He was now fairly before the people, a champion for liberty. On the 25th of August, 1774, he was appointed a delegate to the Congress of Philadelphia. In that body he was placed on the important committee that prepared a statement of the rights of the colonies, the manner these rights had been infringed, and the most probable means of affecting their restoration. He was also one of the committee that reported the statutes that affected the trade and manufactures of the colonies. Upon the report of these two committees all the conclusive proceedings of that Congress were based, from which we may infer that the ablest and most active men were placed upon them. The ensuing year he was re-elected to the national assembly, and soon after he took his seat, he was appointed chairman of a committee to prepare an address to the people of Jamaica relative to British oppression. It was written by him, and is in a style bold, vigorous and classical. The following extract is a fair sample. Speaking of the plan of action laid and pursued by the British ministry, he writes: “That our petitions have been treated with disdain, is now become the smallest part of our complaint. Ministerial insolence is lost in ministerial barbarity. It has, by an exertion peculiarly ingenious, procured those very measures which it laid us under the hard necessity of pursuing, to be stigmatised in parliament as rebellious. It has plunged us in all the horrors and calamities of civil war. It has caused the treasures and blood of Britain, formerly exhausted and shed for far other ends, to be spilt and wasted in the execrable design of spreading slavery over British America. It will not, however, accomplished its aim; in the worst contingency a choice will still be left which it can never prevent us from taking.” On the 12th of June, Mr. Hooper offered the following resolution in Congress, which demonstrates the position taken in the exordium of this sketch. “It is at all times an indispensable duty devoutly to acknowledge the superintending providence of the great governor of the world, especially in times of impending danger and public calamity—to reverence and adore his immutable justice as well as to implore his merciful interposition for our deliverance; therefore, “Resolved, that it is recommended by Congress that the people of the American colonies observe the twentieth day of July next as a day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer.”