6004. NORTH (Lord), Proposition of.—
I was under appointment to attend the General
Congress; but knowing the importance of the
answer to be given to the Conciliatory Proposition,
and that our leading whig characters
were then in Congress, I determined to attend
on the Assembly, and, though a young member,
to take on myself the carrying through an
answer to the Proposition. The Assembly met
the 1st of June. I drew and proposed the
answer, and carried it through the House with
very little alteration, against the opposition of
our timid members who wished to speak a different
language. This was finished before the
11th of June, because on that day, I set out
from Williamsburg to Philadelphia, and was the
bearer of an authenticated copy of this instrument
to Congress. The effect it had in fortifying
their minds, and in deciding their measures,
renders its true date important; because
only Pennsylvania had as yet answered the
Proposition. Virginia was the second. It was
known how Massachusetts would answer it;
and the example of these three principal Colonies
would determine the measures of all the
others, and of course the fate of the Proposition.
Congress received it, therefore, with
much satisfaction. The Assembly of Virginia
did not deliver the answer to Lord Dunmore
till late in the session. They supposed it
would bring on a dissolution of their body
whenever they should deliver it to him; and
they wished previously to get some important
acts passed. For this reason they kept it up.
I think Lord Dunmore did not quit the metropolis
till he knew that the answer framed by
the House was a rejection of the Proposition,
though that answer was not yet communicated
to him regularly.—
Notes on M. Soules's Work. Washington ed. ix, 302.
Ford ed., iv, 309.
(P.
1786)
