The Congress put forth a Declaration of Rights, and a draft of it is preserved in a hand thought to be that of Major Sullivan, of New Hampshire. Wells (Sam. Adams, ii. 234) thinks that Samuel Adams had a hand in it, as it resembles the pamphlet issued by the Boston Committee of Correspondence in 1772. The original draft of it, with the final form, is given in the Works of John Adams,[284] who claimed the authorship of article iv.
The petition of Congress to the king was drafted by John Dickinson.[285] It was signed in duplicate, and both copies were successively sent to Franklin, one of which is in the Public Record Office, and the other, retained by Franklin, is among the Franklin MSS. in the library of the Department of State at Washington.[286]
The petition to the king was first printed in London by Becket in Authentic Papers from America, submitted to the dispassionate consideration of the public (London, 1775). This produced a card (Jan. 17, 1775) from Bollan, Franklin, and Arthur Lee, calling the copy of the petition "surreptitious as well as materially and grossly erroneous" (Sparks Catal., p. 84).
It is sometimes said that R. H. Lee, and sometimes that John Jay, wrote the "Address to the People of Great Britain" which the Congress adopted.[287] They also passed a "Memorial to the inhabitants of the colonies."[288]
On the 9th of September the people of Boston and the neighborhood met outside the limits of the town, and passed a paper, drawn up by Joseph Warren, more extreme and less dignified than was demanded, known as the "Suffolk Resolves",[289] and this was transmitted to the Congress, where, when the Resolves were read, as John Adams says, there were tears in the Quaker eyes. Jones[290] says that the loyalists had joined the Congress to help in claiming redress for grievances, but that the approval of these Resolves rendered their continuance with the Congress in its measures impossible. Hutchinson[291] says that when the Resolves were known in England, they were more alarming than anything which had yet been done.[292]
On Sept. 28th Joseph Galloway introduced his plan of adjustment, calling for a grand council to act in conjunction with Parliament in regulating the affairs of the colonies. The scheme was finally rejected by a vote of six colonies to five, after having allured many of the leading men to its support.[293]
The Congress, Oct. 20th, adopted the Articles of Association, pledging in due time the country to non-importation, non-exportation, and non-consumption, so as to sever completely all commercial relations with England.[294]
In the summer of 1774 the British Parliament had, after some opposition, passed what is known as the "Quebec Bill", restoring the old French law in the civil courts of Quebec, securing rights to the Catholic inhabitants, and extending the limits of that province south of Lake Erie as far as the Ohio.[295]
