The President, rising from his seat, put on his hat, when all the members of the Society arose at the same time. A Master of Ceremony conducted a candidate to the first step before the President, who asked him first whether he desired to be received into the Society and if so, to promise a strict observance of the Rules and Statutes just read. Upon answering in the affirmative, with one hand taking the Standard, he signed the Institution with the other.
The President then taking one of the gold eagles from the cushion held by the Treasurer, pinned it on the left breast of the candidate, saying: “Receive this mark as a recompense for your merit and in remembrance of our glorious Independence.” The drums and trumpets then gave a flourish.
The President then taking a diploma, with the recipient’s name inscribed, presented it to him, saying: “This will show your title as a member of our Society. Imitate the illustrious hero, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus, whom we have chosen for our patron. Like him, be the defender of your country and a good citizen.” Another flourish of drums and trumpets.
The President then grasped the hand of the candidate and congratulated him. He was then presented by a Master of Ceremony to the officers of the Society and the members who rose and saluted him. He was then assigned to a seat provided for him at the upper end of the Hall, taking rank above the members of the Society for the day only.
After the Initiation the President removed his hat, and the Society proceeded to the Banquet Hall, observing the following order of precedence.
The Masters of Ceremony.
The members of the Society, two by two.
The newly elected members.
The members of other State societies.
The foreign members.
The honorary members.
The Standard Bearer with Standard.
The Secretary.
The Treasurer and Deputy Treasurer.
The Vice-President.
The President.
The President and other officers passed to their places at the banquet table between the open lines of members. The President presided at the head of the table, surrounded by the foreign and newly elected members. After the cloth was removed thirteen toasts were drunk accompanied by a salute of thirteen cannon.
On the first day of December the St. Andrew’s Society gave a dinner at Corré’s Tavern, at which his excellency the governor was present. They sat down to dinner at four o’clock and after dinner drank thirteen toasts which had become the customary number.
The presence in the city of men who had remained loyal to England during the war was distasteful to many who had been ardent in the cause of Independence. A Whig Society was organized, whose avowed object was to obtain the removal of certain influential and offensive Tories from the state. Members of the society were men of prominence. Lewis Morris was president and John Pintard secretary. Public meetings were held and petitions sent to the legislature, but the status of the Tories was not materially disturbed. In such circumstances it is not to be wondered at that a company of Englishmen, spending the evening in one of the upper rooms of the Coffee House in the latter part of the month of June, 1786, and “in the height of their mirth and loyalty,” breaking out with “Rule Britania,” should give offense. A newspaper remarks that “if there are Englishmen, whose attachment to the laws of Bachus obliges them to make frequent meetings over old London porter and Madeira, they should always carry with them the reflection that in a republican government there are songs which may please their palates and be grating to the ears of freemen,” and that “Rule Britania” was “a song very rediculous in a country like this, where their armies were conquered and their nation defeated.”
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