against the savages, but the plan of union then drawn up and adopted, though not fully matured, was the first recorded in the history of the country.

England having decided upon taxing the colonists directly, in spite of all their protests, the Stamp Act became law in 1765. This Act declared that every document used in trade or legal proceedings, in order to be valid, must have affixed to it a stamp, the lowest in value costing a shilling, and the duty increasing indefinitely in proportion to the value of the writing. To enforce the Act, against which, while it was under discussion, the colonies had vehemently remonstrated, Parliament authorized the Ministry to send as many troops as they saw proper to America, for whom the colonies were required to find "quarters, fuel, cider or rum, candles and other necessaries." The Massachusetts Legislature invited all the colonies to send delegates to a Congress at New York, on the first Tuesday of October. On that day delegates from nine of tho colonies put in an appearance. The Congress drew up a declaration of rights, a memorial to Parliament, and a petition to the King, in which they claimed the right of being taxed only by their own representatives. This action of the Congress led to the repeal of the Stamp Act. Thus a second colonial Congress assembled at New York in 1765. Britain in her foolhardiness having still continued to violate the principles of liberty, the people of thirteen of the colonies were invited to appoint delegates to a general Congress, which met at Philadelphia on September 5th, 1774. To distinguish it from the previous colonial assemblages, it is known as the "First Continental Congress," being the first organized representation of the thirteen colonies who founded our present national Union. This body, illustrious by its public virtue, assembled in Carpenters' Hall, a place of meeting occupied by the associated carpenters of Philadelphia. It was a two-story building of brick, laid in alternate checker of black and red, which stood in a small court on the south side of Chestnut, between Third and Fourth Streets. Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, was chosen president of the Congress, and Charles Thomson, secretary. Notable among the fifty-two members were John Sullivan, of New Hampshire; Samuel A lams, John Adams and Robert Treat Paine, of Massachusetts; James Duane, Philip Livingstone and John Jay, of New York; William Livingston, of New Jersey; Thomas Mifflin, of Pennsylvania; Benjamin Harrison, Patrick Henry and George Washington, of Virginia. They adopted a plan of commercial non-intercourse with Great Britain, and recorded their opposition to the slavetrade, to horse-racing, and to all extravagance in living. Their moderation was manifested in the expressed hope of justice from their oppressors, and consequent reconciliation; and their firmness in proclaiming to the people of England, "If you are determined that your ministers shall wantonly sport with the rights of mankind-if neither the voice of justice, the dictates of law, the principles of the Constitution, nor the suggestions of humanity can restrain your hands from shedding human blood in such an impious cause, we must then tell you that we will never submit to any ministry or nation in the world."

The dignity and wisdom of this patriotic assemblage moved the Earl of Chatham to these words in the House of Lords: "I must declare, that in all my reading of history, for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity and wisdom of conclusion under such a complication of circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the general Congress at Philadelphia."

On October 26th the Congress dissolved itself, providing for a new assemblage to meet at the same place in the May following.

While the ministers of the Crown and the Parliament remained unmoved by the appeals of the Congress, the Sons of Liberty in New York and other colonies were active in organizing the people for defense.

The year 1774 terminated with an expectation in America that a few months would bring them a redress of their grievances. But the probability of that event daily diminished. The colonists had indulged themselves in an expectation that the people of Great Britain, from a consideration of the dangers and difficulties of war with their colonies, would, in their elections, have preferred those who were friends to peace and reconciliation. But, when they were convinced of the fallacy of these hopes, they turned their attention to the means of self-defense. It had been the resolution of many never to submit to the operation of the late Acts of Parliament. Their number daily increased; and in the same proportion that Great Britain determined to enforce did they determine to oppose.

Intelligence of the rejection of Lord Chatham's Bill, of the Address of both Houses of Parliament to the King on the 9th of February, and of the Fishery Bill, arrived among the colonists about the same time, and diminished what remained of their first hopes of a speedy accommodation. The Fishery Bill excited a variety of emotions. The obvious tendency of it was to starve thousands. The severity of it did not strike an Englishman, for he viewed it as a merited correction for great provincial offenses. But it appeared in the blackest colors to an American, who felt no consciousness of guilt, and who fancied that heaven approved his zeal in defense of liberty. It alienated the affections of the colonists, and produced in the breasts of thousands a hatred of Great Britain.

