There can be no doubt, therefore, that Washington was chosen Commander-in-chief for his unquestionable merits, and not as a compromise between sectional interests and local jealousies. (The authorities for the statements in this note concerning Washington's history are the biographies by Marshall and Sparks, and the Writings of Washington, edited by the latter.) FOOTNOTES: [24] Peyton Randolph, President of the first and reëlected President of the second Congress, died very suddenly at Philadelphia on the 22d of October, 1775, and was succeeded in that office by John Hancock. Mr. Randolph was one of the most eminent of the Virginia patriots, and an intimate friend of Washington. Richard Henry Lee wrote to Washington, on the day after his death, that "in him American liberty lost a powerful advocate, and human nature a sincere friend." He was formerly Attorney-General of Virginia, and in 1753 went to England as agent of the House of Burgesses, to procure the abolition of a fee, known as the pistole fee, which it had been the custom of the Governors of Virginia to charge for signing land patents, as a perquisite of their office. He succeeded in getting the fee abolished in cases where the quantity of land exceeded one hundred acres. He was commander of a company of mounted volunteers called the Gentlemen Associators, who served in the French war. He was President of the Virginia Convention, as well as a Delegate in Congress, at the time of his death. Sparks's Washington, II. 58, 161; III. 139, 140; XII. 420. [25] In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, they were made in December; in Connecticut, in November; in New Jersey, in January; in South Carolina, in February; in the Lower Counties on Delaware and in Virginia, in March; in North Carolina, on the 5th of April; and in New York, on the 22d of April. [26] Virginia renewed her delegation for one year from the 11th of August, 1775, and Maryland hers with powers to act until the 25th of March, 1776. These new delegations, as well as that of Georgia, appeared on the 13th of September, 1775. On the 16th of September, a renewed delegation appeared from New Hampshire, without limitation of time; Connecticut sent a new delegation on the 16th of January, 1776, and Massachusetts did the same on the 31st of January, for the year 1776. The persons of the delegates were not often changed. [27] Journals, I. 81, 82. [28] May 15, 1775. Journals, I. 162. [29] Journals, I. 112. [30] Form of enlistment, Journals, I. 118. [31] Ibid. [32] See note at end of the chapter. [33] Secret Journals of Congress, I. 18; Pitkin's History of the United States, I. 334, 335. [34] Journals, I. 122. [35] June 16-July 4, 1775. Journals, I. 112-133. [36] Journals, I. 125, June 23, 1775. Ibid., I. 185, July 29, 1775. [37] Ibid. [38] Journals, I. 186, July 29, 1775. Michael Hillegas and George Clymer, Esquires, were elected Treasurers.