Mr. Randolph was according to expectation obliged the chair of Congress,
to attend the General Assembly summoned by Lord Dunmore, to meet on the
1st day of June,1775. Lord North's conciliatory propositions, as they
were called received by the Governor, and furnished the subject for
which this assembly was convened. Mr. Randolph accordingly attended, and
the tenor of these propositions being generally known, as having been
addressed to all the governors, he was anxious that the answer of our
Assembly, likely to be the first, should harmonise with what he knew to
be the sentiments and wishes of the body he had recently left. He feared
that Mr. Nicholas, whose mind was not yet up to the mark of the times,
would undertake the answer, and therefore pressed me to prepare it. I
did so, and, with his aid, carried it through the House, with long and
doubtful scruples from Mr. Nicholas and James Mercer, and a dash of cold
water on it here and there, enfeebling it somewhat, but finally with
unanimity, or a vote approaching it. This being passed, I repaired
immediately to Philadelphia, and conveyed to Congress the first notice
they had of it. It was entirely approved there. I took my seat with them
on the 21st of June. On the 24th, a committee which had been appointed
to prepare a declaration of the causes of taking up arms, brought in
their report (drawn, I believe, by J. Rutledge) which, not being liked,
the House recommitted it, on the 26th, and added Mr. Dickinson and
myself to the committee. On the rising of the House, the committee
having not yet met, I happened to find myself near Governor W.
Livingston, and proposed to him to draw the paper. He excused himself
and proposed that I should draw it. On my pressing him with urgency, 'We
are as yet but new acquaintances, sir,' said he, 'why are you so earnest
for my doing it?' 'Because,' said I, 'I have been informed that you drew
the Address to the people of Great Britain, a production, certainly, of
the finest pen in America.' 'On that,' says he, 'perhaps, sir, you may