspired
On Solon's lips, when Grecian senates hung;
Nor manlier eloquence the bosom fired,
When genius thunder'd from the Athenian tongue."
Trumbull.****
On Monday, the 5th of September, fifty-four delegates, from twelve colonies, assembled in Carpenters' Hall. (v) It was a congregation of men, viewed in every important aspect,
* A drawing of the Raleigh Tavern, and also of the Apollo Room, in whieh the Assembly met, will be found in another part of this work.
** Connecticut elected its delegates on the 3d of June; Massachusetts on the 17th; Maryland on the 22d; New Hampshire on the 21st of July; Pennsylvania on the 22d; New Jersey on the 23d; New York on the 25th; Delaware on the 1st of August; Virginia on the same day; South Carolina on the 2d; Rhode Island on the 10th; and North Carolina on the 25th.
*** See pages 510, 511, vol. i.
**** The author of M'Fingal. These lines are from his Elegy on the Times, published while this first Congress was in session.
* (v) The following are the names of the members who composed the first Continental Congress:
Character of the first Continental Congress.—Its Organization.—Peyton Randolph.—Charles Thomson.
such as the world had never seen. "For a long time," says the eloquent Charles Botta, "no spectacle had been offered to the attention of mankind of so powerful an interest as this of the present American Congress. It was, indeed, a novel thing, and, as it were, miraculous, that a nation hitherto almost unknown to the people of Europe, or only known by the commerce it occasionally exercised in their ports, should, all at once, step forth from this state of oblivion, and, rousing as from a long slumber, should seize the reins to govern itself; that the various parts of this nation, hitherto disjointed, and almost in opposition to each other, should now be united in one body, and moved by a single will; that their long and habitual obedience should be suddenly changed for the intrepid counsels of resistance, and of open defiance to the formidable nation whence they derived their origin and laws. *
The men who composed that first Congress were possessed of the purest minds, the loftiest and most disinterested patriotism, and moral characters without spot or blemish. Instinctively the people had turned to their best men for counsel and action when the crisis arrived; and the representatives there assembled composed the flower of the American colonies. "There is in the Congress," wrote John Adams, "a collection of the greatest men upon this continent in point of abilities, virtues, and fortunes." The sectional factions and personal ambitions, which afterward disturbed the harmony and injured the character of the Continental Congress, ** had no tangible shape in this first Assembly. They felt, with all the solemnity of wise and virtuous men, the weight of the momentous responsibility resting upon them. They knew that toward them all eyes were turned, all hearts were drawn; that not only America, but the whole civilized world, was an interested spectator of their acts; and that for posterity, more than for cotemporaries, they held a trust of value infinitely beyond human estimation. Impressed with the consciousness of such responsibility, the delegates commenced their labors.
September, 1774 Congress was organized by the choice of Peyton Randolph, *** of Virginia, as president, and Charles Thomson, **** of Pennsylvania, as secretary. The credentials of
* Otis's Botta, i 128.
** In the opinion of Charles Thomson, who was Secretary of Congress for fifteen consecutive years, no subsequent national Assembly during the war could compare with the first in point of talent and purity. He represents the Congress that sat at York, in Pennsylvania, while Washington and his army were suffering at Valley Forge, as a body of weak men compared to former delegations. It was in that Congress that a faction favored the scheme for making Gates commander-in-ehief of the army in place of Washington.
*** Peyton Randolph was a native of Virginia, descended from one of its oldest and most respected families. Like other young men of the aristocracy, he was educated in England. He chose the profession of the law, and sueh were his talents that he was appointed attorney-general of the province in 1756, at the age of twenty-seven years. In that year he engaged, with one hundred gentlemen, to band as volunteers, and march against the Indians on their Western frontiers. He was for some years a member of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, and was at one time its speaker. He was one of the delegates from Virginia in the first Continental Congress, presided over that body with dignity, and was elected to the presidential chair by the second Congress, the following year. On account of ill health, he was obliged to resign his station on the 24th of May, 1775, and return to Virginia. He afterward resumed his seat in Congress. He died at Philadelphia, of apoplexy, on the 22d of October, 1775, aged fifty-two years. The accompanying likeness of Mr. Randolph I copied from a miniature by Charles Wilson Peale, in the possession of his son, Titian R. Peale, Esq., of Washington City. The original portrait from life, painted by Peale, is in the Congress library; the miniature is a copy by the same artist. Mr. Randolph was a Free-mason; the scarf seen across his breast is a part of the regalia of a grand master. The portrait was painted for a lodge of the fraternity.
