Jefferson in the Continental Congress

SIXTY gentlemen, in silk stockings and pigtails, sitting in a room of no great size in a plain brick building up a narrow alley, — such was the Continental Congress; “the Honorable Congress,” as its constituents made a point of calling it ; “the General Congress at Philadelphia,” as Lord Chatham styled it, when he told an incredulous House of Lords that no body of men had ever surpassed it “ in solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion.” The present generation of Philadelphians has seen the hall wherein Peyton Randolph presided and Patrick Henry spoke, a second-hand furniture salesroom, and none too large for the purpose ; while the committee-rooms up stairs, to which Franklin and Samuel Adams repaired for consultation, were used for a school. The principal apartment must have been well filled when all the members were present ; and we maybe sure that the Society of House Carpenters, to whom the building belonged, did not violate the proprieties of the Quaker City so far as to furnish it sumptuously.

The Congress was not an assemblage of aged sires with snowy locks and aspect venerable, such as art has represented the Roman Senate. Old men could neither have done the work nor borne the journeys. Franklin, the oldest member, was seventy-one, though still ruddy and vigorous ; and there were two or three others past sixty ; but the members generally were in the prime of their years and powers, with a good sprinkling of young men among them, as there must be in representatative bodies which truly represent. John Jay was thirty, not too old to be a little vain of the papers he drew. Maryland had sent two young men, — Thomas Stone, thirty-two, and William Paca, thirty-five. From South Carolina came eloquent John Rutledge, thirty-six, and his brother, Edward Rutledge, twenty-six. Patrick Henry was not quite forty ; John Adams, only forty ; John Langdon, thirty-five ; and Jefferson, thirty-two. Nor could the Congress be called a learned body, though about one half of the members had had college and professional training. By various paths these men had made their way to the confidence of their fellow-citizens ; and the four powers that conjointly govern the world — knowledge, character, talents, and wealth — were happily combined, as well in the whole body as in some individuals. Franklin had them all. Patrick Henry wielded one most brilliant and commanding gift ; and there were two or three members, now dropped even from biographical dictionaries, who fulfilled the definition of “ good company ” reported by Crabb Robinson,— persons who “lived upon their own estates and other people’s ideas.” Some sturdy characters were there, who had fought their way from the ranks, like Roger Sherman of Connecticut, farmer’s son, shoemaker’s apprentice, store-keeper, surveyor, lawyer, judge, member of the Congress; or like John Langdon of New Hampshire, another farmer’s son, mariner and merchant till the British cruisers drove him ashore and to the Congress. It was, indeed, a wonderful body of sixty men, that could send forth to command its armies one of its own members, and retain orators like Lee, Henry, John Adams, and John Rutledge ; writers of the grade of Dickinson, Jefferson, William Livingston, and Jay ; lawyers like Sherman, Wilson, and Chase ; men of business such as Hopkins, Langdon, and Lewis ; a philosopher like Franklin ; and such an embodiment of energetic and untiring will as Samuel Adams.

The new member from Virginia was most welcome in the Congress. Besides being the bearer of encouraging news from home, he brought with him a kind of reputation which then gave perhaps even more prestige than it does at present, — “a reputation,” as John Adams records, “ for literature, science, and a happy talent for composition.” Even now a new member of good presente and liberal fortune would be regarded as an acquisition to Congress and to the capital, concerning whom it should be whispered about that, besides the usual Latin and Greek, he had acquired French, Italian, and Spanish, and was going on to learn German, and even Gaelic if he could only get the books from Scotland ; a gentleman of thirtytwo who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play the violin. The papers which he had written for the Virginia Legislature, one of which he brought with him and another of which had been widely scattered in both countries, were known to members. Moreover, he was an accession to the radical side. His mind was keeping pace with the march of events. There were orators enough already, and no lack of writers ; but Jefferson came, not only surcharged with that spirit which was to carry the country through the crisis, but full of the learning of the case, up in his Magna Charta, versed in the lore of the lawyers of the Commonwealth, and conversant with Virginia precedents. He could only take part in conversational debates ; there was neither fluency nor fire in his public utterances ; but, to quote again the language of John Adams, “he was so prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive upon committees and in conversation, — not even Samuel Adams was more so, — that he soon seized upon my heart.” He was a Virginian, too; and that was a proud title then, and most dear to the people of New England. Massachusetts and Virginia,— Massachusetts oppressed and Virginia sympathizing, — that was the most obvious fact of the situation. And Virginia had espoused the cause of persecuted Boston with so eloquent a tongue, and poured supplies into her lap with a hand so bountiful and untiring, and brought to her support so respectable a name and such imposing wealth and numbers, and sent men to the Congress of such splendid gifts and various worth, that to be a Virginian was itself an honorable distinction. Jefferson, too, united in himself the method and plod of a Yankee lawyer with the ease and grace which man began to acquire when he first bestrode the horse.

The prodigious greatness of this Congress is shown in its consideration for its weakest member. An ordinary parliament is controlled by its strongest; but this Congress deliberately allowed itself to be dominated by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, timidest of gentlemen, though a man of ability and worth. He dared not face the crisis. “Johnny,” his mother used to say to him (so reports John Adams), “ you will be hanged ; your estate will be forfeited and confiscated ; you will leave your excellent wife a widow, and your charming children orphans, beggars, and infamous.” And this, too, while the excellent wife stood by with confirmatory anguish visible in her countenance. Mr. Adams confesses that, if his wife and mother had held such language, it would have made him the most miserable of men, even if it did not render him an apostate. The Congress, if it could not regard Mr. Dickinson’s scruples as purely disinterested and patriotic, knew that they were representative, and felt the necessity of opposing to the king’s insensate obstinacy a united front. Hence it was that, when these lions and lambs sat down together, it was a little child that led them ; and for his sake they committed the sublime imbecility of a second petition to the king. It was a wonderful condescension. “ Ben Harrison ” expressed the feeling of nearly every member when he said, in reply to Dickinson’s exulting remark, that there was but one word in the petition which he disapproved, and that was the word Congress, “ There is but one word in the paper, Mr. President, of which I approve, and that is the word Congress.” It is only the great who can thus bend and accommodate themselves to the scruples of the little.

Nor was it timidity alone that influenced the excellent ladies of Mr. Dickinson’s family. It was sentiment as well. In looking over the newspapers of that year, 1775, we gather the impression that the Ministry endeavored to turn to account the personal popularity of the king and queen, which was very great, particularly with mothers ; for were they not the parents of ten children, — the oldest thirteen, the youngest a baby in arms? It is not possible for the scoffing readers of this generation to conceive of the tender emotions awakened in the maternal bosom of 1775 upon reading paragraphs in the newspapers describing the family life led at Kew by the royal parents and their numerous brood: how their Majesties rose at six in the morning, and devoted the next two hours, which they called their own, to Arcadian enjoyment; how, at eight, the five elder children were brought from their several abodes to breakfast with their illustrious parents. “ At nine,” as one reporter of the period has it, “ the younger children attend to lisp or smile their good-morrows ; and while the five eldest are closely applying to their tasks, the little ones and their nurses pass the whole morning in Richmond Gardens. The king and queen frequently amuse themselves with sitting in the room while the children dine, and, once a week, attended by the whole offspring in pairs, make the little delightful tour of Richmond Gardens ” ! Who but a republican savage could resist such a picture ? The same faithful reporter bade a loyal empire take note that the Prince of Wales, aged thirteen, and the Bishop of Osnaburgh, aged twelve, promised to excel the generality of mankind as much in learning as in rank, for they were kept at their books eight hours a day, and were so fond of their lessons ! “All the ten are indeed fine children.”