The penal Acts of Parliament, in 1774, were all leveled against Massachusetts; but the Fishery Bill extended to New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The reasons assigned for this by Lord North were, that they had aided and abetted their offending neighbors, and were so near to them, that the intentions of Parliament would be frustrated unless they were in like manner comprehended in the proposed restraints. The extension of this penal statue to three additional provinces operated powerfully in favor of union, and convinced the most moderate of the increasing necessity for all the provinces to make a common cause in their opposition.

Whatever might be the designs of Parliament, their acts had a natural tendency to enlarge the demands of the Americans, and to cement their confederacy by firm principles of union. At first they only claimed exemption from internal taxation; but by the combination of the East India Company and the British Ministry an external tax was made to answer all the purposes of a direct internal tax. They, therefore, in consistence with their own principles, were constrained to deny the right of taxing in any form for a supply. Nothing could contribute more to make the colonists deny the parliamentary claim of internal legislation than the manner in which it was exercised, in depriving them of their charters and passing an act relative to trials, which promised indemnity to murderers. This convinced them that an opposition to so injurious a claim was essentially necessary to their security. But they still admitted the power of Parliament to bind their trade. This was conceded by Congress only a few months before an Act passed, that they should have no foreign trade, nor be allowed to fish on their own coasts.

The British ministry, by their successive acts, impelled the colonists to believe that while the mother country retained any authority over them, that authority would, in

some shape or other, be exerted so as to answer all the purposes of a power to tax. While Great Britain stretched that portion of controlling supremacy which the colonists were disposed to allow her, to such an extent as covered oppression equally grevious with that which they would not allow, the way was fast opening for a total renunciation of her sovereignty. The coercive measures adopted by the parent state produced a disposition in the colonies to extend their claims, and the extension of their claims produced an increasing disposition in Great Britain to coerce them still more. The jealousy of liberty on one side, and the desire of supremacy on the other, were reciprocally cause and effect; and urged both parties, the one to rise in their demands and the other to enforce submission.

In the contest between Great Britain and her colonies there had been a fatal progression from small to greater grounds of dissension. The trifling tax of three pence per pound on tea roused the jealous inhabitants of Boston to throw 340 chests of it into the ocean. This provoked the British Parliament to shut up their port, and to newmodel their charter. Statutes so unconstitutional and alarming excited a combination in twelve of the colonies to stop all trade with Great Britain, Ireland and the West Indies. Their combination gave birth to the restraining Acts of Parliament, by which nine of the colonies were interdicted all other trade but that from which they had voluntarily excluded themselves; and four of these nine were further devoted to famine by being forbidden to fish on their own coasts. Each new resolution on the one side, and new Act on the other, reciprocally gave birth to something from the opposing parties that was more irritating or oppressive than what had preceded.

The beginning of strife between the parent state and her colonies was like the letting out of waters. From inconsiderable causes love was changed into suspicion, which gradually ripened into ill-will, and soon ended in hostility. Prudence, policy and reciprocal interest urged the expediency of concession; but pride, false honor and misconceived dignity drew in an opposite direction. Undecided claims and doubtful rights, which, under the influence of wisdom and humility, might have been easily compromised, imperceptibly widened into an irreconcilable breach. Hatred at length took the place of kind affections, and the calamities of war were substituted in lieu of the benefits of commerce.

In April, 1775, the British military commanders in Massachusetts shed the first blood of the Revolution, at Lexington and Concord. Then throughout Virginia was heard the war-cry first uttered by Patrick Henry, "Give me liberty or give me death !" At the north, Ethan Allen with his Vermonters captured Ticonderoga. The royal governors from north to south were without power. Twenty thousand Americans were throwing a net of camps and earthworks round the British army in Boston.

On May 10th, 1775, the second Continental Congress convened at Philadelphia. They assembled in the colonial State House, erected in 1729, which stood and still stands on Chestnut Street, between Fifth and Sixth.

In addition to the illustrious names of the first assemblage, among the new delegates chosen to the second were John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Philip Schuyler, George Clinton, Lewis Morris, Robert R. Livingston and Charles Carroll.