**** Charles Thomson was born in Ireland, in 1730, and came to Ameriea, with his three elder brothers, in 1741. They landed at New Castle, Delaware, with no other dependence than their industry. He was educated by Dr. Allison, the tutor of several of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was afterward a teacher at the Friends' Academy, at New Castle. From thence he went to Philadelphia, where he obtained the advice and lasting friendship of Dr. Franklin. He was called to the responsible duty of keeping the minutes of the proceedings of the first Continental Congress in 1774, and from that time until he resigned his offiee, in 1789, he was the sole secretary of that body. He married Hannah Harrison, the aunt of General Harrison, late President of the United States. Mr. Thomson died at Lower Merion, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, August 16, 1824, aged ninety-four years. The likeness of Secretary Thomson here given I copied from a portrait painted from life by Charles Wilson Peale, and in the present possession of P. T. Barnum, Esq., of New York. It agrees with the description of him given by the Abbé Robin, who was attached to Rochambeau's staff. Alluding to those who paid their respects to Roehambeau when he was in Philadelphia, he says: "Among others, Charles Thomson, secretary of Congress, the soul of that political body, came also to receive and present his compliments. His meager figure, furrowed countenance, his hollow, sparkling eyes, his white, straight hair, that did not hang quite so low as his ears, fixed our thorough attention and filled us with surprise and admiration."
Opening of the first Continental Congress.—Patrick Henry.—The First Prayer in Congress.
the various delegates were then presented, and now came a pause; who should take the lead? what measure should be first proposed?
They had come together from distant provinces, some instructed by the power that appointed them, others left free to act as circumstances should require.
There was a profound silence, and deep anxiety was depicted upon every countenance. No one seemed willing to break that silence, until a grave-looking member, in a plain, is it?" A few, who knew the stranger, answered, There was no more hesitation; he who startled the people of colonial America, nine years before, by his bold resolutions against the Stamp Act, and, a few months afterward, by the cry of "Give me liberty or give me death!" now gave the impulse to the representatives of that people in grand council assembled, and set in motion that machinery of civil power which worked so nobly while Washington and his compatriots were waging war with the enemy in the field.
Two days afterward, another impressiveSeptember 7. scene occurred. It was the first prayer in Congress, offered up by the Reverend Mr. Duché. ** The first day had been occupied in the reception of credentials and the arrangement of business; the second, in the adoption of rules for the regulation of the session; and now, when about to enter upon the general business for which they were convened, the delegates publicly sought Divine aid. It was a spectacle of great interest, for men of every creed dark suit of "minister's gray" and unpowdered wig, arose. "Then," said Bishop White, who was present, and related the circumstance, "I felt a regret that a seeming country parson should so far have mistaken his talents and the theater for their display."