We observe, also, that there was much petitioning this year, both for and against the Americans ; which gave the king opportunities to indicate his own sentiments : for when a petition was presented adverse to the royal policy, no notice was taken of it ; but when a delegation came to the palace charged to say that a malignant spirit of resistance had gone forth in America, fomented by selfish men resolved to rise upon the ruins of their country ; or when a committee of aldermen gave utterance to the opinion that clemency was thrown away upon colonists who raised parricidal hands against a parent state to which they owed existence and every blessing; or when nine tailors from Tooley Street laid “ their lives and fortunes at the foot of the throne,” for a gracious king to employ in maintaining the authority of Parliament in every part of the Empire ; — then the Majesty of Britain unknit its troubled brow, and the newspapers were enabled to state that “ his Majesty received the address very graciously, and the gentlemen of the deputation had the honor to kiss his Majesty’s hand.” The king’s deliberate opinion of the troubles in America was that Washington, Patrick Henry, the Adamses, Jefferson, Peyton Randolph, John Dickinson, and the Congress generally, had entered into “a desperate conspiracy,” to use the language of the royal speech of 1775, for the purpose of wresting from him a valuable part of his dominions. All this petitioning and all these tender or timid scruples of the Dickinson party, he thought, were " meant to amuse " a too confiding British people ; while the leaders, Dickinson himself being one of them, were “ preparing for a general revolt.” Thus do the stupid usually interpret the wise.

Mr. Jefferson’s talent for composition was called into requisition on the filth day of his attendance. The Congress was extremely solicitous concerning the wording of the documents which they issued, not because they felt the eyes of the universe to be upon them, though everything they published was printed in all the newspapers of Christendom that dared insert it, but because they had, in all their formal utterances, to avoid many possible errors, and try for many desirable objects. They were resolved to remain in the right, to be the party sinned against, and they meant to make this clearly appear. They had to satisfy English Whigs without giving a handle to English Tories, and express the feeling of Samuel Adams without repelling John Dickinson. They had to resist General Gage, without appearing as rebels in the eyes of kings whose countenance and succor might become important to them. Hence, nothing was so much valued at the moment, next to the art of making saltpetre, as skill in the use of written words.

On the very day when Jefferson took his seat came the first tidings of Bunker Hill. How powerless is language to recall the thrill, the alarm, the rapture, the apprehension, the triumph, the tumult, of those days when the tremendous and incredible details were arriving ! One thousand and fifty-four of the king’s own red-coated soldiers dead or wounded ! Thirteen officers bearing the king’s commission killed and seventy wounded ! The king’s general and army shut up in Boston, impotent. The Honorable Congress felt it necessary to get upon paper at once the correct theory of these events, with which the world would soon be ringing ; for there had never before been such a slaughter as this in British America; not in the bloodiest of the Indian fights, nor when Wolfe completed the conquest of Canada on the Plains of Abraham. A committee was appointed to draw up a statement of the causes of taking up arms. This committee, on June 24th, Jefferson’s third day in the Congress, presented a draft, written by a great orator, John Rutledge. Great orators have not the desk-patience to be great writers. The paper not being approved, the committee, two days after, was ordered to try again ; and two gentlemen noted for their writing talent, John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson, were added to the committee.

The members of this famous Congress, nobly as they acquitted themselves of their task, were not exempt from the foibles of human nature. They had their little vanities, antipathies, and resentments, like the rest of our limited race.

When the Congress adjourned that day, the members of the committee remained, and Jefferson found himself next to William Livingston of New Jersey, a lawyer of about his own age, much admired for the sweeping vigor of his written style. Jefferson regarded him with particular interest. Among the papers issued by the first Congress, the one he had liked best was the Address to the People of Great Britain, the most extensive and complete version of the case yet given to the world. Without being particularly well written, it was a plain, straightforward piece of work, free from those reserves and softenings supposed to be requisite in petitions to the king. When the Virginia delegates returned, he had inquired concerning the authorship of a paper so much to his mind, and Ben Harrison had told him that William Livingston was the author. Hence he now turned to Livingston and urged him to undertake the important and difficult draft committed to them. The member from New Jersey excused himself, and proposed the work to Jefferson. Upon this he renewed his request with such urgency that Livingston was puzzled. “ We are as yet but new acquaintances, sir,” said the Jerseyman ; “why are you so urgent for my doing it ? ” He replied, “ Because I have been informed that you drew the Address to the People of Great Britain, a production, certainly, of the finest pen in America.” Livingston had, indeed, presented the paper to the house, but as it was the composition of John Jay of New York, he was compelled to waive the compliment. “ On that, perhaps, sir,” said he, “ you may not have been correctly informed.”

The next morning, as Jefferson himself reports, he discovered that Mr. Jay was not disposed to lose the honor of his performance. As he was walking about in the hall before the house had been called to order, he observed Mr. Jay leading towards him, “by the button of his coat,” Mr. R. H. Lee of Virginia. These gentlemen were not the best friends. “ I understand, sir,” said Jay to Jefferson, when he had brought up the Virginian orator, “ that this gentleman informed you that Mr. Livingston drew the Address to the People of Great Britain.” Mr. Jefferson set him right on the point ; but Jay and Lee remained “ ever very hostile to one another.”

It is a relief to catch Mr. John Jay, who comes down to us with a reputation for austerest virtue, behaving so much like a sophomore. The truth is, however, that at thirty he was a merry gentleman enough, who smoked his pipe, loved his jest, could be vain of his “ composition,” and was actually — if the readercan believe it — called by his intimate friends Jack !

The committee asked the new member from Virginia to try his hand at the draft; i. e. to put Lexington and Bunker Hill into documentary form for general circulation. He did his best, but his usual ill-luck pursued him. Mr. Dickinson thought the paper “ too strong.” No one as yet expected or desired any other ending of the controversy than reconciliation with Great Britain on the old terms. Why, then, asked Dickinson, make reconciliation more difficult by offensive words ? “ He was so honest a man,” says Mr. Jefferson, “and so able a one, that he was greatly indulged even by those who could not feel his scruples.” The committee asked him to take Mr. Jefferson’s draft, which all seem to have approved but Dickinson, and put it into a form he could adopt. The result was a much better document for the purpose than either of them alone could have prepared ; for in nothing that man does is the old saying truer, than in the preparation of official documents, that two heads are better than one. Mr. Dickinson restated the course of events, but appended to his mild version of the facts four and a half paragraphs of Jefferson’s flowing eloquence, which came in well when the document was read in town meetings and at the head of departing regiments. But Mr. Dickinson’s part was not less effective. The very awkwardnesses of a piece of writing have convincing power when they arise from the struggle of an honest mind to get upon paper the exact truth. How effective and affecting some of Mr. Lincoln’s messages for this very reason ! It was not eloquent to describe the affair of Lexington as “an unprovoked assault upon the inhabitants of the said Province, as appears by the affidavits of a great number of persons ”; nor was it a fine stroke of rhetoric to speak of the battle of Bunker Hill as a butchery of our countrymen (saying nothing of the 1,054 British dead and wounded); but Homer could not have stated it in a better way to reach the minds of the plain, scrupulous people of Pennsylvania. The committee and the Congress adopted Mr. Dickinson’s draft. If the reader will turn to the document, be will easily discover the precise point where Dickinson’s labored statement ends and Jefferson’s glowing utterance begins.

