This notable group is sometimes called the Second Continental Congress. Remarkable in looks and marked men are nearly all of the persons there gathered,—remarkable for their average youth, as most of the members became equally famous for great age,—remarkable, too, in a majority of the whole number, for handsome features and intellectual presence, for their aptitude for, and ready proficiency in, the then very mysterious and royal business of statecraft, law-making, and army-raising,—for their thoughtful air and high-bred bearing, and their readiness in argument, logic, and knowledge of human rights and human nature; marked by the heavy Hanoverian displeasure of George III., of the aristocratic Frederic, Lord North, his minister, and of Sir William Howe, his military generalissimo in the Colonies. Many of them, too, were marked by heads so peculiar that the three English gentlemen just named became very desirous of having them to put into the English State Museum, and even went so far as to offer heavy sterling rewards for any one who would secure them. One of these heads immediately arrests our attention. It is very handsome, and is set upon a fine, tall, gentlemanly figure,—both owned by one John Hancock from Boston, only thirty-nine years of age, of large wealth for those simple days honorably acquired by trade, of manners conspicuously high-bred, and with a soul that, like a lamp burning inside an alabaster vase, illuminates the beautiful characters which the highest culture has traced and wrought. Two years ago, when Boston was patiently biding the expected period of English justice, triumphing over a short-sighted selfishness, and was carrying, as best she might, meanwhile, the cruel burdens of the Boston Port Bill, and when General Gage was sent out to see that she did not cut the straps, shift the load, or escape its grievous weight, John Hancock,—who the evening before had rallied with soul-lifting eloquence his fellow-sufferers at Faneuil Hall to the unjustly imposed duty of throwing off the crushing load,—rode at the head of his Boston Cadets, to bear with restrained courtesy from the Long Wharf to the State House this hard plum from the royal enclosure,—a Gage that he was careful not to pluck, but to preserve until it was fully ripe. Among this group he sits on a raised seat, and acts as president.