Across the room stand talking together George Wythe of Virginia, sweet-tempered, frolicsome as a boy, yet resolute of purpose, able in debate, and capable of deep research; Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, born in England, an emigrant to Philadelphia in his thirteenth year, whose nature of sterling British oak, seasoned in the counting-house of Charles Willing, and whose solid aptitudes, hardened into financial wisdom, were now so much needed in the new political partnership of States; and Joseph Reed from the same State, whose sturdy, honest face seems to light up a large space all around him, and whose rebuke two years later to the commissioner of Lord North, who sought to bribe him, that “poor as he was, the king of Great Britain was not rich enough to buy him,” raised American securities as high in Europe as the practical answers of some of his congressional successors to similar attempts on their financial virtue by North or South, East or West, have depressed them. Others there are among those twoscore and eleven whom we should be glad to delineate, as we dearly love to look at them gathered in the morning light of that first Fourth of July; but there is such a serious, thoughtful air, such a felt pressure weighting all brows and hearts, that the loaded hour presses down and hushes all such light thoughts. A prayer so simple, earnest, child-like, and trusting,—uttered amid impressive silence by John Adams,—that it seems to bear the great question up to the Great Heart, hushes the assembly to a balanced calm, and opens the business. Large sealed packages from Washington, brought on horseback all the way from New York, are then read. They speak of his few men,—most of them without arms, clothing, or food,—in presence of 45,000 fresh and well-supplied English and German troops, under the command of Lord Howe, of his brother the Admiral, and of Sir Henry Clinton. Other letters were read from South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, and New York, urging the wise men to declare the old, unequal partnership with England at an end,—a partnership to which, they felt, that the colonial partners had furnished the capital and labor, and from which the English associates drew all the profits.