At Merlin’s grave,
Scotland and England shall one
Monarch have.’
For the same day that our King James the Sixth was crowned king of England, the river Tweed, by an extraordinary flood, so far overflowed its banks that it met and joined with the Pausayl at the said grave, which was never before observed to fall out.”
The precise spot pointed out to travellers is situated near Drumelzier, a village upon the Tweed.
FOURTH OF JULY, 1776.
“The first motion in Congress was to declare this country independent.”
The first assembling of the Revolutionary Congress took place in this city on the 5th of September, 1774. Subsequently the progress of the war continued to ripen the public mind and feelings for a total separation from Great Britain. It was not, however, until the 7th of June, 1776, that any special action was had for that purpose. On that day Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, made the following motion, which was seconded by John Adams:—
“To declare these united colonies free and independent States; that they are dissolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; that measures should be immediately taken for procuring assistance of foreign powers, and that a confederation be formed to bind the colonies more closely together.”
On the following day the subject was debated, and on the 1st of July a committee consisting of five delegates—Messrs. Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, R. Sherman, and R. R. Lawrence—was selected by ballot to draft a Declaration of Independence.