be distributed; but on receiving assurance that there was no such intention, they quietly returned. All the bells in Portsmouth, Newcastle, and Greenland, were tolled, to denote the decease of Liberty; and in the course of the day, notice was given to her friends to attend her funeral. A coffin, neatly ornamented, and inscribed with " Liberty, aged cxlv. years," was prepared for the funeral procession, which began from the state house, attended with two unbraced drums; minute guns were fired until the corpse arrived at the grave, when an oration was pronounced in honor of the deceased; but scarcely was the oration concluded, when, some remains of life having been discovered, the corpse was taken up; and the inscription on the lid of the coffin was immediately altered to "Liberty revived;" the bells suddenly struck a cheerful sound, and joy appeared again in every countenance. In Connecticut, Mr. Ingersoll, the constituted distributer of stamps, was exhibited and burnt in effigy in the month of August; and the resentment at length became so general and alarming, that he resigned his office.
In the midst of this wide-spread excitement, on the 7th of October, committees from nine of the colonies assembled in New York. Assurances of support and co-operation were received from other colonies, not represented by committees at the Congress. Timothy Ruggles, of Massachusetts, was appointed president, and among the members were Otis, Johnson, Dickinson, Gadsden, etc., all subsequently distinguished in the history of the Revolution. "In the course of a three weeks' session," says Mr. Hildreth, "a Declaration of the rights and grievances of the colonies was agreed to. All the privileges of Englishmen were claimed by this declaration, as the birthright of the colonists—among the rest, the right of being taxed only by their own consent. Since distance and local circumstances made a representation in the British Parliament impossible, these representatives, it was maintained, could be no other than the several colonial legislatures. Thus was given a flat negative to a scheme lately broached in England by Pownall and others, for allowing to the colonies a representation in Parliament, a project to which both Otis and Franklin seemed at first to have leaned. A petition to the king, and memorials to each house of Parliament was also prepared, in which the cause of the colonies was eloquently pleaded. Ruggles refused to sign these papers, on the ground that they ought first to be approved by the several Assemblies, and should be forwarded to England as their acts. Ogden, one of the New Jersey delegates, withheld his signature on the same plea. The delegates from New York did not sign, because they had no special authority for their attendance; nor did those of Connecticut or South Carolina, their commissions restricting them to a report to their respective Assemblies. The petition and memorials, signed by the other delegates, were transmitted, early in November, to England for presentation. The several colonial Assemblies, at their earliest sessions, gave to the proceedings a cordial approval.
