Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/62

42 It continued to languish, until at length the trustees, wearied with their own labors, and the complaints of the people, in June, 1751, surrendered the charter to the crown. Henceforward it was governed as a royal province, enjoying the same liberties and immunities as other royal provinces; and in process of time it began to flourish, and at the period of the American Revolution it had attained considerable importance among the colonies.

In respect to its ante-revolutionary jurisprudence, the same system prevailed as in the Carolinas, from which it sprang. Intestate estates descended according to the course of the English law.

first Congress of delegates, chosen and appointed by the several colonies and provinces in North America, to take into consideration the actual situation of the same, and the differences subsisting between them and Great Britain, was held at Carpenter’s Hall, in the city of Philadelphia, on the 5th of September, 1774. On that occasion, delegates attended from New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, from the city and county of New York and other counties in the province of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Castle, Kent, and Sussex, on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and from South Carolina. Peyton Randolph was unanimously elected president of the Congress, and Charles Thomson unanimously chosen secretary.

On the 6th of September, Congress adopted rules in debating and determining questions. According to these, 1. Each colony or province had one vote. 2. No person could speak more than twice on the same point, without leave. 3. No question could be determined the day on which it was agitated and debated, if any one of the colonies desired the determination to be postponed to another day. 4. The door was to be kept shut during the time of business, and the members to consider themselves under the strongest obligations of honor to keep the proceedings secret, until the majority should direct them to be made public. At the same time, a committee was appointed to state the rights of the colonies in general, the several instances in which those rights had been violated or infringed, and the means most