had been
circulated in Europe two months before. This last letter conveyed what
was intended to be the official notification to the court of France of
the act of separation of the colonies, but was so unofficial in form
that Mr. Deane was prompted to say in answer that he would have supposed
that "some mode more formal, or, if I may say, respectful, would have
been made use of, than simply two or three lines from the committee of
Congress.... I mention this as something deserving of serious
consideration, whether in your applications here and your powers and
instructions of a public nature, it is not always proper to use a seal?
This is a very ancient custom in all public and even private concerns of
any consequence."

But although Congress neglected to provide a seal, it was not because it
had not anticipated the need of one, for this record appears in its
journal, under date of Thursday, July 4, 1776:

_Resolved_, That Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams, and Mr. Jefferson be a
committee to prepare a device for a seal for the United States of
America.

We obtain an insight of the acts of this committee in a letter from John
Adams to his wife, under date of Philadelphia, August 14, 1776.

After discussing matters irrelevant to the question at issue, he says:

I am put upon a committee to prepare ... devices for a great seal
for the confederated States. There is a gentleman here of French
extraction, whose name is _Du Simitiere_, a painter by profession,
whose designs are very ingenious, and his drawings well executed.
He has been applied to for his advice. I waited on him yesterday,
and saw his sketches.... For the seal, he proposes the arms of the
several nations from whence _America_ has been peopled, as
_English_, _Scotch_, _Irish_, _Dutch_, _German_, etc., each in a
shield. On one side of them, Liberty with her pileus; on the other,
a Rifler in his uniform, with his rifle-gun in one hand, and his
tomahawk in the other: this dress, and these troops, with this kind
of armour, being peculiar to _America_, unless the dress was known
to the Romans. Dr. Franklin showed me a book containing an account
of the dresses of all the _Roman_ soldiers, one of which appeared
exactly like it.... Doctor Franklin proposes a device for a seal:
Moses lifting up his wand, and dividing the _Red Sea_, and
_Pharaoh_ in his chariot overwhelmed with the waters. This