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34 broad view of the situation, and believed itself responsible for the future liberties of the whole continent; its fixed purpose was to demand the repeal of all parliamentary acts laying duties on trade, as well as the Stamp Act. Three memorials were penned, one to the king, one to the House of Lords, and one to the House of Commons, every line of each breathing an element of decision totally irreconcilable with the existing condition of affairs. The one to the king was drafted by Judge Robert R. Livingston, of New York. William Samuel Johnson, of Connecticut, and William Murdock, of Maryland; the one to the House of Lords was drafted by Philip Livingston, Speaker of the New York Assembly, Edward Tilghman, of Maryland, and John Rutledge, of South Carolina; the one to the House of Commons was drafted by James Otis, of Boston, Thomas McKean, of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Lynch, of South Carolina. It was in the midst of the wild panic created in New York by the rumor that a ship laden with stamps had anchored in the bay, that the members of this Congress in Wall Street affixed their signatures to the papers by which the blessing of Union was conferred upon the future nation, or, as they expressed it, the colonies became "a bundle of sticks which could neither be bent nor broken."



The day following the adjournment of Congress, Lieutenant-Governor Colden wrote to the British Secretary that, notwithstanding "McEvers