Livingston, "a downright, straightforward many" who reminded
Mr. Adams that Massachusetts had once hung some Quakers, affirmed
positively that civil war would follow the renunciation of
allegiance to Britain, and threw out vague hints of the Goths and
Vandals.
Confiding these matters to his "Diary" and keeping his own
opinion, Mr. Adams passed on to Philadelphia. There the
Massachusetts men were cordially welcomed, twice over, but
straightway cautioned against two gentlemen, one of whom was "Dr.
Smith, the Provost of the College, who is looking up to
Government for an American Episcopate and a pair of lawn
sleeves"--a very soft, polite man, "insinuating, adulating,
sensible, learned, insidious, indefatigable," with art enough,
"and refinement upon art, to make impressions even upon Mr.
Dickinson and Mr. Reed." In Pennsylvania, as in every colony, Mr.
Adams found, there was a tribe of people "exactly like the tribe,
in the Massachusetts, of Hutchinsonian Addressers." Some of this
tribe had managed to elbow their way into the committees of
deputies to the Congress, at least from the middle colonies, and
probably from South Carolina as well.
The "most spirited and consistent of any" of the deputies were
the gentlemen from Virginia, among whom were Mr.
Pages:
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216