But his voice was so musical, his words so eloquent, and his sentiments so profoundly logical, that the whole House was electrified, and the question went from lip to lip, Who is it? who It is Patrick Henry, of Virginia!" *** John Adams thus wrote:
"When the Congress met, Mr. Cushing made a motion that it should be opened with prayer. It was opposed by Mr. Jay", of New York, and Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, because we were so divided in religious sentiments—some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Anabaptists, some Presbyterians, and some Congregationalists—that we could not join in the same act of worship. Mr. Samuel Adams arose, and said 'that he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from any gentleman of piety and virtue who was at the same time a friend to his country. He was a stranger in Philadelphia, but had heard that Mr. Duché (Dushay they pronounce it) deserved that character, and therefore he moved that Mr. Duché, an Episcopal clergyman, might be desired to read prayers before the Congress to-morrow morning.' The motion was seconded, and passed in the affirmative. Mr. Randolph, our president, waited on Mr. Duché, and received for answer that, if his health would permit, he certainly would. Accordingly, next morning, he appeared with his clerk, and in pontificals, and read several prayers in the Established form, and then read the Psalter for the seventh day of September, a part of which was the 35th Psalm. You must remember this was the next morning after we had heard the rumor of the horrible cannonade of Boston. It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that morning.
"After this, Mr. Duché, unexpectedly to every body, struck out into an extemporary prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present. I must confess, I never heard a better prayer, or one so well pronounced. Episcopalian as he is, Dr. Cooper himself never prayed with such fervor, such ardor, such correctness, such pathos, and in language so elegant and sublime, for Congress, for the province of Massachusetts Bay, especially the town of Boston. It had an excellent effect upon every body here. I must beg you to read that Psalm. If there is any faith in the Sortes Virgillianae, or Sortes Homericæ, or especially the Sortes Biblieæ, it would be thought providential." Bishop White, who was present, says that Washington was the only member who knelt on that occasion.
* See Watson's Annals, vol. i., 422. his wife on the 8th of September, concerning that first prayer in Congress.
Sessions with closed Doors.—Sympathy with Massachusetts.—Declaration of Rights.—"American Association."—Mr. Duché.
were there. In this service their creeds were forgotten, and the hearts of all united in the prayer which flowed from the pastor's lips; a prayer which came from a then patriot's heart, though timidity afterward lost him the esteem of his friends and countrymen. *
The Congress resolved to sit with closed doors, for enemies were around them with open eyes and busy tongues, and nothing was to be made public without special orders. Having no means at hand to ascertain the relative importance of the colonies, it was agreed "that each colony or province should have one vote in determining questions." One of their first acts was to express an opinion that the whole continent ought to support Massachusetts in a September 10. resistance to the unconstitutional change in her government; (a) and they afterward resolved that any person accepting office under the new system ought to be held in detestation as a public enemy. (b) Merchants were advised to enter into non-importation agreements;(c) and a letter was addressed to General Gage, remonstrating against the fortifications on Boston Neck, and his arbitrary exercise of power. (d) On the 11th of October, a Declaration of Colonial Rights, prepared by a committee of two from each province, was adopted, in which was set forth the grievances complained of, and the inalienable rights of British subjects" in every part of the realm. As a means of enforcing the claim of natural and delegated rights, fourteen articles were agreed to as the basis of an American Association, pledging the associate's to an entire commercial non-intercourse with Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies, and the non-consumption of tea and British goods. In one clause the slave trade was specially denounced, and entire abstinence from it, and from any trade with those concerned in it, formed a part of the association. Committees were to be appointed in every county, city, and town, to detect and punish all violations of it; and all dealings October 20.
* Mr. Duché was at that time an ardent Whig, but subsequently became an enemy to his country. He was the son of a Huguenot, who eame to America with William Penn. In youth he was a good orator, and, after taking holy orders in England, he became a very popular Episcopal clergyman in Philadelphia, his native eity. He was appointed chaplain to Congress on the 9th of July, 1776, but resigned in October. When the British took possession of Philadelphia, Mr. Duché, alarmed at the gloomy aspect of affairs, forsook the patriot cause, and, in a letter to Washington, endeavored to persuade the general to do likewise, and to "represent to Congress the indispensable necessity of rescinding the hasty and ill-advised Declaration of Independence." Washington transmitted this letter to Congress, and Mr. Duché was obliged to leave the country. He became a preacher in the Lambeth Asylum, where he was greatly respected. He returned to America in 1790, and died in Philadelphia in 1794, aged about sixty years. Mr. Duché was a man of much benevolence of character. He gave the amount of his salary ($150), while chaplain of Congress, to be distributed among families whose members had been slain in battle. He married a sister of Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
** This Declaration of Rights may be found in the Appendix.
State Papers issued by Congress.—Debates. Diversity of Opinion.—Dartmouth's Circular.—Joseph Galloway.
with such enemies of American liberty were to be immediately broken off. One hundred and fifty copies of the Articles of Association were ordered to be printed.
