expressed, for no other resignation is pretended) if the meeting should
judge a postponement impracticable, or to postpone acting until he
could have time to communicate to some of the particular friends of his
nomination (beside those who were present at the meeting) his reasons
for resigning, and procure their concurrence _before hand_ &c."

Mr Cowen thus makes the concurrence of his friends _before hand_ a
_condition precedent_;--but the meeting disregard it--reject the
condition, and gravely resolve to accept _a resignation_, which had not
yet been tendered to them. Such is the rickety production which came
straggling before the public in search of the Secretary, who had
refused it the sanction of his name. In order to remedy this evil, and
"_throw it into form_" as the citizen would say, _his_ name gives place
to that of _Thompson and Stillwell_, who it is agreed are _larger_ men
than the Secretary,[10] and must therefore carry greater weight. Even
the certificate which follows, signed by nearly the whole of the
meeting, after going on to say that Mr. Cowen openly and publicly
resigned, immediately defeats itself by referring back to, and adopting
the statement drawn up by Thompson as a _candid, fair and faithful
statement of facts_;--and it is evident that such part of the
certificate as overshoots the premises upon which it is professedly
founded, must mean nothing more than to give a _construction_ advocated
by the Citizen, and which they esteem so necessary for their defence.
The certificate of Peters, Stewart and How, shew the miserable shifts
to which the Citizen and his friends were driven in order to bear
themselves out in their conduct. They are perhaps excusable so long as
they keep to the question of _construction_; but when they tax the zeal
of their friends with certificates and declarations so far beyond what
they themselves are willing to say--nay, which actually _contradict_
the certificates and declarations that precede them, one is almost