[9] The President and Secretary appear to have been chosen _viva voce_ or by a hand vote. John Adam's Works, II. 365. [10] Adams, II. 366. [11] This opinion, we are told by Mr. Adams, was advanced by Patrick Henry. See notes of the debate, in Adams, II. 366, 368. [12] See the very interesting notes of their debates in Adams's Works, II. 366, 370-377. [13] Journals, I. 10. [14] The instructions embraced in the credentials of the delegates to the first Congress were as follows:--NEW HAMPSHIRE,--"to devise, consult, and adopt such measures as may have the most likely tendency to extricate the colonies from their present difficulties; to secure and perpetuate their rights, liberties, and privileges; and to restore that peace, harmony, and mutual confidence which once happily subsisted between the parent country and her colonies." MASSACHUSETTS,--"to deliberate and determine upon wise and proper measures, to be by them recommended to all the colonies, for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and the restoration of union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies, most ardently desired by all good men." RHODE ISLAND,--"to meet and join with the other commissioners or delegates from the other colonies in consulting upon proper measures to obtain a repeal of the several acts of the British Parliament for levying taxes upon his Majesty's subjects in America without their consent, and particularly the commercial connection of the colonies with the mother country, for the relief of Boston and the preservation of American liberty." VIRGINIA,--"to consider of the most proper and effectual manner of so operating on the commercial connection of the colonies with the mother country, as to procure redress for the much injured Province of Massachusetts Bay, to secure British America from the ravage and ruin of arbitrary taxes, and speedily to procure the return of that harmony and union so beneficial to the whole empire, and so ardently desired by all British America." SOUTH CAROLINA,--"to consider the acts lately passed and bills depending in Parliament with regard to the port of Boston and Colony of Massachusetts Bay, which acts and bills, in the precedent and consequences, affect the whole continent of America;--also the grievances under which America labors by reason of the several acts of Parliament that impose taxes or duties for raising a revenue, and lay unnecessary restraints and burdens on trade;--and of the statutes, parliamentary acts, and royal instructions, which make an invidious distinction between his Majesty's subjects in Great Britain and America; with full power and authority to concert, agree to, and effectually prosecute such legal measures as, in the opinion of the said deputies and of the deputies so to be assembled, shall be most likely to obtain a repeal of the said acts and a redress of these grievances." The