A memorial to the inhabitants of the several British-American colonies, written by Richard Henry Lee, and an eloquent address to the people of Great Britain, from the pen of John Jay, were adopted by Congress on the 21st. A petition to the king, drawn October, 1774 by John Dickenson, was approved of on the 22d. Short letters to the colonies of St. John's Island (now Prince Edward's, Nova Scotia), Georgia, and the two Floridas, inclosing the doings of Congress, and inviting them to join the Association, were also adopted on that day; and on the 26th, the last day of the session, they approved of an elaborate address to the inhabitants of Canada. This was drawn up by Mr. Dickenson with his usual ability. Having made provision for another Congress to meet on the 10th of May following, * the first general council closed its session by adopting a second humble petition to the king, and a vote of thanks to the advocates of colonial rights in both houses of Parliament.
Congress was in actual session only thirty-one days out of the eight weeks of the term, the remainder of the time being occupied in preparatory business. It was a session of extraordinary activity, and a great amount of business of vast importance was transacted, notwithstanding many unnecessary speeches were evidently made. ** They were certainly more to the purpose than are most of the harangues in Congress at the present day, or, considering the diversity of opinion that must have existed upon the sentiments of the various state papers that were adopted, the session would have continued for several months. We have no means of knowing what harmony or what discord characterized those debates. The doors were closed to the public ear, and no reporters for the press have preserved the substance of the speeches. That every resolution adopted was far from receiving a unanimous vote, is very evident; for we find, by the subsequent declarations and acts of delegates, that some of the measures were violently opposed. Many deplored the probability of an open rupture with the mother country, and refused acquiescence in any measure that should tend to such a result. Indeed, the sentiments of a large majority of the delegates were favorable to an honorable reconciliation, and the Congress was determined not to present the least foundation for a charge of rushing madly into an unnatural contest without presenting the olive branch of peace. Such was the tenor of its petitions and addresses; and every charge of a desire on the part of Congress for a war that might lead to independence rested solely upon inference. Galloway, *** Duane, and others, even opposed the American Association;
* The following circular letter was sent to all the royal governors in America, soon after the proceedings of the Continental Congress were received in England. It was a "Bull" without horns, and did not alarm the patriots. "Whitehall, Jan. 4th, 1775. "Certain persons stiling" (sic) "themselves delegates of his majesty's colonies in America, having presumed, without his majesty's authority or consent, to assemble together, at Philadelphia, in the month of September and October last; and having thought fit, among other unwarrantable proceedings, to resolve that it will be necessary that another Congress should be held in this place on the 10th of May next, unless redress for certain pretended grievances be obtained before that time, and to recommend that all the colonies in North America should choose deputies to attend such Congress, I am commanded by the king to signify to you his majesty's pleasure, that you do use your utmost endeavors to prevent such appointment of deputies within the colony under your government; and that you do exhort all persons to desist from such unwarrantable proceedings, which can not but be highly displeasing to the king. "I am, sir, your most obedient servant, Dartmouth.
** "Every man in this assembly," wrote John Adams to his wife, "is a great man, an orator, a critic, a statesman; and therefore every man, upon every question, must show his oratory, his criticism, his political abilities. The consequence is, that business is spun out to an immeasurable length."
