Early in 1776 the passion for independence gathered head. In March, Edmund Quincy thought the feeling was universal in the Northern colonies (_N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1859, p. 232). Francis Dana, just home from England, was saying that he was satisfied no reconciliation was possible (Sparks, _Corresp. of the Rev._, i. 177). The probability of independence was recognized in the instructions which Congress gave to Silas Deane in March, on his sailing for Europe. In April came the violent measure in Congress of abolishing the British custom laws. The press was beginning to give the warning note,[697] but not without an occasional counter statement, as when the _N. Y. Gazette_ (April 8, 1776) asserted that Congress had never lisped a desire for republicanism or independence. Sam Adams was urgent (Wells, ii. 397). John Adams was writing to Winthrop, of Cambridge, to restrain him from urging Massachusetts to break precipitately the union of the colonies (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, xliv. 298), and he was counselling Joseph Ward to be patient, for it "required time to bring the colonies all of one mind; but", he adds, "time will do it" (_Scribner's Mag._, xi. 572). May was the decisive month, and events marched rapidly. On the 1st, Massachusetts set up a committee to conduct the government of the province in the name of the people.[698] On the 4th the last Colonial Assembly of Rhode Island renounced its allegiance (_Newport Hist. Mag._, Jan., 1884, p. 131). A letter of Gen. Lee to Patrick Henry, on May 7th, has raised a doubt of Henry's steadfastness (Force, 5th ser., i. 95), but Henry assisted in that vote of the Virginia Convention, on the 15th, which instructed its representatives in Congress to move a vote of independence.[699] R. H. Lee wrote to Charles Lee that "the proprietary colonies do certainly obstruct and perplex the American machine."[700] Dickinson, as representing these proprietary governments, saw something different from independency in John Adams's motion of May 15th, that "the several colonies do establish governments of their own;" but when that vote had passed, Adams and everybody else, as he says, considered it was a practical throwing off of allegiance, and rendered the formal declaration of July 4th simply necessary.[701] Hawley and Warren now wrote to Sam Adams, inquiring why this hesitancy in declaring what even now exists? (Wells, ii. 393); and Winthrop urges the same question upon John Adams (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, xliv. 306). [Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON. (_After picture owned by T. J. Coolidge, of Boston._)