The congress was organized by the election of Timothy Ruggles, of Massachusetts, as president. The session lasted for three weeks. The measures introduced and the work accomplished were mainly initiated by the delegates from New York. A declaration of rights, prepared and submitted by John Cruger, Mayor of New York, was adopted; and a memorial and statement of grievances for presentation to Parliament was prepared and introduced by Robert R. Livingston, also of New York. Livingston subsequently was a member of the Continental Congress, and associated with Jefferson on the committee appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence. Livingston's address to Parliament was signed by nearly all the members. The declaration of rights was a vigorous and forcible document. It announced the grand principle that "taxation without representation is tyranny," and declared that as the colonies were so remote as to preclude representation in Parliament, the right of taxation only vested in the legislative authorities. It boldly denounced the Stamp Act as tyrannical, and demanded its repeal. Prior to the assembling of this congress a committee waited upon Governor Colden to solicit his aid and encouragement. As Colden had in former times advocated the rights of the people, it was but natural to expect encouragement and support from him in this trying hour. The committee was disappointed. To their infinite surprise and disgust he declared the congress to be "unconstitutional, unprecedented, and unlawful," and announced that he should give it no countenance. It is within the bounds of reason to say that Jefferson, in the production of his inimitable paper, caught his inspiration from these noble documents emanating from the Dutchmen of New York, and so readily endorsed by their associates in this congress. The doctrine brought over in the Mayflower led for a time to proscription, whilst the lesson taught by the Dutch settlers was freedom and toleration. The forefathers of New England who sought the New World to enjoy religious liberty refused to grant the same privilege to others. The Dutch, on the other hand, extended a welcome to the Pilgrims, gave them a home at Delft Haven for eleven years, afforded an asylum to the persecuted Quakers who fled from New England, and always exercised the precept enunciated at a later day by the martyr Lincoln, "with malice toward none, with charity for all." The acts and enunciations of the congress were approved by the people, and adopted by the Colonial Assembly which met in November. Shortly after the ratification of the petitions by the Colonial Assembly, Governor Colden wrote to the home government that "whatever happens in this place has the greatest influence on the other colonies. They have their eyes perpetually on it, and they govern themselves accordingly."