Page:Journal of the First Congress of the American Colonies (1765).djvu/7

 his much respected friend, Caesar. A. Ronnar, Esq., of Delaware, who found it among the papers of his late revered uncle, the estimablaand patriotic Cmsaa RODNBY, one of the Delegates, and for many years the great prop and stay of Whigism in his native State. On a loose sheet of paper in the manuscript book is a list of the members, which we have prefixed to the Journal itselL in the handwriting of Cwsar Rodney. We are thus particular, to show the entire authenticity of this venerable doeui ment, which, we are informed, many of our sages have sought for in vain. In this Journal the reader will not [ind anything to astonish or surprise him, but much to admire' and revere. In every line he will discover a lofty spirit of decision and firmness, totally irreconcilable with a stateof servitude, and highly worthy of imitation at the present day. The great difficulties encountered by those who originated and formed this Congress, unknown to the laws, and in opposition to the royalists invested with power, are most honorable to their cause and its agents. With an eye steadily fixed upon freedom, they cast behind them the cold maxima of prudence, and nobly resolved to systeniatize an opposition to the grow. ing tyranny of the “mother country.” They did so, and therein generated a spirit ofunion, that finally brought about the independence of these United States, and led to the establishment of our present happy Constitutzlm."

In a subsequent number of “Niles's National Register, ” under the present able editor, are the following remarks upon this ancient document:

"The First American Congress.-Competition for the honor of originating the American Revolution, has been the occasion of retrieving a precious relic from oblivion.~ It is to be hoped that the incentive may still operate, for the sake of making the pre ent as well as future genera. tions better acquainted with the men and the principles of that eventful period. It is an honorable emulation, that of citizens of the respective States claiming each for his own State, the full quantum of credit to which its participation therein may have entitled it. It is more, it is a dutya duty to the memory and to the services of our forefathers, which descendants would be derelict in neglecting.

A New York correspondent, whose letter we published a few numbers back, brought prominently forward the pretensions of that State, as a competitor with Massachusetts, Virginia, North Carolina, or any other State that may have claimed to have taken the lead in a direction toward National Independence, or to have given' the revolutionary hall the first impulse, New York was certainly not without intelligent and intrepid defenders of freedom, in the dispute between the Colonies and the mother country. So numerous, indeed, were they, that it would seem almost in-