The declaration was by order of congress engrossed and signed by the following members, _JOHN HANCOCK_—NEW-HAMPSHIRE, _Josiah Bartlett_, _William Whipple_, _Mathew Thornton_—MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, _Samuel Adams_, _John Adams_, _Robert Treat Paine_, _Elbridge Gerry_—RHODE-ISLAND and PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS, _Stephen Hopkins_, _William Ellery_—CONNECTICUT, _Roger Sherman_, _Samuel Huntington_, _William Williams_, _Oliver Wolcott_—NEW-YORK, _William Floyd_, _Philip Livingston_, _Francis Lewis_, _Lewis Morris_—NEW-JERSEY, _Richard Stockton_, _John Witherspoon_, _Francis Hopkinson_, _John Hart_, _Abraham Clark_—PENNSYLVANIA, _Robert Morris_, _Benjamin Rush_, _Benjamin Franklin_, _John Morton_, _George Clymer_, _James Smith_, _George Taylor_, _James Wilson_, _George Ross_—DELAWARE, _Cæsar Rodney_, _George Read_—MARYLAND, _Samuel Chase_, _William Paca_, _Thomas Stone_, _Charles Carroll of Carrollton_—VIRGINIA, _George Wythe_, _Richard Henry Lee_, _Thomas Jefferson_, _Benjamin Harrison_, _Thomas Neilson, jun._, _Francis Lightfoot Lee_, _Cartar Braxton_—NORTH-CAROLINA, _William Hooper_, _Joseph Hewes_, _John Penn_:—SOUTH-CAROLINA, _Edward Rutledge_, _Thomas Hayward, jun._, _Thomas Lynch, jun._, _Arthur Middleton_:—GEORGIA, _Button Gwinnett_, _Lyman Hall_, _George Walton_. The declaration of Congress is intended for their act of separation from the crown of Great-Britain; they therefore no longer regard that prudential state maxim, _the king can do no wrong_ in his official character; but, in making their complaints, charge the specified grievances to majesty itself; by which they mean to justify, in the sight of mankind, the renunciation of their former allegiance. Thus has an event been produced which was not had in contemplation by any of the colonies, or even by any delegate, scarce by Mr. Samuel Adams, as what was so soon to happen, when congress first met in the year 1774. When Lexington engagement had taken place, he and some of his colleagues judged that the contest must then issue in independence, or slavery; and therefore laboured to establish the first, that the last might be prevented. But had a serious proposal of separating from the crown of Great-Britain been early introduced into congress, the dissolution of that body would have followed, through the general aversion of the people at large and of particular colonies to such separation. The Massachusetts delegates had a very nice part to act. The southern colonies were jealous of their republican spirit, and of their aiming at independency. These therefore, by a most prudent policy, secured those of the Virginia delegates that verged toward republicanism, with whom they intrusted any favourite measure which they wanted to have carried; and who brought the same forward and supported it in congress, against the other southern delegates, while their Massachusetts brethren attended the debates without showing themselves particularly interested,