i. 95), but Henry assisted in that vote of the Virginia Convention,

on the 15th, which instructed its representatives in Congress to move a vote of independence.[699] R. H. Lee wrote to Charles Lee that "the proprietary colonies do certainly obstruct and perplex the American machine."[700] Dickinson, as representing these proprietary governments, saw something different from independency in John Adams's motion of May 15th, that "the several colonies do establish governments of their own;" but when that vote had passed, Adams and everybody else, as he says, considered it was a practical throwing off of allegiance, and rendered the formal declaration of July 4th simply necessary.[701] Hawley and Warren now wrote to Sam Adams, inquiring why this hesitancy in declaring what even now exists? (Wells, ii. 393); and Winthrop urges the same question upon John Adams (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, xliv. 306).

As the debates went on, reassuring notes came from New England in respect to the Virginia resolutions. Connecticut took action on June 14th (Hinman's _Connecticut during the Rev._, 94). Langdon wrote from New Hampshire, June 26th, that he knew of none who would oppose it (_Hist. Mag._, vi. 240). The vote of July 2d finished the issue. Honest belief, intimidation, a run for luck, and more or less of self-interest[702] had made the colonies free on paper, and compelled anew the conflict which was to make their pretensions good.

Trumbull's well-known picture of the committee presenting the Declaration in Congress was made known through A. B. Durand's engraving in 1820. The medals commemorating the event are described in Baker's _Medallic Portraits of Washington_, p. 32. The house in Philadelphia in which Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence is shown in Scharf and Westcott's _Philadelphia_ (i. 320); Watson's _Annals of Philadelphia_ (iii.); Brotherhead's _Signers_ (1861, p. 110); _Potter's American Monthly_, vi. 341; Gay's _Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. 483; Higginson's _Larger Hist. U. S._, 274. The desk on which he wrote it was for a long time in the possession of Mr. Joseph Coolidge of Boston, and at his death passed by his will to the custody of Congress. Randall's _Jefferson_, i. 177; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, iii. 151.]

The resolutions of independency of June 7th, introduced by R. H. Lee, in accordance with instructions from Virginia,[703] are not preserved either in the MS. or printed journals, and John Adams tells us (_Works_, iii. 45) much was purposely kept out of the records; but they have been found in the secretary's files, and are given in fac-simile in Force (4th ser., vi. p. 1700). Of the proceedings and debates which followed we have, beside the printed journals (i. 365, 392), three manuscript journals.[704] For details we must go to the memoranda made by Jefferson from notes taken near the time.[705] There seems no doubt that John Adams was the leading advocate of the Declaration[706] and such traces as are found of other speakers are noted in Bancroft, orig. ed., viii. 349; Wells's _Sam. Adams_, ii. 413, 433; Randall's _Jefferson_, i. 182. Bancroft draws John Adams's character with some vigor (viii. 309). Dickinson made the main speech against Adams. Bancroft abridges it from Dickinson's own report (viii. 452); Ramsay (i. 339) sketched it. (Cf. Niles's _Principles_, 1876, p. 400, and _John Adams's Works_, iii. 54.) Adams thought Dickinson's printed speech very different from the one delivered. Galloway, in his _Examination_ before Parliament, gave only the flying rumors of what passed. The later writers summarize the debates and proceedings.[707]

There is some confusion in later days in the memory of participants, by which the decision for independence on July 2d is not kept quite distinct from the formal expression of it on July 4th. (Cf. McKean in _John Adams_, x. 88.)

It was the New York, and not the New Jersey, delegates who were not instructed to vote for the Declaration (Wells, i. 226). The position of New York is explained by W. L. Stone in _Harper's Mag._, July, 1883. The instructions from Pennsylvania and Delaware came late.[708]

Notwithstanding that the statements of both Jefferson (_Writings_, Boston, 1830, vol. i. 20, etc.) and Adams, made at a later day (_Autobiography_), and the printed _Journals of Congress_, seem to the effect that the Declaration was signed by the members present on July 4, 1776, it is almost certain that such was not the case.

NOTE.—These four plates show the signatures of the signers (now very much faded in the original document), arranged not as they signed, but in the order of States, beginning with Massachusetts and ending with Georgia. The signatures were really attached in six columns, containing respectively 3, 7, 12 (John Hancock heading this one), 12, 9, 13,—as is shown in a reduced fac-simile of the entire document as signed, given in _The Declaration of Independence_ (Boston, 1876). The signatures are also given in Sanderson's _Signers_, vol. i.; in _Harper's Mag._, iii. 158, etc. The formation of a set of the autographs of the "Signers" is, or rather has been, called the test of successful collecting. The signatures of Thomas Lynch, Jr., Button Gwinnett, and Lyman Hall are said to be the rarest. The Rev. Dr. Wm. B. Sprague is said to have formed three sets; but these collections, as well as those of Raffles, of Liverpool, and Tefft, of Savannah, have changed hands.

The finest is thought to belong to Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, of New York. The set of Col. T. B. Myers is described in the _Hist. Mag._, 1868. One was sold in the Lewis J. Cist collection in N. Y., Oct., 1886 (p. 47). It has been said that "of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence, nine were born in Massachusetts, eight in Virginia, five in Maryland, four in Connecticut, four in New Jersey, four in Pennsylvania, four in South Carolina, three in New York, three in Delaware, two in Rhode Island, one in Maine, three in Ireland, two in England, two in Scotland, and one in Wales. Twenty-one were attorneys, ten Merchants, four physicians, three farmers, one clergyman, one printer; sixteen were men of fortune. Eight were graduates of Harvard College, four of Yale, three of New Jersey, two of Philadelphia, two of William and Mary, three of Cambridge, England, two of Edinburgh, and one of St. Omers.

