This was the moment "that showed the firmness and the purity of Jay ; the darker the hour, "the more he stood ready to cheer; the greater the danger, the more " promptly he stepped forward to guide. He had insisted on the doubt- " ful measure of a second Petition to the King with no latent weakness of "purpose or cowardice of heart. The hope of obtaining redress had " gone ; he could, now, with perfect peace of mind, give free scope to the "earnestness of his convictions. Though it had been necessary for him "to perish as a martyr, he could not and he would not swerve from his " sense of duty. ' ' -- {History of the United States, original edition, viii., 439 ; the same, centenary edition, v., 305.)

The entire reply to the Convention of Virginia, excluding the date and the signature, occupies twelve lines of a narrow column, including the half-lines of two paragraphs. All which it contained, concerning Independence, was a formal acknowledgment of the receipt of the letter and of the Resolutions, " which were immediately communicated to the Con - "gre8s of this Colony, and will be considered by them with all the de- " liberation due to the importance of the subject." Nothing more than that wassaid or done, on the subject of Independence, in connection with the Resolutions from Virginia, nor in connection with anything else, relative to that subject, until the Congress was crowded into a consideration of it, by an entirely different agency, several days afterwards.