CONGRESS OF 1774.
The debates[296] in Parliament caused much diversity of opinion, and gave rise to a number of pamphlets.[297] The Congress of 1774 sought to counteract this action by an address to the inhabitants of Quebec, which was distributed both in English and French.[298]
Pownall in London told Hutchinson that every step of the Congress was known to the ministry.[299] We know that Dartmouth, probably through Galloway, received accounts of the temper of the delegates,[300] and that Joseph Reed was in communication with Dartmouth at the time.[301]
The revolutionary measures advocated by the Congress were far from receiving general acceptance,[302] and in New York they elicited some sharp and vigorous controversial pamphlets.[303] It was the general opinion at the time that Samuel Seabury was the author of two of the ablest of these tracts, though the claims for their authorship are now divided between Seabury and Isaac Wilkins, while each may have assisted the other in a joint production[304] which rendered at this time the name of a "Westchester Farmer" famous.[305]
JOSIAH QUINCY'S DIARY.