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May.

whose decrees were received as indisputably the voice CHAP. of her whole people. She had dispensed with oaths for the support of the government under the crown; 1776. but she resolved that it was not necessary to suppress totally the exercise of every kind of office derived from the king; and in her new instructions to her delegates in congress she mixed with her pledges of support to the common cause the lingering wish for a reunion with Great Britain. Meanwhile the governor was required to leave the province; and the only powers actually in being were the deputies in congress, the council of safety, and the convention.

In Pennsylvania, the preamble, which was published on the morning of the sixteenth, was cited by the popular party as a dissolution of the proprietary government and a direction to institute a new one under the authority of the people. On the next day, which was kept as a national fast, George Duffield, the minister of the third Presbyterian church in Philadelphia, with John Adams for a listener, drew a parallel between George the Third and Pharaoh, and inferred that the same providence of God which had rescued the Israelites, intended to free the Americans. On the twenty fourth a town meeting of more than four thousand men was held in the state-house yard, to confront the instructions of the assembly against independence with the vote of the continental congress against "oaths of allegiance and the exercise of any kind of authority under the crown." It was called to order by John Bayard, the chairman of the committee of inspection for the county of Philadel phia, a patriot of singular purity of character and disinterestedness, personally brave, pensive, earnest, and

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May.

CHAP. devout; it selected for its president Daniel Roberdau; and it voted unanimously, that the instructions with1776. drew the province from the happy union with the other colonies; that the present assembly was not elected for the purpose of forming a new government; and, with but one dissentient voice, it further voted that the house of assembly, not having the authority of the people for that purpose, could not proceed to form a new government without usurpation. As a consequence, the committee of the city and liberties of Philadelphia was directed to summon a conference of the committees of every county in the province, to make arrangements for a constituent convention, which should be chosen by the people.

The

Thus was prepared the fall of the proprietary charter of Pennsylvania. Any agreement which the governor would accept could be no better than a collusion, for by the very nature of his office and his interests, he could not stand out against the British ministry, however much they might be in the wrong. members of the assembly, by taking the oath or affirmation of allegiance, had plainly incapacitated themselves for reforming the government. Besides: the resolve in congress, which dispensed in all cases with that oath, was interpreted as conferring the rights of electors on the Germans, who had not yet been naturalized; so that the assembly appeared now to represent not the people, but a wrongfully limited constituency.

It was unhappy for the colony that Dickinson and his friends refused to place themselves at the head of the popular movement for a convention; for it left the principle of independence in Pennsylvania to be

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established by a domestic political party, springing CHAP. spontaneously from the ranks of the people, and struggling against an active social influence, a numer- 1776. ous religious organization, and the traditional governing classes.

an

The assembly stood adjourned to the twentieth; on the morning of the twenty second a quorum appeared, and as a first concession to the continental congress, the newly elected members were not required to swear allegiance to the king. The protest of the inhabitants of the city and liberties against their powers to carry the resolve of congress into execution, was presented, read, and laid on the table; but no other notice was taken of it. The resolve itself was got out of the way by the appointment of a committee to ask of the continental congress explanation of its purpose. The proposal to sanction the naturalization of foreigners without requiring oaths of allegiance to the king, was, in like manner, put to sleep by a reference to a committee, composed of those who had most earnestly contested the wishes of the Germans. The assembly seemed to have no purpose, unless to gain time and wait. The constitution was the watchword of the conservative members; union that of the revolutionists; one party represented old established interests, another saw no hope but from independence and a firm confederation; between these two stood Dickinson, whose central position was the hiding place of the irresolute.

On the twenty third an address, claiming to proceed from the committee of inspection for the county of Philadelphia, and bearing the name of William Hamilton as chairman, asked the assembly to "adhere

May.

CHAP. religiously to its instructions against independence, LXV. and to oppose altering the least part of their invalua

May.

1776. ble constitution." The next day the committee of inspection of the city of Philadelphia came together with Mackean as chairman, and addressed a memorial directly to the continental congress, setting forth, that the assembly did not possess the confidence of the people, nor truly represent the province; that among its members were men who held offices under the crown of Great Britain, and who had been dragged into compliance with most of the recommendations of congress only from the fear of being superseded by a convention; that measures had now been taken to assemble a convention of the people by men whose constituents were fighting men, and were determined to support the union of the province with the other colonies at every hazard.

June.

The members of the assembly became uneasy: in the first days of June no quorum appeared; on the fifth the proceedings of Virginia, directing her delegates to propose independence, were read in the house. No answer was returned; but a petition from Cumberland county, asking that the instructions to the delegates of Pennsylvania might be withdrawn, was read a second time, and a committee of seven was appointed to bring in new instructions. Of its members, among whom were Dickinson, Morris, Reed, Clymer, and one or two loyalists, all but Clymer were, for the present, opposed to independence.

The instructions of Pennsylvania, which they reported on the sixth, conceded that the revolutionists were in the right; "that all hopes of a reconciliation, on reasonable terms, were extinguished;" and never

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June.

theless, with a full knowledge that the king would CHAP. not yield, they expressed their ardent desire for an end of the civil war; while they expressly sanctioned 1776. a confederation, and "treaties with foreign kingdoms and states," they neither advised nor forbade a declaration of independence, trusting to "the ability, prudence, and integrity" of their delegates. Now the opinion of the majority of those delegates was notorious; but to remove even a possibility of uncertainty, on the seventh of June, before the question on the new instructions was taken, Dickinson, in the assembly, made a speech, in which he pledged his word to Allen, who was the proprietary chief-justice of the province, and to the whole house, that he and the majority of the delegates would continue to vote against independence.

On that same day, and perhaps while Dickinson was speaking in the Pennsylvania assembly, Richard Henry Lee, in the name and with the special authority of Virginia, proposed: "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; that it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign alliances; and that a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective colonies for their consideration and approbation." The resolutions were seconded by John Adams; and "the members were enjoined to attend punctually the next day at ten o'clock, in order to take them into their consideration."