ifferent sentiment attending that morning from
Pennsylvania also, her vote was changed, so that the whole twelve
colonies who were authorized to vote at all, gave their voices for it;
and, within a few days, the convention of New York approved of it; and
thus supplied the void occasioned by the withdrawing of her delegates
from the vote.

Congress proceeded the same day to consider the Declaration of
Independence, which had been reported and laid on the table the Friday
preceding, and on Monday referred to a committee of the whole. The
pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms
with still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages
which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest
they should give them offence. The clause, too, reprobating the
enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to
South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the
importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to
continue it.

Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under those
censures; for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet
they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others. The
debates, having taken up the greater parts of July 2d, 3d, and 4th,
were, on the evening of the last, closed; the Declaration was reported
by the committee, agreed to by the House, and signed by every member
present except Mr. Dickinson.

JOHN ANDREW DOYLE

Before this it had become evident that to defer any longer the formation
of an independent government was to keep up an unnecessary source of
weakness. Already the voice of the nation had protested unmistakably
against the longer continuance of anarchy. The first definite step
toward such a change had been taken in 1775 by New Hampshire. On October
11th their delegates had petitioned Congress to allow them to establish
a government, but Congress, having still hopes of the success of the
petition, had deferred answering their appeal. The majority of Congress
saw at last that independence was only a question of time. An answer was
sent to the Convention of New Hampshire, recommending it to form a
government. Similar advice was sent the next day to South Carolina, and
a little later to Virginia. Yet New Hampshire shrank from so decisive a
step, and coupled the formation of their new government with a studious
expression of their allegiance. Vir