There is one word of three letters in Mr. Jefferson’s portion which I wonder the cautious Pennsylvanian did not erase. It is the word of threat italicized in this passage: “We mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored. Necessity has notyet driven us into that desperate measure, nor induced us to excite any other nation to war against them. We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent States.” These words render the date of the document interesting. The attested copy bears date July 6, 1775. If John Hancock had found it convenient to sign two days before, be would have furnished the orators and historians of future ages with a “point ” ! A year later he put his name to a document of different tenor.

Toward the close of the session, it fell to Jefferson to do for the Congress what he had already done for Virginia, draft an answer to Lord North’s Conciliatory Proposition. As there was no Dickinson upon the committee, his draft was approved ; and the adoption of this paper was among the last acts of the session. August 1st, seventyone days after Jefferson had taken his seat, the Congress adjourned.

Besides participating in the daily unreported debates, he had penned two important papers, one of which had been rejected and the other accepted. His presence in the house was his best service to the cause. His clear conception of the situation, his knowledge of the laws and precedents bearing on the controversy, the native fearlessness of his intellect, his curious freedom from some of the troublesome foibles of our nature, particularly his indifference as to who should have the credit of doing the best tiling, provided the best thing was done, and a certain conciliatory habit of mind and manner, made him a valuable member of such a body as this ; and he was happy, too, in being in a situation where his special gift was the one in request. With the good-will of all his colleagues, he set out for Virginia, Ben Harrison riding with him in his carriage, and the other Virginia delegates not far behind. These Virginians were wanted at home. They were waited for and anxiously desired.

For, in the church of St. John, on the loftiest height of Richmond, the Virginia Convention had been for several days in session, electing colonels to the regiments, examining specimens of saltpetre, preparing to frustrate the fell designs of Dunmore, and yet reluctant to go on until the arrival of the honorable delegates from Philadelphia. Patrick Henry, in grateful remembrance of his powder exploit, was elected colonel of the First Regiment.

It took the delegates eight days to perform the journey from Philadelphia to Richmond. August 9th, in the midst of the morning session, four of them, as the Journal records, “Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton, Benjamin Harrison, and Thomas Jefferson, Esquires, appeared in Convention and took their seats, and the gentlemen appointed to represent their counties, in their necessary absence, retired.” At once the four gentlemen were added to the important committee of the moment, and resumed legislative duty. On the nth arrived another delegate, R. H. Lee, who took his seat; and this was the last of the arrivals, for George Washington was on other duty, and was not expected home that summer.

It was a great day in the Convention, this 11th of August, meagre as the record is. Again the Convention was to elect seven members to represent the Colony in the next Congress, which was to meet in September. First, three of the last delegation, no longer eligible, — General Washington, Colonel Patrick Henry, and Edmund Pendleton, the last named being in infirm health, — were solemnly thanked by the chairman, on behalf of the Convention, for their services in the Congress. The new soldier and the old lawyer becomingly responded, and then the chairman was “desired to transmit the thanks of this Convention by letter to his Excellency General Washington.” These high courtesies performed, the balloting began. The result showed that Virginia was well pleased with the youngest of her representatives : Peyton Randolph, eighty-nine ; R. H. Lee, eighty-eight; Thomas Jefferson, eightyfive ; Benjamin Harrison, eighty-three ; Thomas Nelson, sixty-six; Richard Bland, sixty-one ; George Wythe, fiftyeight. Thus the delegate who, a few months before, had been sent to the Congress to fill a brief vacancy, stood now third in the list; above Nelson, one of the richest men in Virginia ; above Harrison, the favorite representative of the planting interest; above Wythe, his instructor in the law ; above Bland, long regarded as the ablest political writer in Virginia, now venerable in years.

Virginia, we observe, stood by her faithful servants. The fatal notion of rotation in office had not yet been evolved. The delegates who could no longer serve were publicly applauded ; those who could were re-elected with a near approach to unanimity, except in the case of Mr. Bland, whose age and infirmities rendered him incapable of efficient service. His re-election was probably only another form of honorable dismission. Calumnious reports had been circulated of late, casting doubt upon the sincerity of his attachment to the great cause. The Convention, promptly yielding to his demand for an investigation, had “considered it their duty to bear to the world their testimony, that the said Richard Bland had manifested himself the friend of his country, and uniformly stood forth an able asserter of her rights and liberties.” Copies of this vindication were ordered to be sent to the Congress, and to Arthur Lee, the London agent of the Province, in whose suspicious mind the slanders had probably originated. The re-election was an additional testimony which touched the old man’s heart. The next morning he rose in the Convention to decline the honor conferred upon him. This fresh instance of the approval of the Convention, he said, was enough for an old man, almost deprived of sight, whose highest ambition had ever been to receive, when he should retire from public life, “the plaudit of his country”; and he begged the Convention to appoint “ some more fit and able person to supply his place.” The Convention declared that their thanks were due to Richard Bland for his able and faithful service, and that they were induced to accept his resignation only by consideration for his advanced age. The old man then rose, and remained standing, while the chairman pronounced the thanks of the Convention in fit, impressive words. A community is not apt to be ill-served that treats its servants in this spirit.

Impatient for his home, Jefferson obtained leave of absence on the fifth day of his attendance in the Convention ; but before he left Richmond he gave his voice and vote for a measure which proved to be the beginning of a revolution in Virginia of which he was to be the soul and director. Dissenters from the Established Church had, as yet, neither rights nor recognition, and, in ordinary times, both would have been denied them. But, at such a time as this, when the fundamental rights of man become living truths in all but the dullest minds, enthusiasm lifts men above the trivialities of sectarian difference, and enables them to lay aside sectarian arrogance. August 16, 1775, an address from the Baptists was presented to the Convention. Of this, the most numerous body of dissenters in the Colony, Rev. John Clay, father of the renowned Kentuckian, was then an active member, and doubtless his name was appended to the document. Differ as we may, said the Baptists of Virginia in this petition, we are nevertheless members of the same community,—a community now menaced with oppression and devastation, — and “ we have considered what part it will be proper for us to take in the unhappy contest.” The result of their deliberations was : 1. That, “ in some cases, it is lawful to go to war ” ; and, 2. That this was one of the cases. Consequently many of their numbers had enlisted, and many more desired to enlist, who “ had an earnest desire their ministers should preach to them during the campaign.” Their petition was, that four Baptist ministers should be allowed to preach to Baptist soldiers, “ without molestation or abuse.” The Convention passed a resolution which both granted the request and conceded the princi' ple : —

“ Resolved, That it be an instruction to the commanding officers of regiments or troops to be raised, that they permit dissenting clergymen to celebrate divine worship, and to preach to the soldiers or exhort, from time to time, as the various operations of the military service may permit, for the ease of such scrupulous consciences as may not choose to attend divine service as celebrated by the chaplain.”

