in respect to her institutions and her sympathies, had a
character for loyalty that, in any matter of opposition to
Britain, gave double weight to her action. Easy-going
tobacco-planters, Church of England men all, were well known not
to be great admirers of the precise Puritans of New England,
whose moral fervor and conscious rectitude seemed to them a
species of fanaticism savoring more of canting hypocrisy than of
that natural virtue affected by men of parts. Franklin may well
have had Virginia and Massachusetts in mind when he said, but a
few years earlier, no one need fear that the colonies "will unite
against their own nation...which 'tis well known they all
love much more than they love one another." Nor could anyone have
supposed that the "Ancient and Loyal Colony of Virginia" would
out-Boston Boston in asserting the rights of America. Yet this was
what had come to pass, the evidence of which was the printed
resolutions now circulating far and wide and being read in this
month of July when it was being noised about that a Congress was
proposed for the coming October. The proposal had in fact come
from Massachusetts Bay in the form of a circular letter inviting
all the colonies to send delegates to New York for the purpose of
preparing a loyal and humble "representation of their condition,"
and of imploring relief from the King and Parliament of Great
Britain.

No very encouraging response was immediately forthcoming. The
Assembly of New Jersey unanimously declined to send any
delegates, although it declared itself "not without a just
sensibility respecting the late acts of Parliament," and wished
"such other colonies as think proper to be active every success
they can loyally and reasonably desire." For two months there was