" Allegiance " and " Treason " presupposed Sovereignty existing in the Colonies, without which Sovereignty there could not have possibly been any " Allegiance " due to either of them nor " Treason " committed against them or either of , them ; but it would require a bold man, possessed of a very vivid imagination, to maintain, seriously and honestly, that any such Sovereignty existed in the Colonies, or in any or either of them, on the twenty-fourth of June, 1776, when the Continental Congress adopted these Resolutions, whatever there might have been or not have been, in the several States, a fortnight afterwards.

What the result of this action of the Continental Congress was, will be seen, hereafter.

Another very important subject which was introduced to the notice of the third Provincial Congress, during its very brief existence, was that of supplanting the existing Colonial Government by the establishment of a new form of Government which would more nearly represent the current spirit of those who were leaders in the Rebellion, and which, more than anything else, would indicate a determination to sever the political connection of the Colony with the Mother Country.

On the tenth of May, 1776, the Continental Congress, after a very severe and very protracted consideration of the subject, had adopted a Resolution; 4 and on the fifteenth of the same month, it had pre-

8 See, in the Address to the King, by the same Continental Congress and signed by each of its members, individually, (Journal of the Continental Congress, "Saturday, July 8, 1775,") what, at the date of these Resolutions, contained, uualtered, all which bad been said, formally, of the disposition, toward the King, of either the Congress or of its individual members.