Thus began religious equality in Virginia.

Jefferson lingered another day in the Convention ; perhaps to witness the election of a new chairman. R. C. Nicholas, in the place of Peyton Randolph, whom ill-health had compelled to .withdraw; perhaps to cast his vote in favor of his brother-in-law, Francis Eppes, for the office of major of the First Regiment, of which Patrick Henry was colonel; perhaps to assist in the election of the great Committee of Safety, a body of eleven men, the ruling power in Virginia from the adjournment of the Convention till Dunmore was expelled and a new order of things instituted. The four personages of the Convention who are designated in the brief record as “Mr. Richard Henry Lee, Mr. Henry, Mr. Harrison, and Mr. Jefferson,”were appointed to count the ballots on this high occasion. Jefferson’s old friend, John Page, — styled still “ the Honorable,” from his having been one of Dunmore’s Council, — was elected a member of the controlling committee. I wonder if, at that stirring time, Jefferson and “dear Page” ever found time to recall the happy, miserable days when, both being crossed in love, Jefferson sought solace in Ossian and old Coke, and dear Page went home to his baronial hall and paid successful court to another; which Jefferson would not believe till he heard it from Page’s own lips, well knowing that, for his own part, he had done with love forever !

Jefferson, at least, still played the violin. A violinist now of fifteen years’ standing, extremely fond of music, an indefatigable practiser, and inheriting a touch of singular delicacy, he had become a superior performer. For journeys he had one of those minute violins formerly called kits, with a tiny case, which could be packed in a portmanteau or even carried in a large pocket. Wealthy Virginians were late risers in those easy-going, luxurious times ; but he was always an early riser ; and he found his kit a precious resource in the long mornings while he was waiting, at country-houses, for the family to come down to breakfast. At night, too, he and his kit could whisper together without disturbing the occupants of adjacent rooms. If the absorbing political events of the period had much interrupted his playing, he now owed to them the acquisition of the finest violin, perhaps, in the Colonies, upon which he had fixed covetous eyes years before.

To say that this instrument belonged to John Randolph conveys no information, because there are so many John Randolphs of note in Virginia history, that the name has lost its designating power. We are obliged to say, John Randolph, the king’s attorney-general, son of Sir John, and brother of Peyton Randolph, Speaker. This precious violin, brought from a foreign land by its proprietor, could not, in ordinary times, have become the object of vulgar sale ; but the attorney-general, feeling doubtless that the best fiddle should properly belong to the best fiddler, had entered into a compact, four years before, by which the instrument should fall to Jefferson’s possession, after his own death. An agreement was drawn up in legal form, signed and sealed by the parties, attested by seven of their friends, most of whom were young members of the bar, George Wythe and Patrick Henry among them, and duly recorded in the minutes of the General Court, to this effect : —

“It is AGREED between John Randolph and Thomas Jefferson, that, in case the said John shall survive the said Thomas, the executors of the said Thomas shall deliver to the said John 80 pounds sterling of the books of the said Thomas, to be chosen by the said John : and, in case the said Thomas should survive the said John, that the executors of the said John shall deliver to the said Thomas the violin which the said John brought with him into Virginia, together with all his music composed for the violin.” ¹

To the merry attestors of this unique document the transaction may have seemed a joke ; but to Jefferson himself it was so serious, that he provided for the fulfilment of the compact in his will, and bequeathed a hundred pounds to “ the said John ” besides.

This paper was drawn in the piping times of peace, when, as yet, Jefferson was “ Tom ” to his familiars, and Patrick Henry was master of the Christmas revels ; the whole party unknown beyond their native Province. But now the times were out of joint. John Randolph, like most men who held places under the crown, sided with the king so far as to think it his duty to leave the country, and, before leaving, sold his exquisite violin to Jefferson for thirteen pounds. This important bargain was concluded on this last day of his attendance in the Convention, and he carried the instrument home with him to Monticello, where it remained, a precious possession, for fifty-one years.

Short, indeed, was the vacation he now enjoyed, though it was longer than he meant it to be. August 19th he reached Monticello ; and Congress was to meet at Philadelphia September 5th ; leaving him only ten days to stay on his mountain-top, where he had a house enlarging, a family of thirty-four whites and eighty-three blacks to think for, half a dozen farms to superintend, and a highly complicated and extensive garden to overlook. Probably he did not on this occasion much enjoy his new violin. A few days after reaching home, however, he played upon its late proprietor by writing him a letter upon public affairs, which seems to have been designed to be shown in England, to aid in the correction of errors prevalent there. Like many other Americans, Jefferson was puzzled to account for the wonderfully absurd conduct of the home government. What could possess rational beings, that they should go on, year after year, repelling, alienating, the most valuable and loyal Colonies a nation had ever had, — Colonies that cost nothing, never had cost anything, and poured into the mothercountry a clear revenue estimated at two millions sterling a year ; which enriched seaport towns, nourished manufactures, and covered the land with new wealth ? It must be ignorance, he thought; the Ministry had been deceived by their servants on this side of the Atlantic. But why the American governors and other official persons should want to deceive their employers, he declared, was a mystery to him. Why should they keep writing home that the American opposition was a mere faction, when they knew it was the whole brain and heart of the country ? Without attempting to solve this enigma, he seized the occasion of the attorney-general’s departure to write a letter which might assist individuals in England to arrive at the truth respecting America.

When he had finished his statement, he told his Tory friend that, though he still preferred a just union with Britain to independence, yet, rather than submit to the claims of Parliament, he would lend his hand to sink the island of Great Britain in the ocean. He added a prophecy which has been fulfilled : “ Whether Britain shall continue the head of the greatest Empire on earth, or shall return to her original station in the political scale of Europe, depends, perhaps, on the resolutions of the succeeding winter.” Happily for us, for the world, and for herself, Britain has returned to her original station in the political scale of Europe ; and assists the progress of the human race in a nobler way by her Farradays, Spencers, Huxleys, Buckles, Mills, Darwins, and George Eliots.

The day named for the meeting of the Congress found the family at Monticello anxious for the preservation of a flickering life, precious to them all. Jefferson’s eldest child, Martha, was now three years old. His second, Jane, aged seventeen months, died in this month of September, 1775. Detained from his seat by this event, he made such haste, when at last he did set out, that he performed the journey from Monticello to Philadelphia in six days, arriving September 25th. This was a feat that must have tasked both horses and rider severely ; for the distance in a straight line appears to exceed two hundred and fifty miles, and much of the road was little more than a “ blazed ” path through the wilderness.

