That it might become expedient and proper to assemble the proposed Congress, if the Parliament should not, meanwhile, have indicated an inclination to redress the alleged Grievances of the Colonies, was not only conceded but freely acknowledged, even by those more earnest conservatives who had assembled at the Widow De La Montagnie's, on the preceding Friday evening; but they, in common with many others, hoped and believed that the Parliament would promptly indicate a willingness to afford the relief which was desired; and, in harmony with that hope and that belief, with a laudable desire to restore the harmony which had formerly prevailed between the Mother Country and the Colonies, and not with any intention to oppose the convention of the Congress, per se, they desired only a postponement of the action,'

in the proposed Meeting, which was designed for the inauguration of a movement for the election of Delegates to that proposed Congress, until the twentieth of April, which would have afforded time for the receipt from London of intelligence concerning the inclination and action of the Parliament, without depriving the Colony of the opportunity to elect its Delegation to the Congress, in due form, if it should become necessary to convene the Congress. But those who were anxiously seeking places and influence were not ignorant of the well-known fact that a sparrow in the hand is worth more than a dove on the roof; and, consequently, they were not willing to postpone the immediate action which would surely secure those desirable advantages to themselves ; and they acted accordingly, marshaling their irregular allies, posting their handbills bearing unfounded accusations against their adversaries (accusations which were promptly contradicted in other handbills) accomplishing, or seeming to accomplish, by noise, what, at that time, they could not have accomplished, and did not accomplish, regularly, by the votes of those Freeholders and Freemen who were, then, present. 1 The result of that hasty and violent action has been noticed, and need not be repeated ; but, notwithstanding it was subsequently disregarded by the Committee which had previously hastened to receive and accept it, it served to draw the lines of faction with more distinctness and to array neighbor against neighbor, in greater animosity and bitterness than had previously been witnessed.