The delegates chosen, on the invitation of Massachusetts, to attend a congress for consultation on the circumstances of the colonies, met, October 7, 1765, in the City Hall at New York. "In no place were the Sons of Liberty more determined, or were their opponents more influential. It was the headquarters of the British force in America, the commander of which, General Gage, wielded the powers of a viceroy. A fort within the city was heavily mounted with cannon. Ships of war were moored near the wharves. The executive, Lieutenant-governor Colden, was resolved to execute the law. When the Massachusetts delegates called on him, he remarked that the proposed congress would be unconstitutional, and, unprecedented, and he should give it no countenance. The congress consisted of twenty-eight delegates from nine of the colonies; four, though sympathizing with the movement, not choosing representatives. Here several of the patriots, who had discussed the American question in their localities, met for the first time. James Otis stood in this body the foremost speaker. His pen, with the pens of the brothers Robert and Phillip Livingston, of New York, were summoned to service in a wider field. John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, was soon to be known through the colonies by 'The Farmer's Letters.' Thomas McKean and Cæsar Rodney were pillars of the cause in Delaware. Edward Tilghman was an honored name in Maryland. South Carolina, in addition to the intrepid Gadsden, had, in Thomas Lynch and John Rutledge, two patriots who appear prominently in the subsequent career of that colony. Thus this body was graced by large ability, genius, learning, and common sense. It was calm in its deliberations, seeming unmoved by the whirl of the political waters. The congress organized by the choice, by one vote, of Timothy Ruggles, a Tory,—as the chairman,—and John Cotton, clerk. The second day of its session, it took into consideration the rights, privileges, and grievances of the British American colonists.' After eleven days' debate, it agreed—each colony having one vote—upon a declaration of rights and grievances and ordered it to be inserted in the journal. [The following is the 'Declaration': 'The members of this congress, sincerely devoted, with the warmest sentiments of affection and duty, to his majesty's person and government, inviolably attached to the present happy establishment of the protestant succession, and with minds deeply impressed by a sense of the present and impending misfortunes of the British colonies on this continent; having considered, as maturely as time will permit, the circumstances of the said colonies, esteem it our indispensable duty to make the following declarations of our humble opinion, respecting the most essential rights and liberties of the colonists, and of the