merica, MDCCLXXVI.

On the other side of the said great seal should be the following
device:

Pharaoh sitting in an open chariot, a crown on his head, and a sword
in his hand, passing through the divided waters of the Red Sea in
pursuit of the Israelites. Rays from a pillar of fire in the cloud,
expressive of the Divine presence and command, beaming on Moses, who
stands on the shore, and extending his hand over the sea, causes it
to overthrow Pharaoh.

Motto, "Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God."

Mr. Adams's letter fortunately gives us the key to this elaborate
blazon, else we might have been left for ever in the dark in regard to
its authorship. In the general achievement we easily recognize the hand
of the "gentleman of French extraction," M. du Simitiere, who perhaps
was induced to adopt the Goddess of Justice, with her sword and balance,
in lieu of his "Rifler with his rifle-gun," in deference to Mr. Adams's
taste for allegory. Dr. Franklin's happy if not original design,
illustrative of the preservation of the children of Israel from the maw
of Pharoah and the Red sea, with a squint also at the deliverance of the
colonies from George III. and the billows of tyranny, though sent to the
rear, was adopted in whole, as well as his motto. The pillar of fire in
the cloud was doubtless taken from the design of Mr. Jefferson, who
perhaps had to be propitiated because his children of Israel were
discarded in favor of Dr. Franklin's. It needed but the addition of his
Hengist and Horsa, and of Mr. Adams's irresolute Hercules between Vice
and Virtue, to make a great seal such as the world had never looked
upon.

We, who look back through the gloze of a hundred years and are
accustomed to regard this trio of patriots as men with whom the
degenerate legislators of the present have little in common, may well
express astonishment that their work did not meet with immediate
approval. But history is a stern mistress, and we cannot efface the
record. The journal of Congress shows that the report of the committee
was ordered "to lie on the table," and we hear no more of it for three
long and momentous years.

On March 25, 1779, it was ordered that the report of the committee on
the device of a great seal for the United States, in Congress assembled,
be referred to another committee. On May 10 this committee reported as
follows:

The seal to be four inches in diameter, on one side