Professor Sumner says: "It is astonishing how far writers kept from the facts and evidence. This is so much the case that it is often impossible to learn what was really the matter. The colonists first objected to internal taxes, but consented to import duties. Then they distinguished between import duties to regulate commerce, and import duties for revenue. They seem to have changed their position and to be consistent in one thing only, to pay no taxes and to rebel." After patiently examining their pamphlets and discussions, Sumner concludes: "The incidents of the trouble offer occasion at every step for reserve in approving the proceedings of the colonists. We therefore come to the conclusion that the Revolutionary leader made a dispute about the method of raising a small amount of revenue a pretext for rending an empire which, if united, might civilize and wisely govern the fairest portion of the globe." The foregoing statements are more than corroborated by a letter written to Washington by Rev. Jacob Duche, a former rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia, a man of great learning, eloquence, and piety, who was appointed chaplain to the first Congress. His prayer at the opening of the session was pronounced not only eloquent, but patriotic in the extreme. While it was being uttered there was but one man in that whole assembly who knelt, and that man was George Washington. When Washington received the letter he immediately transmitted it to Congress. The letter was in part as follows:-- Philadelphia, 8th October, 1777. "Sir--If this letter should find you in council or in the field, before you read another sentence I beg you to take the first opportunity of retiring and weighing its important contents. You are perfectly acquainted with the part I formerly took in the present unhappy contest. I was, indeed, among the first to bear my public testimony against having any recourse to threats, or indulging a thought of an armed opposition.