166 The second Congress. [1775 the key to Canada, won at heavy cost from the French. This was followed immediately by the capture of the small subsidiary post of Crown Point. Before the news of any of these reverses had reached England the Ministry, alarmed by Gage's reports, had taken steps to strengthen their military position at Boston. Gage was superseded by Sir William Howe, who took out with him reinforcements bringing his whole com- mand up to 10,000 men. Howe and his troops reached Boston about the middle of May, 1775. By that time the second Continental Congress was in session at Philadelphia. Their treatment of North's proposals is an effective answer to those who speak of the colonists as loyal and sub- missive subjects, goaded into rebellion by a Ministry who turned a deaf ear to every reasonable complaint. The task of drafting a reply was entrusted to Thomas Jefferson, a young Virginian, who was perhaps more than any other of the popular leaders under the dominion of abstract beliefs in the rights of man. His answer was a rhetorical onslaught on the British government, calculated to fill with despair any one who had any real desire for compromise and peace. To assert any right of taxa- tion was " to leave us without anything we can call property." Not one word was said of the many provocations received by the mother-country. The isolated and irresponsible utterance of a half-mad country member, Van, who said of Massachusetts " Delenda est Carthago" was quoted as expressing the sentiments of the Ministry. On that principle it might have been argued that the American Congress had not merely condoned but advocated armed rebellion a hundred times over. It may well be that North's scheme, as it stood, did not offer any practical solution. But at least it offered a basis for negotiation. The best justification that can be offered for the action of the colonists no doubt lay in the character and antecedents of the King himself. The colonists might feel, much as the Parliamentarians felt respecting Charles I, that the royal conception of public morality and of the relations between sovereign and subject made negotiations impossible. It was in this spirit that Congress drew up vehement and rhetorical appeals for sympathy and support, addressed to the people of Ireland and of Jamaica. To make a general attack on the whole fabric of the British empire was virtually to declare that all desire for reconciliation was at an end. One incident of the Congress was thoroughly characteristic of the temper shown on each side, of the desire of the rebels to comply with, so far as possible, and to utilise constitutional forms, and the ineptitude of the loyalists in letting slip opportunities of protest and resistance. When Congress met, one representative appeared from Georgia, elected not by any representative convention of the colony, but by one parish. Congress, after considering his claim to membership, decided that he might attend and take part in the deliberations, but might not have any voice in the decisions. Georgia plainly was not unanimous. Yet
