Page:WALL STREET IN HISTORY.djvu/45

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INCEPTION OF THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
37

hatches, was conducted to the usual place and overhauled. Eighteen chests being discovered, were without disguise or secrecy thrown into the bay.

Presently the whole country was exasperated over the martyrdom of Boston. It was among the men who daily passed up and down Wall Street that the wise plan of a Continental Congress had its inception. Boston thought only of bringing England to terms through the suspension of trade.

JOHN ALSOP.

New York said, "The cause is general, and concerns a whole continent equally interested with you and us."

Boston, seeing New York firmly bent on a Congress, and nothing but a Congress, in which the question of resistance might be settled, graciously assented. The New York Committee of Fifty-One nominated five delegates to represent the city, and its nominees were elected at the polls. These delegates were Philip Livingston, John Alsop, Isaac Low, James Duane, and John Jay. The three former were merchants of fortune, and citizens of high position. Philip Livingston was the grandson of the founder of Liv-