During this year the colonies had been solemnly protesting that they had no thought of independence and desired nothing so much as reconciliation with the King. But the King meantime had done things which prevented any reconciliation: 1. He had issued a proclamation declaring the Americans to be rebels. 2. He had closed their ports and warned foreign nations not to trade with them. 3. He had hired 17,000 Hessians1 with whom to subdue them. These things made further obedience to the King impossible, and May 15, 1776, Congress resolved that it was "necessary to suppress every kind of authority under the crown," and asked the colonies to form governments of their own and so become states. On the 7th of June, Richard Henry Lee, acting under instructions from Virginia, offered this resolution: Pefolved that these United Coldices are, and of they are sight ought to be, free and independent States, that absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between then and the State of Great Briham is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. Prompt action in so serious a matter was not to be expected, and Congress put it off till July 1. Meanwhile Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were appointed to write a declaration of independence and have it ready in case it was wanted. Jefferson happened to be the chairman of the committee, the As 1 The Hessians were soldiers from Hesse and other small German states. duty of writing the declaration was given to him. July 2, Congress passed Lee's resolution, and what had been the United Colonies became "The United States of America." 138. Independence declared. Independence having thus been decreed, the next step was to announce the fact to the world. As Jefferson says in the opening of his declaration, "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which The Pennsylvania Statehouse, or Independence Hall1 have connected them with another. . . a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." It was this "decent respect to the opinions of mankind," therefore, which now led Congress, on July 4, 1776, to adopt the Declaration of Independence, and to send copies to the states. Pennsylvania got her copy first, and at noon on July 8 it was 1 From the Columbian Magazine of July, 1787. The tower faces the "Statehouse yard." The posts are along Chestnut Street. For the history of the building, read F. M. Etting's Independence Hall. H read to a vast crowd of citizens in the Statehouse yard.1 When the reading was finished, the people went off to pull down the royal arms in the court room, while the great bell in the tower, the bell which had been cast twentyfour years before with the prophetic words upon its side, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," rang out a joyful peal, for then were The royal arms announced to the world the new political truths, "that all men are created equal," and "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," and "that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 139. The Retreat up the Hudson. - A few days later the Declaration was read to the army at New York. The wisdom of Washington in going to New York was soon manifest, for in July General Howe, with a British army of 25,000 men, encamped on Staten Island. In August he crossed to Long Island, and was making ready to besiege the army on Brooklyn Heights, when, one dark and foggy night, Washington, leaving his camp fires burning, crossed with his army to New York. Howe followed, drove him foot by foot up the Hudson from New York to White Plains; carried Fort Washington, on the New York shore, by storm (November 16, 1776); and sent a force across the Hudson under cover of darkness and storm to capture Fort Lee. But the British were detected in the very nick of time, and the Americans, leaving their fires burning and their tents standing, fled towards Newark, N.J. 140. The Retreat across the Jerseys. Washington, meanwhile, had gone from White Plains to Hackensack in New Jersey, leaving 7000 men under Charles Lee in New York state 1 The declaration was read from a wooden platform put up there in 1769 to enable David Rittenhouse to observe a transit of Venus, at North Castle. These men he wick, then to Trenton, and then over the Dela- in hot pursuit. 141. The Surprise at Trenton.-Lee crossed the Hudson and went to Morristown, where a just punishment for his disobedience speedily overtook him. One night while he was at an inn outside of his lines, some British dragoons made him a prisoner of war. The capture of Lee left Sullivan in command, and by him the troops were hurried off to join Washington. Thus reënforced, Washington turned on the enemy, and |