Next day the people met in Faneuil Hall, and demanded the immediate removal of the troops. The demand being refused, they met again at Faneuil Hall, but adjourned to Old South Church, since the larger hall was required to accommodate the aroused citizens. A new committee, headed by Samuel Adams, sought Hutchinson in the Council Chamber of the Town House, and secured his permission to remove the troops without delay. The next event of note in the history of the old building was the public reading there of the Declaration of Independence on July 18, 1776, in accordance with the message of John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, who asked that it be proclaimed "in such a mode that the people may be impressed by it." Abigail Adams told in a letter to her husband, John Adams, of the reading: "I went with the multitude to King street to hear the Declaration Proclamation for Independence read and proclaimed.... Great attention was given to every word.... Thus ends royal Authority in the state." A British prisoner on parole, who was an invited guest at the reading of the Declaration, wrote a detailed narrative of the events of the day, in the Town Hall, in which he said: "Exactly as the clock struck one, Colonel Crafts, who occupied the chair, rose and, silence being obtained, read aloud the declaration, which announced to the world that the tie of allegiance and protection, which had so long held Britain and her North American colonies together, was forever separated. This being finished, the gentlemen stood up, and each, repeating the words as they were spoken by an officer, swore to uphold, at the sacrifice of life, the rights of his country. Meanwhile the town clerk read from the balcony the Declaration of Independence to the crowd; at the close of which, a Shout began in the hall, passed like an electric spark to the streets, which rang with loud huzzas, the slow and measured boom of Cannon, and the rattle of musketry." Thirteen years later, when Washington visited Boston, he passed through a triumphal arch to the State House. In his diary he told of what followed his entrance to the historic building: "Three cheers was given by a vast concourse of people, Who, by this time, had assembled at the Arch--then followed an ode composed in honor of the President; and well sung by a band of select singers--After this three cheers--followed by the different Professions and Mechanics in the order they were drawn up, with their colors, through a lane of the people which had thronged about the arch under which they passed." The ode sung that day was as follows: