It is a somewhat singular fact that although the United States assumed all the rights, powers, and dignities of a nation on the Fourth of July, 1776, no great seal was adopted until about five months before the signing of the preliminary treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1782. This is the more remarkable when we consider that our forefathers were brought up under the shadow of the English law, which prescribed that no grant nor charter was _factum_ until it was sealed, and of English custom, which taught that even the sign manual of the sovereign must be authenticated by an impression from the privy seal. But the inception of our government was attended with other informalities than the neglect to provide a seal. Silas Deane, our first political agent to France, wrote from Paris to the secret committee of Congress, under date of November 28, 1776, acknowledging the receipt of the committee's letter of August 7, enclosing a copy of another letter of July 8, the original of which never came to hand, and also a copy of the Declaration of Independence, which, he complains, had been circulated in Europe two months before. This last letter conveyed what was intended to be the official notification to the court of France of the act of separation of the colonies, but was so unofficial in form that Mr. Deane was prompted to say in answer that he would have supposed that "some mode more formal, or, if I may say, respectful, would have been made use of, than simply two or three lines from the committee of Congress.... I mention this as something deserving of serious consideration, whether in your applications here and your powers and instructions of a public nature, it is not always proper to use a seal? This is a very ancient custom in all public and even private concerns of any consequence." But although Congress neglected to provide a seal, it was not because it had not anticipated the need of one, for this record appears in its journal, under date of Thursday, July 4, 1776: _Resolved_, That Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams, and Mr. Jefferson be a committee to prepare a device for a seal for the United States of America. We obtain an insight of the acts of this committee in a letter from John Adams to his wife, under date of Philadelphia, August 14, 1776. After discussing matters irrelevant to the question at issue, he says: