Philadelphia, 4 October, 1776.
I am seated in a large library room with eight gentlemen round about me,
all engaged in conversation. Amidst these interruptions, how shall I
make it out to write a letter?
The first day of October, the day appointed by the charter of
Pennsylvania for the annual election of Representatives, has passed
away, and two counties only have chosen members, Bucks and Chester. The
Assembly is therefore dead and the Convention is dissolved. A new
Convention is to be chosen the beginning of November. The proceedings of
the late Convention are not well liked by the best of the Whigs. Their
Constitution is reprobated, and the oath with which they have endeavored
to prop it, by obliging every man to swear that he will not add to, or
diminish from, or any way alter that Constitution, before he can vote,
is execrated.
We live in the age of political experiments. Among many that will fail,
some, I hope, will succeed. But Pennsylvania will be divided and
weakened, and rendered much less vigorous in the cause by the wretched
ideas of government which prevail in the minds of many people in it.