The illness of the President, Peyton Randolph, led to the election of John Hancook in his stead, on May 19th. First saying to Britain, "We find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery," the Congress lost no time in preparing for the conflict. General Gage at Boston had pro

claimed all Americans in arms as traitors, but offered pardon to all except John Hancock and Samuel Adams. It was voted to raise a Continental army, and on June 15th, the Congress chose George Washington the Commander-in-Chief. Two days afterward came the battle of Bunker Hill, then the advance into Canada, the fall of Montgomery, the siege of Boston by Washington's army, and its capture in the Spring of 1776. The Congress remained in continued session. New York was menaced by a fresh British army, aided by 17,000 Hessians, who landed on Staten Island.

The provincial assemblies had already declared in favor of independence, and on the 4th of July the Declaration was voted, which made the thirteen colonies free and independent as the United States of America. The State House bell then rang out the peal which made that building the first Capitol of the nation "born in a day."

The adverse events which befell Washington's army during the Summer of 1776, his retreat across New Jersey, and the advance of the British forces to the Delaware, compelled the Congress to adjourn on December 12th from Philadelphia to Baltimore. On the 20th they convened in that city, occupying the large three-story building on the corner of Baltimore and Liberty Streets, which was afterward known as the Congress House.

The brilliant triumphs of Washington at Trenton and Princeton, and the subsequent release of New Jersey from British occupation enabled the Congress to begin their sessions again at the State House, in Philadelphia, on March 4th, 1777. The campaign of that year opened with the headquarters of Washington at Morristown, New Jersey. The British general, Howe, was manoeuvring to reach Philadelphia. Burgoyne was preparing to invade the country from the north by way of the Hudson. On September 11th, the battle of Brandywine was fought. Two weeks later Howe occupied Philadelphia, and the Congress hastily adjourned, first to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where they remained only one day, and then to York, ten miles west of the Susquehanna. Their official papers were brought round by way of Reading, to avoid the enemy's advanced patrols. The Congress met in the old manor town of York, on September 30th, 1777. Their sessions were held in the Court House, which had been erected in 1756, and which stood in the middle of the centre square of the town, until it was removed in 1835.

During the session of nine months at York, the town was filled with notable personages. Many French officers were in attendance, desiring commissions in the army, among them the noted military engineer, M. L'Enfant. M. Francey, the secret envoy of France, was conducting the negotiations which led to the French alliance. Captain Pierre Landais received the command of a frigate, an appointment afterward unfortunate for him. La Fayette, who in July had been made simply a Major-general, received a definite commission as division commander in November. The French Cavalry Legion of Colonel Armand de la Rouerie was organized, as well as that of Pulaski. Baron Steuben was welcomed to the army. Neemahm, the Mohegan Sachem, with his warriors, was seeking recognition. Bishop White was appointed a chaplain to Congress. Tom Paine was Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs. In October, Colonel Wilkinson arrived with the cheering news of Burgoyne's surrender. The Congress completed and passed the Articles of Confederation on November 15th. On the 1st of November, John Hancock had resigned as President of the Congress, after an honorable service of more than two years, and Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, was chosen in his stead.

named Nassau Hall, "to the immortal memory of the glorious King William the Third," "of the illustrious House of Nassau." The building suffered greatly during the Revolution, the main portion being occupied as a barracks and a hospital both by the American and British troops. General Washington drove a detachment of British soldiers from its walls at the battle of Princeton, January 3d, 1777. Doctor Witherspoon and two of the Alumni, Richard Stockton and Benjamin Rush, were signers of the Declaration of Independence. The Continental Congress and General Washington were present at the Commencement in 1783.

General Washington presented fifty guineas to the College to repair the building, but the trustees appropriated the sum to the painting of a portrait of Washington by the elder Peale. It is said to occupy the frame which once held the portrait of George II., destroyed by a

ая

The city is charmingly situated on the south bank of the River Severn, and is but two miles distant from the Chesapeake Bay. The original settlement was called Providence, and was founded by Puritan refugees from Virginia, under a ruling elder named Durand.

After a brief session, on December 24th, the Congress adjourned over the Christmas holidays, to meet at New York City on January 11th, 1785. There their sessions were held in the City Hall, at the head of Broad Street, built in 1700 and removed in 1812.