*** Joseph Galloway was one of the most popular of the leaders in Pennsylvania when the war of the Revolution broke out. He was once the confidential friend of Franklin, and had worked shoulder to shoulder with him against the proprietaries. He was elected a delegate to the first Continental Congress. In that body he submitted a plan, as a measure of accommodation, which seemed quite feasible. It proposed a union of the colonies, with a grand council authorized to regulate colonial affairs jointly with the British Parliament, each to have a mutual negation on each other. * This plan was favorably received, and on the question of its adoption it was rejected by a majority of only one. The debates were very warm, and it was on this occasion that Samuel Adams, regarding the proposition as a concession to tyranny, exclaimed, "I should advise persisting in our struggle for liberty, though it were revealed from heaven that nine hundred and ninety-nine were to perish, and only one of a thousand were to survive and retain his liberty! One such freeman must possess more virtue and enjoy more happiness than a thousand slaves; and let him propagate his like, and transmit to them what he has so nobly preserved." * Before the meeting of the next Congress, Galloway manifested lukewarmness; and in 1776 he abandoned the Whigs, and became the most virulent and proscriptive Loyalist of the time. He joined the royal army in New York, where he continued until 1778, when, accompanied by his only daughter, he went to England. There he remained until his death in September, 1803, at the age of seventy-three years. His pen, for many years, was continually employed in correspondence with Loyalists in America, and upon subjects connected with the war. The prominent position which he at first held among the Whigs, and his virulence against them after his defection, made him the target for many an arrow of indignant wit. Trumbull, in his M'Fingall, gave him some hard hits; and a writer in the Pennsylvania Journal of February 5, 1777, thus castigates him with some lines, after saying to the printer,
*** Galloway's estate, valued at $200,000, was confiscated by Pennsylvania. A large part of it was derived from his wife. A considerable portion was restored to his daughter.
* This plan is printed in Sabine's Lives of the Loyalists, p. 309.
Opinions concerning the Adamses.—Sketch of Galloway's public Life.—Disposition of his Estate.
and they regarded the Adamses as men not only too much committed to violent measures by the part they had taken in Boston, but that they were desperate men, with nothing to lose, and hence unsafe guides to gentlemen who had estates to forfeit.
And yet Galloway, when he became a proscriptive Loyalist, and one of the most active enemies of the Republicans, was forced to acknowledge the stern virtues of many of the patriots of that assembly, and among them Samuel Adams. "He eats little, drinks little, sleeps little, and thinks much," he said, "and is most indefatigable in the pursuit of his object. It was this man who, by his superior application, managed at once the factions in Congress at Philadelphia, and the factions in New England." *
The proceedings of this first Congress went forth to the world with all the weight of apparent unanimity, and throughout the colonies they were hailed with general satisfaction. The American Association adopted and signed by the delegates was regarded by the people with great favor, and thousands in every province affixed their signatures to the pledge. These formed the fibers of the stronger bond of the Articles of Confederation afterward adopted, and may be considered the commencement of the American Union.
* Galloway's Historical and Political Reflections on the Rise and Progress of the American Rebellion: London, 1780. In this pamphlet the writer handles Sir William Howe and other British commanders with severity.
* Mr. Adams reiterated this sentiment when debating the resolution for independence twenty months afterward.
** Just before he left Philadelphia he discovered that his daughter was about to elope with Judge Griffin, who was afterward president of Congress. This doubtless hastened his departure.
*** Murray, confidential secretary to the Pretender, Prince Charles Edward.
The State House.—Independence Hall.—Hancock's Chair.—Portraits of Penn and La Fayette.
"This is the sacred fane wherein assembled
The fearless champions on the side of Right;
Men at whose Declaration empires trembled,
Moved by the truth's immortal might.
"Here stood the patriot—one union folding
The Eastern, Northern, Southern sage and seer,
Within that living bond which, truth upholding,
Proclaims each man his fellow's peer.
"Here rose the anthem which all nations, hearing,
In loud response the echoes backward hurled;
Reverberating still the ceaseless cheering,
Our continent repeats it to the world.
"This is the hallowed spot where first unfurling *
Fair Freedom spread her blazing scroll of light;
Here, from oppression's throne the tyrant hurling,
She stood supreme in majesty and might!"
George W. Dewey.