The men who composed that first Congress were possessed of the purest minds, the loftiest and most disinterested patriotism, and moral characters without spot or blemish. Instinctively the people had turned to their _best men_ for counsel and action when the crisis arrived; and the representatives there assembled composed the flower of the American colonies. "There is in the Congress," wrote John Adams, "a collection of the greatest men upon this continent in point of abilities, virtues, and fortunes." The sectional factions and personal ambitions, which afterward disturbed the harmony and injured the character of the Continental Congress, ** had no tangible shape in this first Assembly. They felt, with all the solemnity of wise and virtuous men, the weight of the momentous responsibility resting upon them. They knew that toward them all eyes were turned, all hearts were drawn; that not only America, but the whole civilized world, was an interested spectator of their acts; and that for posterity, more than for cotemporaries, they held a trust of value infinitely beyond human estimation. Impressed with the consciousness of such responsibility, the delegates commenced their labors. [[September, 1774]] Congress was organized by the choice of Peyton Randolph, *** of Virginia, as president, and Charles Thomson, **** of Pennsylvania, as secretary. The credentials of * Otis's Botta, i 128. ** In the opinion of Charles Thomson, who was Secretary of Congress for fifteen consecutive years, no subsequent national Assembly during the war could compare with the first in point of talent and purity. He represents the Congress that sat at York, in Pennsylvania, while Washington and his army were suffering at Valley Forge, as a body of weak men compared to former delegations. It was in that Congress that a faction favored the scheme for making Gates commander-in-ehief of the army in place of Washington.