When this Congress assembled, it seems to have been tacitly assumed that each colony should continue to have one vote through its delegation actually present. All the thirteen colonies were represented at the opening of the session, except Georgia and Rhode Island. Three days after the session commenced, a delegate appeared from the Parish of St. Johns in Georgia, who was admitted to a seat, but did not claim the right of voting for the colony. On the 15th of May, a delegation from Rhode Island appeared and took their seats. The credentials of the delegates contained no limitation of their powers with respect to time, with the exception of those from Massachusetts and South Carolina, whose authority was not to extend beyond the end of the year. The Congress continued in session until the 1st of August, and then adjourned for a recess to the 5th of September. When they were again assembled, the delegations of several of the colonies were renewed, with different limitations as to their time of service. Georgia sent a full delegation, who took their seats on the 13th of September. Still later, the delegations of several other colonies were renewed from time to time, and this practice was pursued both before and after the Declaration of Independence, thus rendering the Congress a permanent body.[26] Notwithstanding the absence of any express authority in their instructions to enter upon revolutionary measures, the circumstances under which the Congress assembled placed it in the position and cast upon it the powers of a revolutionary government. Civil war had actually commenced, and blood had been shed. Whether this war was to be carried on for independence, or was only to be waged until the British ministry could be compelled to acknowledge the rights which the colonies had asserted, the Congress necessarily became, at once, the organ of the common resistance of the colonies against the parent state. The first thing which evinces its new relation to the country was the application made to it by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, immediately after the battle of Lexington, for direction and assistance. While they informed the Continental Congress that they had proceeded, at once, to raise a force of thirteen thousand six hundred men, and had made proposals to the other New England colonies to furnish men in the same proportions, stating that the sudden exigency of their affairs precluded the possibility of waiting for direction, they suggested that an American army ought forthwith to be raised for the common cause.[27] In the same manner, the city and county of New York applied for the advice of Congress, how to conduct themselves with regard to the British troops expected in that quarter. These applications caused the Congress at once to resolve itself into a committee of the whole, to take into consideration the state of America.[28]