He might as well have travelled leisurely ; for when he reached Philadelphia, the great news from England, for which Congress and the country were waiting with extreme anxiety, had not arrived ; and nothing decisive could be intelligently considered until it did. The midsummer ships had carried to England the news of Bunker Hill, with that incongruous accompaniment, Mr. Dickinson’s Second Petition to the king. How could Congress have doubted what the response would be ? At the beginning of a war, it is bloodshed that takes the controversy out of the domain of reason and consigns it to that of mania. Before he had been many days in his seat, he had to send news to his brother-in-law, Major Eppes, that the Ministry were going to push the war with all the might of the British Empire. The Tower of London was despoiled of its cannon for use against the rebellious Colonies ; two thousand troops were just embarking in Ireland ; ten thousand more were to come in the spring; most of the garrison of Gibraltar, to be replaced by Hessians, were to swell the army of General Gage. And there was a piece of news still more alarming to Virginians : a fleet of frigates and small vessels, which Dunmore had expressly and most earnestly asked for, was coming to lay waste the plantations on the Virginia rivers. Soon arrived intelligence of Lord Dartmouth’s reply to the agent who had delivered into his hands the absurd Second Petition : “ No answer will be given.” The curiously perverse king’s speech to Parliament was not long behind ; in which his Majesty afforded Colonel Barn' a text for an oration which the boys of three generations have been well pleased to declaim. The king was so unfortunate as to speak of the Colonies as having been “planted with great industry” by the mother country, “nursed with great tenderness, encouraged with many commercial advantages, and protected and defended at much expense of blood and treasure.” Colonel Barrd’s reply is remarkable for this : it is one of the most eloquent passages ever spoken, and it is, at the same time, a perfectly unexaggerated statement of facts. The king added to the many other politic and conciliatory passages of his speech a delightful offer of “tenderness and mercy ” to the “ unhappy and deluded multitude ” as soon as they should become “ sensible of their error.” The worst of the news from England was, that the people, wounded in their pride by the slaughter at Bunker Hill, were supporting the government with enthusiasm and seeming unanimity.

Jefferson was no longer so much puzzled to account for the conduct of the Ministry. He began to get that insight into the nature of personal government— “the folly of heaping importance upon idiots ” — which became, in later years, so clear and vivid. And yet, with what strange pertinacity his radical nature clung to the connection with Great Britain ! As late as November 29, 1775, he could still write to his kinsman, John Randolph, that there was not a man in the British Empire who more cordially loved a union with Great Britain than he did ! Love it as he might, he had probably ceased to think it possible. “ It is an immense misfortune to the whole Empire,” he wrote, “to have such a king at such a time. We are told, and everything proves it true, that he is the bitterest enemy we have. His minister is able, and that satisfies me that ignorance or wickedness somewhere controls him.” The last remark is interesting as showing that Jefferson, at a time when the fact was not generally known, felt that a man of the calibre of Lord North was out of place in the Cabinet of George III., and did not in his heart approve the king’s policy. “To undo his Empire,” Jefferson continued, “the king has but one more truth to learn,— that after colonies have drawn the sword, there is but one more step they can take ! ”

This autumn of 1775 was a period of intense excitement. All America was drilling, the Philadelphia companies twice a day. Everybody with a tincture of science in his composition was brooding over the ingredients of gunpowder, and discussing with kindred spirits the great saltpetre problem. No day passed without something of deep interest coming up in the Congress. When there was no news from England to consider, the army around Boston, its destitution, its dwindling numbers, its defective organization, was an ever-present topic. Once more it was proved that militia are incapable of prolonged service in the field, and are useless except to hold important points while a proper army is forming. Bull Run was inexcusable ; for we ought not to have been so ignorant or unmindful of General Washington’s reiterated and most emphatic warnings on this point as to have hurled a miscellaneous multitude of citizens in soldier-clothes against a fortified position.

How curiously ignorant were those peaceful colonists of the art of war ! Philadelphia seems to have confided implicitly in Dr, Franklin’s row-galleys and marine chevaux-de-frise as a defence against the British fleet. Jefferson, doubtless, was one of the congressional party who went down the river to inspect them, when seven of the galleys were paraded and performed their evolutions. The names of the galleys, as John Adams records, were the Washington, the Effingham, the Dickinson, the Franklin, the Otter, the Bull-dog, and “one more which I have forgot.” Mr. Jefferson, it is to be hoped, went in the Bull-dog with Mr. Adams ; for in that vessel were two gentlemen whom he would have found interesting. One was Mr. Hillegas, treasurer to Congress, “a great musician,” says Adams, “ talks perpetually of the forte and piano, of Handel, and songs and tunes.” And besides, “ He plays upon the fiddle.” The other was the famous Rittenhouse, who, Mr. Adams informs us, was a mechanic, a mathematician, a philosopher, an astronomer ; “a tall, slender man, plain, soft, modest, no remarkable depth or thoughtfulness in his face, yet cool, attentive, and clear.” Then there was Mr. Owen Biddle, another member of the Philosophical Society. A delightful day Mr. Jefferson would have had upon the broad and placid Delaware with such companions ; to say nothing of the galleys, and the vaisseaux-de-frise, and Dr. Franklin’s explanations of the same. If some gentlemen questioned the efficacy of the galleys, all seemed convinced that the chevaux-de-frise (three rows of heavy timber, barbed with iron, anchored to the bottom of the river) would puzzle a British admiral extremely. Perhaps they did. Nevertheless, before two years were past, a British fleet lay at anchor off Philadelphia, in a line nearly two miles long.

In the midst of all this bustle, excitement, and alarm, Congress sat with closed doors, no reporter present; and Jefferson sat with them, serving laboriously on committees and doing his part. Merely to be present in the Congress, when he had at his distant home an infirm mother, a sickly and most tenderly beloved wife, a little child, and a great brood of dependent relatives, cost him the most painful self-sacrifice. It was only by chance that he could get a letter from or to his mountain-top. When he had been seven weeks away from home, he had still to write : “ I have never received the scrip of a pen from any mortal in Virginia since I left it, nor been able by any inquiries I could make to hear of my family.” The suspense in which he lived was “ too terrible to be endured.” “ If anything has happened,” he added, “for God’s sake, let me know it ! ”

It fell to his lot, this November, 1775, to witness the beginning of the long connection between Franee and America, which was destined to control, not the destinies of his country only, but his own career as a public man. That “French influence,” according to the report of Mr. John Jay, to whom we owe our knowledge of it, had an almost ludicrous beginning. The scene, indeed, would be effective in a comedy. No sooner had the tidings arrived of the rejection of the Second Petition, than Congress began to receive mysterious notifications that there was a FOREIGNER in Philadelphia who desired to make to them an important and confidential communication. When this intimation had been several times repeated, Congress condescended to name a committee, Mr. Jay, Dr. Franklin, and Mr. Jefferson, to receive the message. At the appointed hour, in a committee-room of Carpenters’ Hall, this distinguished committee met the stranger, “ an elderly lame man,” as Mr. Jay describes him, “having the appearance of an old, wounded French officer.” After preliminary civilities, the Lame Unknown delivered his communication. The king of France, he said, had heard with pleasure of the exertions made by the Colonies in defence of their rights, wished them success, and would manifest his friendship for them openly whenever it should become necessary. The committee, of course, asked him what authority he had for making these assurances ; but the old gentleman only answered by drawing his hand across his throat, and saying, “ Gentlemen, I shall take care of my head.” The committee inquired what proofs of friendship the Congress might expect from the king. “ Gentlemen,” was the reply, “it you want arms, you shall have them ; if you want ammunition, you shall have it; if you want money, you shall have it.”

