Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/543

Rh powers which Story enumerates, but the striking thing is that it did all these things at a time when the majority of Congress would vote repeatedly for addresses, to the king, the inhabitants of Great Britain, the people of Ireland and of Jamaica, which asserted, "We have not raised Armies with ambitious Designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent States," and assured the king that they most ardently wished the former harmony with Great Britain, vowing their allegiance to him and that they would cheerfully bleed in defense of him in a righteous cause. As late as October in 1775, reconciliation is a common sentiment and the royal post-routes were still in operation. Even late as January 15, 1776, Samuel Adams could not head off a motion to explain to the people that reconciliation was the desire of Congress. In the middle of February, 1776, James Wilson argued with great sincerity that many of the steps thus far taken by Congress could be accounted for rationally only upon the supposition that their object was the defense and re-establishment of their rights, and could not be so accounted for if their aim was an independent empire. I do not believe the majority of Congress to have been hypocrites drawing long faces and pretending a loyalty they did not feel. As James Wilson said, "Those Protestations of Loyalty and Expressions of Attachment ought, by every Rule of Candour, to be presumed to be sincere, unless Proofs evincing their Insincerity