vor that electrified the country,
while the fact that they came from the Old Dominion made men think that
a union of the colonies, so essential to successful resistance, might be
achieved in spite of all. The Old Dominion, counted the most English of
the colonies in respect to her institutions and her sympathies, had a
character for loyalty that, in any matter of opposition to Britain,
gave double weight to her action. Easy-going tobacco-planters, Church of
England men all, were well known not to be great admirers of the precise
Puritans of New England, whose moral fervor and conscious rectitude
seemed to them a species of fanaticism savoring more of canting
hypocrisy than of that natural virtue affected by men of parts. Franklin
may well have had Virginia and Massachusetts in mind when he said, but
a few years earlier, no one need fear that the colonies "will unite
against their own nation... which 'tis well known they all love much more
than they love one another." Nor could anyone have supposed that the
"Ancient and Loyal Colony of Virginia" would out-Boston Boston in
asserting the rights of America. Yet this was what had come to pass, the
evidence of which was the printed resolutions now circulating far and
wide and being read in this month of July when it was being noised about
that a Congress was proposed for the coming October. The proposal had
in fact come from Massachusetts Bay in the form of a circular letter
inviting all the colonies to send delegates to New York for the purpose
of preparing a loyal and humble "representation of their condition," and
of imploring relief from the King and Parliament of Great Britain.

No very encouraging response was immediately forthcoming. The Assembly
of New Jersey unanimously declined to send any delegates, although it
declared itself "not without a just sensibility respecting the late acts
of Parliament," and wished "such other colonies as think proper to be
active every success they can loyally and reasonably desire." For two
months there was no indication that any colony would think it "proper
to be active"; but during August and September the assemblies of six
colonies chose deputies to the congress, and when that body finally
assembled in October, less formally designated representatives from
three other colonies appeared upon the scene. The Assembly of New
Hampshire declined to take part. Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina
were also unrepresented, which was perhaps