This would have been comforting if the stranger would only have exhibited something in the way of credentials. The committee said as much ; but no response could be obtained except, “ Gentlemen, I shall take care of my head.” The interview terminated, and, to use the romantic language of Mr. Jay, “ he was seen in Philadelphia no more.” His bearing and appearance, however, gained for him some credit; for Congress speedily appointed that ever-memorable secret committee to correspond with the friends of America in foreign lands, which had such momentous consequences. The mysterious stranger was indeed an emissary from the French government, — his name, De Bonvouloir, — an old courtier of noble lineage, who had been in America last year at the outbreak of the Revolution. He could indeed show no credentials, for his instructions were verbal. His duty in America was threefold : I. To get exact information ; 2. To convey warm assurances of sympathy ; 3. To assure the Congress that they were quite welcome to get Canada if they could, for the French had ceased to think of it. On his return to France, he told the minister that the Americans were practically unanimous, and his report produced as important effects there as his presence had here.

As the winter drew on, it became distressing beyond measure for a Virginian with a large household to be absent from home. The Province was filled with alarm. A struggle was in progress between Dunmore and the Convention for the possession of the slaves ; the governor proclaiming freedom to all of them who would join him, and the Convention threatening all who did join him with severest punishment. The Convention triumphed in this contest ; but the mere attempt to seduce the slaves carried terror to hundreds of those isolated Virginia homes, the guardians of which were absent in camp, in Convention, and in Congress. The plantations then were almost all open to the ravages of a naval force, as every considerable plantation was of necessity within reach of a navigable stream, by which also the negroes could easily escape to Dunmore’s head-quarters. It seems, from the Journal of the Convention, that only twenty-nine slaves joined Dunmore ; namely, Ishmael, Africa, Europe, Romeo, Tawley, Cato, Derry, Cuff, Jasper, Luke, and several Toms, Dicks, and Harrys, who were ordered to be sold into eternal exile in the West Indies or at Honduras.

Dunmore was successful in nothing except alarming the timid and exasperating the brave. Even his blockade of Hampton Roads did not prevent the Virginia “cruisers ” in December from making the timely and precious capture of fifty-six hundred bushels of salt. Salt was getting very scarce in the Province ; owing, as the Journal of the Convention assures us, “to the many illegal seizures of vessels laden with that article by his Majesty’s ships of war, and sundry piratical vessels fitted out by Lord Dunmore.” Having obtained this salt, the Convention disposed of it in a singularly wise and just manner. It was divided among all the counties of the Province according to their population, and consigned to the several Committees of Safety to be sold to the families most in need of salt at five shillings a bushel ; and if it should be found that the captured salt belonged to persons “not inimical to this Colony,” it was to be paid for at the rate of four shillings a bushel. It was a scant supply divided among thirty-one counties. Warwick County’s share was only fourteen bushels, and populous Botecourt’s but two hundred and ninetyseven. Mrs. Jefferson, perhaps, got a little, for Albemarle was assigned a hundred and forty-four bushels.

In all the proceedings of Virginia’s little parliament, we find a most happy blending of courtesy, good sense, and rectitude. In the midst of Dunmore’s savage and stupid war against the Province (only a few days before it culminated in the infernal bombardment and burning of Norfolk) a British frigate arrived in the Roads with a crew of four hundred men. The captain of this vessel, with an effrontery seldom paralleled, sent a flag on shore to ask leave to take in a supply of fresh provisions ; averring that he had no wish “ to shed the blood of the innocent and helpless,” but, if his men “ should break loose in the uncontrollable pursuit of fresh and wholesome nourishment, the result must be obvious to every one.” The reply of the Convention was politeness itself. They desired the captain to be informed that they were sensible of the hardship which many innocent people on board the frigate were suffering from the want of fresh provisions, and that nothing could prevent their permitting a supply but patriotic duty. The captain, they continued, was probably a stranger in Virginia ; and hence they wished him to be further informed that “ this country hath ever, till of late, considered the officers and men of his Majesty’s navy as their friends, and have always had great pleasure in showing them every hospitality and civility ; but many very recent and unwarrantable instances of the hostile behavior of some of the navy towards our inhabitants justify us in suspicions which we would not otherwise entertain. Who are the ‘innocent and helpless ’ whose blood Captain Bellew would not wish to shed, we cannot from his expressions determine ; but they carry with them the strongest implication, that the effusion of the blood of some of our countrymen is the object of his voyage to this country,” If, however, Captain Bellew would condescend to satisfy them that he had come to Virginia on a friendly errand, the Convention would take every opportunity to pay proper respect to a gentleman in his station, and use every means in their power to render his stay as agreeable as possible. But if, on the contrary, Captain Bellew’s design was to further the views of our enemies, “he must excuse the inhabitants of Virginia if they totally decline contributing towards their own destruction.”

Three days after, — January 1, 1776, — Norfolk, the richest and most populous city in Virginia, was bombarded, set on fire, and nine tenths of it consumed, — a loss in money of three hundred thousands sterling. Five thousand people were made homeless and houseless in the middle of winter, and those people as innocent of offence as are to-day the inhabitants of the most peaceful seaport town on the coast of Norway. The Convention, when this intelligence reached them, ordered the troops to evacuate the site, and, before doing so, to destroy the few houses which had escaped the fire. Norfolk accordingly was obliterated from the face of the earth. This event, and the burning of Falmouth on the coast of Maine, weaned all hearts from an unnatural “ mother-country.” It was not merely the unlettered portion of the people that were so deeply moved. Franklin’s old heart was fired ; he never forgot Falmouth and Norfolk ; and, before he was many months older, he and Paul Jones were concerned in those “ reprisals ” that, for three or four years, kept the coasts of Great Britain in alarm, from John O’Groat’s house to Land’s End. Independence never could have been carried in 1776, but for these two conflagrations.

Jefferson heard this maddening news while he was on his way home from Philadelphia. Virginia did not require the constant attendance of all her seven delegates in Congress, but only of “any four” of them; and hence they took turns in going home. Nor was it desirable, in that critical time, for so many as seven of the most influential persons on the popular side to be absent from the Province at once. After three months’ attendance, therefore, Jefferson bade farewell to his colleagues, and passed the rest of the winter in Virginia, raising further supplies for the people of Boston, collecting money for the purchase of powder, concerting measures for the relief of the inhabitants of Norfolk, entertaining relations and friends compelled to abandon their homes in the lower country, and preparing the public mind for that “one more step” which Colonies can take “ after they have drawn the sword.” What a houseful he must have had, with his brother-in-law’s family, besides his own multitude ! His mother died in March, 1776, aged fifty-five, after a widowhood of eighteen years, — an occurrence which may have prolonged his absence from Philadelphia.

The march of events was swift that spring. General Washington took Boston, the country read Thomas Paine’s “ Common Sense,” and Virginia instructed her delegates to propose independence to Congress.

