The signers of that Address, the first movement concerning Independence in the Provincial Congress, stated that they were devoted friends to their bleeding country ; that they were afflicted by beholding her struggling under heavy loads of oppression and tyranny, and the more so, when they viewed the iron hand lifted up against her; that their Prince was deaf to Petitions for interposing his Royal authority for redressing their grievances; that one year had not sufficed to satisfy the rage of a cruel Ministry, in their bloody pursuits designed to reduce them to be slaves taxed by them, without their consent; that, therefore, they rather wished to separate from, than to continue connected with, such oppressors; and they declared that if the Provincial Congress should think proper to instruct their Delegates in the Continental Congress to use their utmost endeavors, in that august assembly, to cause these United Colonies to become independent of Great Britain, it would give them the highest satisfaction ; and they sincerely promised to support the same with their lives and fortunes. 1

A snow-storm in Summer would not have been more unwelcome to the cultivators of the soil, than that Address was to the Provincial Congress, since Independence and the much coveted Reconciliation with Great Britain were wholly irreconcilable ; and, without even the usual courtesy of a consideration of either the Address or the very important subject to which it related, by a Committee of the Congress -- why should "the poor reptiles" who had written and presented such an Address receive such attention and enjoy such consideration as a reference of their Address and of their plea to a Committee of the Congress, would have indicated, although such a reference was usual and nothing more than respectful in matters of so much importance ? -- an Answer was made by the President of the Congress, orally ; and a copy of it was evidently given to Lewis Thibou [Louis Tiebout, ?] by whom the Address had been read, at the head of " a number of citizens who style "themselves a 'Committee of Mechanics,'" before the Provincial Congress itself.