Having to manage those two difficult problems in the political economy which then crowded up for solution, namely, how to raise a revenue out of 2,800,000 poor colonists, which, in weight, should put it in equipoise with the heavy stacks of English pounds sterling; and how to make 7,754 soldiers, constituting, as Washington had that very morning reported from head-quarters, the entire colonial army, successfully oppose 28,000 English and 17,000 Hessian troops, this American Witenagemote had conscious need of all poor Richard’s solid, homespun sense and wise-headed prudence and resource. But the grand old man, who by virtuous kiting had obtained naturally lightning out of heaven by an easy discount, was equal to the task of drawing credit out of the well-soiled banks of his country. On a ring, circling his forefinger, and given him by an ardent friend, one may—by a near inspection, when the large head leans against his right hand—see carved that motto, which is his condensed biography, “Eripuit cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis.” A little way off stands a tall, scholarly figure, carefully dressed in the gentlemanly costume of that time, a blue coat faced with yellow, a scarlet waistcoat paragraphing an elaborate shirt-frill, and black broadcloth tights, clasped at the knee, and, like his own round periods, closed by polished silver-tongued buckles. He is thirty-one years old. His brick-colored hair and sanguine complexion betoken his ardent temperament. His faultless dress and stainless linen betray a delicacy and refinement of culture and taste, in which he had few peers in his time on either side the Atlantic. This is Thomas Jefferson. Chairman of a committee to report on the question of the right of the Colonies to be hereafter independent of Great Britain, he holds in his womanly-shaped hands a large manuscript written in neat, careful characters. Close to him stands the short, firm, square, condensed-looking figure of John Adams, coaxed into a well-ripened fulness. He is ten years older than Jefferson; destined to be his generous rival through an eventful life, and to die only a few hours after him, just fifty years from that time, and on the semi-centennial anniversary of that very day. There is a good-natured frankness in his round, generously blooded face, and full-veined forehead; great firmness in his well-pressed lips; and about his massive head a solid, intellectual strength that have already well earned for him the appellation of “the column of Congress.” A hot purpose shows in his pink-heightening complexion, flushing it with an auroral light which plays and flashes up to the very zenith of his head. Faults he has, like his rival, grievous and many; but among them is not that of being indifferent to his country or her freedom.