The Continental Congress remained at New York till its dissolution. In November, 1785, John Hancock was chosen its President, but because of frequent illness he resigned, and on June 6th, 1786, Nathaniel Gorham was chosen, followed by Arthur St. Clair, in February, 1787. A stronger syctom of government at that time was de

At the close of the Revolution Maryland offered to cede Annapolis as the Federal Capital. During the negotiations for a permanent site it was resolved in 1783 that Congress should meet alternately at Annapolis and Trenton; the first session to be held at Annapolis.

It was at this first session, and in the noble State House, that Washington surrendered his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the American army; and within the State House grounds is the land-office wherein are kept the original records of the Colonial Government. Many of the houses in Annapolis are pre-Revolution, and built of English red brick, the doors and windows being of the severe classic" so much admired ere the House of Hanover reached the throne of England. These Old-World mansions are rich in mantelpieces, and oaken staircases, and deep embrasured windows, with seats therein, where belles in farthingales and powder whilom listened to the sweet whisperings of beaus in the bravery of silken smallclothes and the discomfort of Ramillies wigs.

The plan of the city bears some resemblance to that of the national capital, all the streets radiating from two points-the State Honse and the Episcopal Church. Its appearance is interesting from its air of quiet seclusion; and the antique look of many of the houses, with their peculiar style of architecture, gives the stranger an impression of some old European town rather than that of an American city.

For a long period before Baltimore was at all noted, Annapolis was the seat of wealth. refinement, and extensive trade. It was formerly a port of entry, but it is now chiefly distinguished as the seat of the United States Naval Academy, and as an oyster "shucking depot, one firm alone "shucking" over ten thousand bushels a week of the celebrated bivalves for which the Chesapeake is so gratefully remembered.

Congress met in the Colonial State House, situated on an elevation in the centre of the city, which had been erected in 1772, on the site of the old Court House of 1706. Thomas Mifflin, of Pennsylvania, was the President of the Congress, and it was in this building that Washington, on December 4th, resigned into their hands the commission as Commander-in-Chief, which he had received on June 15th, 1775. The American Republic was now free, independent and united-a marvel wrought by the hand of God.

The Congress remained at Annapolis till June, 1784, when they adjourned to meet at Trenton, New Jersey. The building in which they convened there, on November 1st, is said to have been the Presbyterian Church, erected

had revised the Articles of Confederation, and formed the present Federal Constitution. This was submitted to the Congress, who, after its ratification by the State Legislatures, directed an election for President and Vice-President of the United States. Washington and John Adams were chosen for these offices. The Continental Congress held its last session on October 21st, 1788, Cyrus Griffin, of Virginia, being then its President, and Charles Thomson, who had remained in office since 1774, its Secretary. Washington took the oath of office on April 30th, 1789, in the street gallery of the City Hall in New York, and the First Congress under the Constitution began its sessions in the same building, which then was known as Federal Hall.

As early as 1783 the former Congress had been considering as to a permanent site for a Federal Capital, and the new Congress continued the question. By a compromise of policy between the North and the South, in July, 1790, it was settled that the Capital City should be fixed on the banks of the Potomac. The next year Washington selected the spot now bearing his name. The territory around had once borne the Indian name of Conococheague.

The "First Congress" under the Constitution remained at New York till August 12th, 1790, and began the third of their regular sessions at Philadelphia in December. At that city each successive Congress continued to meet, while awaiting the completion of the new Capitol buildings on the Potomac, till May, 1800.

The City of New York was thus the first Capital of the United States under the present constitution. Here Washington was inaugurated, and the machinery of our present government set in motion. Here his great Cabinet aided him in the momentous task of giving form and policy to the States. New York was then the abode of Washington and Adams, Hamilton and Jefferson, Clinton and Carroll. The foreign ambassadors, also, with their suites, gave New York society a host of lions. Little remains now of the New York of that period; little to recall the time when she was not commercially, but actually, the Capital of the United States. The house occupied by Washington on Cherry Street is gone. St. Paul's Church, with the pew occupied by George Washington, President of the United States, is the monument of the past that carries us back most distinctly, and the monument of Montgomery at the portals tells us before we enter that amid the busy whirl and changes of Broadway, this building recalls you to the glorious days of old.

Philadelphia, so long the Capital under the Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation, was again the Capital for a time under the Constitution, thus giving her the claim to have been the seat of government under every form since the colonies threw off the British yoke.

During the administration of George Washington New York and Philadelphia were the Capitals, the building at the new seat of government not having been completed