At the time of their deaths, five were over ninety years of age, seven between eighty and ninety, eleven between seventy and eighty, twelve between sixty and seventy, eleven between fifty and sixty, seven between forty and fifty; one died at the age of twenty-seven, and the age of two is uncertain. At the time of signing the Declaration, the average of the members was forty-four years. They lived to the average age of more than sixty-five years and ten months. The youngest member was Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, who was in his twenty-seventh year. He lived to the age of fifty-one. The next youngest member was Thomas Lynch, of the same State, who was also in his twenty-seventh year. He was cast away at sea in the fall of 1776. Benjamin Franklin was the oldest member. He was in his seventy-first year when he signed the Declaration. He died in 1790, and survived sixteen of his younger brethren. Stephen Hopkins, of Rhode Island, the next oldest member, was born in 1707, and died in 1785. Charles Carroll attained the greatest age, dying in his ninety-sixth year. William Ellery, of Rhode Island, died in his ninety-first year." The standard collected edition of their lives is a work usually called Sanderson's _Biography of the signers of the declaration of independence_ (Philadelphia, 1820-27, in 9 vols.)

_Contents._—1. View of the British colonies from their origin to their independence; John Hancock, by John Adams. 2. Benjamin Franklin, by J. Sanderson; George Wythe, by Thomas Jefferson; Francis Hopkinson, by R. Penn Smith; Robert Treat Paine, by Alden Bradford. 3. Edward Rutledge, by Arthur Middleton; Lyman Hall, by Hugh McCall; Oliver Wolcott, by Oliver Wolcott, Jr.; Richard Stockton, by H. Stockton; Button Gwinnett, by Hugh McCall; Josiah Bartlett, by Robert Waln, Jr.; Philip Livingston, by De Witt Clinton; Roger Sherman, by Jeremiah Evarts. 4. Thomas Heyward, by James Hamilton; George Read, by —— Read; William Williams, by Robert Waln, Jr.; Samuel Huntington, by Robert Waln, Jr.; William Floyd, by Augustus Floyd; George Walton, by Hugh McCall; George Clymer, by Robert Waln, Jr.; Benjamin Rush, by John Sanderson. 5. Thomas Lynch, Jr., by James Hamilton; Matthew Thornton, by Robert Waln, Jr.; William Whipple, by Robert Waln, Jr.; John Witherspoon, by Ashbel Green; Robert Morris, by Robert Waln, Jr. 6. Arthur Middleton, by H. M. Rutledge; Abraham Clark, by Robert Waln, Jr.; Francis Lewis, by Morgan Lewis; John Penn, by John Taylor; James Wilson, by Robert Waln, Jr.; Carter Braxton, by Judge Brackenborough; John Morton, by Robert Waln, Jr.; Stephen Hopkins, by Robert Waln, Jr.; Thomas M'Kean, by Robert Waln, Jr. 7. Thomas Jefferson, by H. D. Gilpin; William Hooper, by J. C. Hooper; James Smith, by Edward Ingersoll; Charles Carroll, by H. B. Latrobe; Thomas Nelson, Jr., by H. D. Gilpin; Joseph Hewes, by Edward Ingersoll. 8. Elbridge Gerry, by H. D. Gilpin; Cæsar Rodney, by H. D. Gilpin; Benjamin Harrison, by H. D. Gilpin; William Paca, by Edward Ingersoll; George Ross, by H. D. Gilpin; John Adams, by E. Ingersoll. 9. Richard Henry Lee, by R. H. Lee; George Taylor, by H. D. Gilpin; John Hart, by Robert Waln, Jr.; Lewis Morris, by E. Ingersoll; Thomas Stone, by E. Ingersoll; Francis L. Lee, by Robert Waln, Jr.; Samuel Chase, by E. Ingersoll; William Ellery, by H. D. Gilpin; Samuel Adams, by H. D. Gilpin.

Vols. 1, 2 were edited by John Sanderson; the remainder by Robert Waln, Jr. A list of the authors of the different biographies is given in the _Massachusetts Historical Society's Proceedings_, xv. 393. There was a second edition, revised, improved, and enlarged (Philadelphia, 1828, in 5 vols.). An edition revised by Robert T. Conrad was published in Philadelphia in 1865.

An enumeration of books which grew out of Sanderson's _Signers_ is given in Foster's _Stephen Hopkins_, ii. 183. Much smaller books are Charles A. Goodrich's _Lives of the Signers_ (New York, 1829), and there are other collections of brief memoirs by L. C. Judson (1829) and Benson J. Lossing. Cf. also papers by Lossing in _Harper's Mag._, iii., vii., and xlviii., and his _Field-Book_, ii. 868.

A fac-simile of the engrossed document as signed is given in _The Declaration of Independence_ (Boston, 1876), and others are in Force's _Amer. Archives_, 5th ser., i. 1595; and one was published in N. Y. in 1865. The earliest fac-simile is one engraved on copper by Peter Maverick, of which there are copies on vellum, as well as on paper. It is called _Declaration of Independence, copied from the Original in the Department of State and published, by Benjamin Owen Tyler, Professor of Penmanship. The publisher designed and executed the ornamental writing and has been particular to copy the Facsimilies exact, and has also observed the same punctuation, and copied every Capital as in the original_ (Washington, 1818).