May 13, 1776, Jefferson, after an absence of four months and a half, resumed his seat in Congress. It was the week when a committee of three gentlemen went from house to house in Philadelphia, buying old lead for bullets at sixpence a pound, but excusing families from giving up their clockweights, because “ the iron weights to replace them are not yet made.” No one was compelled to give up his lead ; O, by no means ! but the public were notified that “ if any persons should be so lost to all sense of the public good as to refuse, a list of their names is directed to be returned to the Committee of Safety ! ”

Before Mr. Jefferson had been many days in his place, came the intelligence, so long waited for, that the Virginia Convention were unanimous for independence. A kind of premature Fourth of July broke out everywhere, as the news spread from town to town. First, at Williamsburg, where the Convention sat, there were “military parades, discharges of artillery, civic dinners, toasts, illuminations ” ; and when “the Union flag of America proudly waved upon the Capitol, every bosom swelled with generous sentiments and heroic confidence.” At Philadelphia, some gentlemen, as we read in the newspapers of the week, made “ a handsome collection for the purpose of treating the soldiery ” ; and there was a grand parade on the ground since called Independence Square ; and a glorious hoisting of the “ Union flag of the American States” upon the Capitol ; after which the troops enjoyed the repast provided for them, and the day ended with illuminations. Great Virginia had spoken ; it was enough. “ Every one,” said the “ Pennsylvania Journal ” of May 29th, “ seems pleased that the domination of Great Britain is now at an end! ” The newspaper poets kindled into song :

Independence was the only topic now. Members of Congress still held back, but the feeling “ out of doors ” was pressing them to take the inevitable step. Mr. Jefferson has recorded a long list of the reasons brought forward in debate by the Dickinsonians against a final severance of the tie that bound the Colonies to Great Britain, but to us those reasons seem mere pretexts for delay. Perhaps the true arguments against independence were those given as a burlesque in one of the radical newspapers : “ I. I shall lose my office ; 2. I shall lose the honor of being related to men in office ; 3.

I shall lose the rent of houses for a year or two ; 4. We shall have no more rum, sugar, tea, or coffee, except at a most exorbitant price ; 5. No more gauze or fine muslins ; 6. The New England men will turn Goths and Vandals, and overrun all the Southern Colonies ; 7. The Church will have no king for a head ; 8. The Presbyterians will have a share of power in this country ; 9. I shall lose my chance of a large tract of land in a new purchase ; 10. I shall want the support of the first officers of government in my insolence, injustice, and villany; 11. The common people will have too much power in their hands.” To this last reason the writer added a note of explanation : “ N. B. The common people are composed of tradesmen and farmers, and include nine tenths of the people of America.”

It was on the 7th of June that Mr. R. H. Lee obeyed the instructions of the Virginia Legislature by moving that Congress should declare Independence. Two days’ debate revealed that the measure, though still a little premature, was destined to pass ; and therefore the further discussion of the subject was postponed for twenty days, and a committee of five was appointed to draft a declaration, — Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and R. R. Livingston. Mr. Jefferson was naturally urged to prepare the draft. He was chairman of the committee, having received the highest number of votes ; he was also its youngest member, and therefore bound to do an ample share of the work ; he was noted for his skill with the pen ; he was particularly conversant with the points of the controversy ; he was a Virginian. The task, indeed, was not very arduous or difficult. Nothing was wanted but a careful and brief recapitulation of wrongs familiar to every patriotic mind, and a clear statement of principles hackneyed from eleven years’ iteration. Jefferson made no difficulty about undertaking it, and probably had no anticipation of the prodigious celebrity that was to follow from so slight an exercise of his faculties.

The public seem to have had some intimation of what was transpiring in Congress. On June 11th, the day after the committee was appointed, and perhaps the very day on which Jefferson began to write the draft, he doubtless read in the newspaper of the morning that “the grand question of independency ’’was proposed to two thousand Philadelphia volunteers on parade; when the whole body voted for independence, except four officers and twenty-five privates. One lieutenant, however, was so much opposed to the proceeding, that he refused to put the question ; which “gave great umbrage to the men, one of whom replied to him in a genteel and spirited manner.” Jefferson may have witnessed this scene from his window. He lived then in a new brick bouse out in the fields, near what is now the corner of Market and Seventh Streets, a quarter of a mile from Independence Square. “ I rented the second floor,” he tells us, “consisting of a parlor and bedroom, ready furnished,” rent, thirty-five shillings a week ; and he wrote this paper in the parlor, upon a little writing-desk three inches high, which still exists.

He was ready with his draft in time. His colleagues upon the committee suggested a few verbal changes, none of which were important; but during the three days’ discussion of it in the house, it was subjected to a review so critical and severe, that the author sat in his place silently writhing under it, and Dr. Franklin felt called upon to console him with the comic relation of the process by which the sign-board of John Thompson, hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money, was reduced to the name of the hatter and the figure of a hat. Young writers know what he suffered, who come fresh from the commencement platform to a newspaper office, and have their eloquent editorials (equal to Burke) remorselessly edited, their best passages curtailed, their glowing conclusions and artful openings cut off, their happy epithets and striking similes omitted. Congress made eighteen suppressions, six additions, and ten alterations ; and nearly every one of these changes was an improvement. The author, for example, said that men are endowed with “ inherent and inalienable rights.” Congress struck out inherent, — an obvious improvement. He introduced his catalogue of wrongs by these words : “ To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.” It was good taste in Congress to strike out the italicized clause ; for it was beneath such a body to use language of that nature. If gentlemen of the press, who are in secret revolt against chiefs insensible to the charms of eloquence, will turn to the first volume of Mr. Jefferson’s works, and go carefully over the passages suppressed or changed in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, they may become more reconciled to a process by which writers suffer and the public gain.

That the passage concerning slavery should have been stricken out by Congress has often been regretted. But would it have been decent in this body to denounce the king for a crime in the guilt of which the Colonies had shared ? Mr. Jefferson wrote in his draft : —

“ He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them ; thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.”

Surely, the omission of this passage was not less right than wise. New England towns had been enriched by the commerce in slaves, and the Southern Colonies had subsisted on the labor of slaves for a hundred years. The foolish king had committed errors enough, but it was not fair to hold so limited a person responsible for not being a century in advance of his age ; nor was it ever in the power of any king to compel his subjects to be slaveowners. It was Young Virginia that spoke in this paragraph, — Wythe, Jefferson, Madison, and their young friends, — not the public mind of America, which was destined to reach it, ninety years after, by the usual way of agony and blood.

One omitted passage, perhaps, might have been retained, in which Jefferson gave expression to the mighty throb of wounded love which American Englishmen had suffered when they heard that foreign mercenaries had been hired to wage war upon them : —

“ Our British brethren are permitting their chief magistrate to send over, not only soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch and foreign mercenaries to invade and destroy us. These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love for them, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. We might have been a free and a great people together ; but a communication of grandeur and of freedom, it seems, is below their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it. The road to happiness and to glory is open to us, too. We will tread it apart from them, and acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our eternal separation.”

Even this passage, so creditable to the author’s feelings, was perhaps better suppressed ; for, after all, the mother-country of America, as Paine remarked, was not Great Britain, but Europe ; and, since the burning of Falmouth and the bombardment of Norfolk, such words were not expressive of the feelings of the people.

