nning to show their red sprouts.

It might have been expected that Mr. Carroll, being the richest man in
the country, would hesitate at rebellion, but he did not. Unlike some of
our present-day citizens of foreign extraction, and in circumstances
involving not merely sentiment, but property and perhaps life, he showed
no tendency to split his Americanism, but boldly threw his noble old
cocked hat into the ring. Nor did he require a Roosevelt to make his
duty clear to him.

In 1775 Mr. Carroll was a delegate to the Revolutionary Convention of
Maryland; in 1776 he went with three other commissioners (Benjamin
Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Father John Carroll) to try to induce the
Canadian colonies to join in the revolt; and soon after his return from
this unsuccessful journey he signed the Declaration of Independence. Of
the circumstances of the signing the late Robert C. Winthrop of Boston
gave the following description:

"Will you sign?" said Hancock to Charles Carroll.

"Most willingly," was the reply.

"There goes two millions with the dash of a pen," says one of those
standing by; while another remarks: "Oh, Carroll, you will get off,
there are so many Charles Carrolls."

And then we may see him stepping back to the desk and putting that
addition "of Carrollton" to his name, which will designate him
forever, and be a prouder title of nobility than those in the
peerage of Great Britain, which were afterward adorned by his
accomplished and fascinating granddaughters.

Some doubt has been cast upon this tale by the fact that papers in
possession of the Carroll family prove that Mr. Carroll was wont to sign
as "of Carrollton" long before the Declaration. Further, it is recorded
that John H.B. Latrobe, Mr. Carroll's contemporaneous biographer, never
heard the story from the subject of his writings.

Nevertheless, I believe that it is true, for it seems to me likely that
though Mr. Carroll used the subscription "of Carrollton" in conducting
his affairs at home, where there was chance for confusion between his
son Charles, his cousin Charles, and himself, he might well have been
inclined to omit it from a public document, as to the signers of which
there could be no confusion. Further, the fact that he never told the
story to Latrobe does not invalidate it, for as every man (and every
man's wife) knows, men do not remember to tell everything to their
wives, and it is