under the Natural Bridge; ride after the fox till horses, dogs, and fox were tired out. A finer horseman never put foot to stirrup.

His eye was steady and his face grave; nobody could clap him on the back and cry, "Hello, George!" And he could look as wise as he really was; and hold his tongue-a precious gift, even to the really wise. Another material advantage was his vast estates and ready money.

Nobody considered him, at that time, the best soldier in America; he was certainly not thought to be the wisest civilian; but everybody looked upon George Washington as a solid man, a safe man, a true man, a competent, fearless, patriotic, resolute, broad-minded, indispensable man.

Therefore, when the motion was made to place him at the head of the army, the great majority of the leaders, as well as the people, considered the choice of a good one.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DECLARATION

CONGRESS is at last ready to act. It is high time that it should. The lower it had stooped, the harder King George had kicked it.

In the midsummer of 1775 it had sent to the king another humble petition, drawn by the humble Dickinson, and carried to London by the Tory, Richard Penn. King George had refused to look either at the loyal Richard or his humble petition.

Furthermore, King George had issued his proclamation declaring the colonies in rebellion and no longer under his protection.

Then again his agents ransacked Europe to find rulers who were willing to hire soldiers to go to America to put down this rebellion for him. In this search the Hessians were found; and their hereditary rulers sent the poor fellows over here by the ship-load to kill and be killed in a cause they did not even understand. Likewise, emissaries from Canada were set to work to rouse the Indians; and mean whisky, bright-colored fabrics, powder and lead, guns and hatchets became un

usually plentiful and accessible to the Red Man of the North, the South, and the West.

Already Cornelius Harnet had led the way to Independence in North Carolina. The Mecklenburg Resolutions were in effect the first of American declarations of Independence. Rhode Island soon followed. Then came the town meetings of Massachusetts. Then Virginia, May 6th, closely followed, having no idea that any other colony had already shaken off the burden of allegiance to Great Britain.1

Kicked by the king, and pushed by the colonies, Congress took the bit in its teeth, and made the jump. Rutledge, of South Carolina, agreed to vote for the Declaration; New York agreed not to vote either way; and the cautious Dickinson and Morris, of Pennsylvania, were prevailed upon to dodge.

In this way the Declaration was passed without a dissenting voice.

The fact that North Carolina had given the first tap to the drum in the grand march of Independence was, indeed, long disputed; and the name of Cornelius Harnet was unknown to historians. He was serving as President of a Revolutionary government in October, 1775.

If Cornelius Harnet, or the Mecklenburg Resolutions, are so much as mentioned in Woodrow Wilson's five-volume History, the index fails to indicate the fact. In Henry Cabot Lodge's sumptuous two-volume Story of the American Revolution, there is not a word about this first of all the public acts of independence.

And of course the Harvard scribe, Professor Channing, has nothing to say about so trivial an incident.

To the credit of the fair-minded Bancroft be it said that he renders to the old North State the honor of being "the first colony to expressly sanction independence."

The resolution of Richard Henry Lee was passed on July 2d; the Declaration, as drawn by Jefferson and amended by Congress, on July 4th.

Mr. Jefferson writhed a good deal under the surgical treatment Congress gave his flowing paragraphs; but at last the agony ended-the final vote being hastened by the flies which swarmed in from a livery-stable near by, and which, during the sultry afternoon, became intolerable to legs encased in silk stockings.

Of the Pennsylvania delegation only Dr. Franklin, John Morton, and James Wilson voted for the Declaration at the time it was adopted. On the 20th of July the State named other delegates in place of those who had refused to vote; and these new members were allowed to sign when they arrived, just as though they had voted with the others. The New York delegates gave in their adhesion on the 15th of July. As late as November 4th a delegate from New Hampshire, Dr. Thornton, was permitted to sign.

Most of the actual signing was done on the 2d of August, after the resolution had been enrolled on parchment. When first issued it was signed only by John Hancock, President, and Charles Thompson, Secretary.

Mr. Jefferson was asked by his colleagues of the committee to write out the Declaration, and he did so. It was an easy, grateful task. He had been

over all the ground many a time before; was familiar with every point in the argument, every fact in the record, every count in the indictment against the king. It was only necessary that he should now briefly summarize, tersely present, the strong point in the case. He was not expected to origi nate facts or principles; he made no attempt of the kind; and his paper contained nothing of fact or principle which was not common property to the well-informed men of 1776.

There was a good deal of rhetoric in the first draft of the Declaration, and Congress cut most of it out.

Mr. Jefferson had likewise written a strong paragraph against the king, charging him with the responsibility of the slave-trade. Congress was mindful of the fact that Northern colonies were deep in the slave-trade, and the South crowded with slaves; and it was thought best to strike out Jefferson's denunciation of the king on that subject.1

But after all the changes, the Declaration of Independence, as finally adopted, was Jefferson's paper. Much had been stricken out; almost nothing had been put in; therefore, it was natural for him to claim it as his own, and to demand the credit for

Hildreth, the historian, remarks that it was too much to expect Georgia to agree to that clause. Inasmuch as Rhode Island, “tight little, right little Rhody," had one hundred and eighty-seven slave-ships on the sea at that time, it may have been "expecting too much" to ask her to sign it.