The “glittering generality” of the document, “all men are created equal,” appears to have been accepted, without objection or remark, as a short and simple reprobation of caste and privilege. Readers are aware that it has not escaped contemptuous comment in recent times. It would have been easy for the author of the Declaration— and I wish he had done so — to put the statement in words which partisan prejudice itself could not have plausibly pretended to misunderstand ; for, as the passage stands, its most obvious meaning is not true.

The noblest utterance of the whole composition is the reason given for making the Declaration, - “A DECENT RESPECT FOR THE OPINIONS OF MANKIND.” This touches the heart. Among the best emotions that human nature knows is the veneration of man for man. This recognition of the Public Opinion of the World — the sum of human sense — as the final arbiter in all controversies, is the single phrase of the document which Jefferson alone, perhaps, of all the Congress, would have originated ; and in point of merit, it was worth all the rest.

During the 2d, 3d, and 4th of July, Congress were engaged in reviewing the Declaration. Thursday, the 4th, was a hot day ; the session lasted many hours ; members were tired and impatient. Every one who has watched the sessions of a deliberative body knows how the most important measures are retarded, accelerated, even defeated, by physical causes of the most trifling nature. Mr. Kinglake intimates that Lord Raglan’s invasion of the Crimea was due rather to the after-dinner slumbers of the British Cabinet, than to any well-considered purpose. Mr. Jefferson used to-relate, with much merriment, that the final signing of the Declaration of Independence was hastened by an absurdly trivial cause. Near the hall in which the debates were then held was a livery-stable, from which swarms of flies came into the open windows and assailed the silk - stockinged legs of honorable members. Handkerchief in hand, they lashed the flies with such vigor as they could command on a July afternoon ; but the annoyance became at length so extreme as to render them impatient of delay, and they made haste to bring the momentous business to a conclusion.

After such a long and severe strain upon their minds, members seem to have indulged in many a jocular observation as they stood around the table. Tradition has it, that when John Hancock had affixed his magnificent signature to the paper, he said, “ There, John Bull may read my name without spectacles ! ” Tradition, also, will never relinquish the pleasure of repeating that, when Mr. Hancock reminded members of the necessity of banging together, Dr. Franklin was ready with his, “ Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or else, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” And this may have suggested to the portly Harrison — a “luxurious, heavy gentleman,” as John Adams describes him — his remark to slender Elbridge Gerry, that when the hanging came he should have the advantage ; for poor Gerry would be kicking in the air long after it was all over with himself.

French critics censure Shakespeare for mingling buffoonery with scenes of the deepest tragic interest. But here we find one of the most important assemblies ever convened, at the supreme moment of its existence, while performing the act that gives it its rank among deliberative bodies, cracking jokes, and hurrying up to the table to sign, in order to get away from the flies. It is precisely so that Shakespeare would have imagined the scene.

No composition of man was ever received with more rapture than this. It came at a happy time. Boston was delivered, and New York, as yet, but menaced ; and in all New England there was not a British soldier who was not a prisoner, nor a king’s ship that was not a prize. Between the expulsion of the British troops from Boston and their capture of New York was the period of the Revolutionary War when the people were most confident and most united. From the newspapers and letters of the time, we should infer that the contest was ending rather than beginning, so exultant is their tone ; and the Declaration of Independence, therefore, was received more like a song of triumph than a call to battle.

The paper was signed late on Thursday afternoon, July 4th. On the Monday following, at noon, it was publicly read for the first time, in Independence Square, from a platform erected by Rittenhouse for the purpose of observing the transit of Venus. Captain John Hopkins, a young man commanding an armed brig of the navy of the new nation, was the reader ; and it required his stentorian voice to carry the words to the distant verge of the multitude who had come to hear it. In the evening, as a journal of the day has it, “our late king’s coat-of-arms were brought from the hall of the State House, where the said king’s courts were formerly held, and burned amid the acclamations of a crowd of spectators.” Similar scenes transpired in every centre of population, and at every camp and post. Usually, the militia companies, the Committee of Safety, and other revolutionary bodies marched in procession to some public place, where they listened decorously to the reading of the Declaration, at the conclusion of which cheers were given and salutes fired ; and in the evening there were illuminations and bonfires. In New York, after the reading, the leaden statue of the late king in Bowling Green was “ laid prostrate in the dirt,” and ordered to be run into bullets. The debtors in prison were also set at liberty. Virginia, before the news of the Declaration had reached her (July 5, 1776), had stricken the king’s name out of the Prayer-Book ; and now (July 30th) Rhode Island made it a misdemeanor to pray for the king as king, under penalty of a fine of one hundred thousand pounds !

The news of the Declaration was received with sorrow by all that was best in England. Samuel Rogers used to give American guests at his breakfasts an interesting reminiscence of this period. On the morning after the intelligence reached London, his father, at family prayers, added a prayer for the success of the Colonies, which he repeated every day until the peace.

The deed was done. A people not formed for empire ceased to be imperial, and a people destined to empire began the political education that will one day give them far more and better than imperial sway.

Fourteen governments were now to be created, fourteen constitutions formed, fourteen codes established, even fourteen seals engraved. Heavens ! what a perplexity some of the new governors were in about a seal ! No seal, no commission ! Could an ensign or lieutenant’s commission have the least validity without a dab of sealing-wax, with some letters and figures stamped upon it? Obviously not. George Wythe and John Page had devised a proper seal for Virginia; but not in all the Province, nor anywhere in America south of the Delaware, was there a creature who had the least idea how to engrave it. “Can you get the work done in Philadelphia?” writes Page to his old comrade, Jefferson, in this month of July. “If you can, we must get the favor of you to have it done immediately. . . . . The engraver may want to know the size. This you may determine, unless Mr. Wythe should direct the dimensions. He may also be at a loss for a Virtus and Libertas, but you may refer him to Spence’s Polymetis, which must be in some library in Philadelphia.” The work, however, could not be done there, and the Legislature was obliged to pass an act empowering the governor to issue commissions without a seal, until one could be engraved in Europe. The words to be engraved upon this mystic piece of metal —words suggested by the gentlest and most benevolent of men, George Wythe — acquired a mournful and horrible celebrity in 1865, Sic semper Tyrannis.

While Jefferson was going about Philadelphia in these burning summer days looking for an engraver, he was himself brooding over a design for a seal; Dr. Franklin, John Adams, and himself having been appointed a committee to devise a seal for the central power. But Congress, too, had to do without a seal for some years. The committee, by combining their ideas, achieved a most elaborate design, with the Red Sea in it, and Pharaoh, and a sword, and a pillar, and a cloud brilliant with the hidden presence of God. All of their suggestions were finally rejected, except the very best legend ever appropriated, & Pluribus Unum.

Jefferson could not remain in Congress at such a time. Besides that the condition of his wife and household now made his presence in Virginia, as he said, “indispensably necessary,” he had been elected to his old seat in the Legislature, where duties of the most interesting nature invited him. Twice he asked to be released, before his request was granted and a successor appointed. In September, 1776, be left Congress, and went home to assist in adjusting old Virginia to the new order of things.

James Parton.