New York will, most probaply, on Monday taken on the 2d of July; but both, when the next, when its Convention meets for forming a decision was made, acquiesced in the measure Constitution, join in the measure, and then it will and gave it their earnest, firm, and cordial be entitled "the unanimous Declaration of the support. Before the middle of July Mr. thirteen United States of America." Dickinson marched with the regiment he comNew York did join in the measure in a few manded to Elizabethtown, in New Jersey, days. In the mean while the "Declaration where he remained until they were discharged in the following September. In the mean time by the Representatives" was, as ordered by Congress, authenticated. This was the form a new delegation was chosen by the Pennsylof the authentication: "Signed by order and vania Convention, in which Mr. Morris was in behalf of the Congress. John Hancock, Pres- retained, but Mr. Dickinson was not re-chosident. Attest: Charles Thomson, Secretary." Morris was in the Congress and signed the On the 2d of August, therefore, Robert It bore no other signatures. It was not signed Declaration; but John Dickinson, who was by the members. It was signed by John then not a member, could not sign it. Hancock, by their order and in their behalf. On the 9th of July, when the New York Convention met, they unanimously approved the Declaration, and pledged their lives and fortunes to unite with the other Colonies in supporting it. Unanimity was thus and by these means "attained." The New York resolutions were laid before the Continental Congress on the 15th of July. On the 19th of July Congress passed the following resolution: Resolved, That the Declaration passed on the 4th be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title and style of "The unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America;" and that the same, when engrossed, be signed. by every member of the Congress. en. There was another member of Congress who was opposed to independence-Mr. John Alsop, of New Yook. But he appears to have been actually opposed to independence, not at that time only, but at any time. On the 15th of July, when the resolutions of the New York Convention of the 9th approving the Declaration were read in Congress, Mr. Alsop was highly offended. The next day he addressed a letter to the Convention, expressing his dissatisfaction at the course which had been pursued. In this letter he says: I am compelled, therefore, to declare that it is against my judgment and inclination. As long as a door was left open for a reconciliation with Great Britain upon honorable and just terms, I was willing and ready to render my country all This was the first order for signing the Dec- the service in my power, and for which purpose laration of Independence. The order on the I was appointed and sent to this Congress; but 4th was that it be authenticated and printed; as you have, I presume, by that Declaration and even now the order was not that it be closed the door of reconciliation, I must beg signed by the members present on the 4th of leave to resign my seat as a delegate from New July or on any other day; it was to be "sign-York, and that I may be favored with an answer ed by every member of the Congress." and my dismission. On the 22d of July the Convention On the 2d of August the Journal says: "The Declaration of Independence, being engrossed and compared at the table, was Resolved unanimously, That the Convention do signed by the members." It was then signed cheerfully accept of Mr. Alsop's resignation of by the members present on that day, including his seat in the Continental Congress, and that of course the new members who had taken Mr. Alsop be furnished with a copy of this reso their seats since the 4th of July. But such of lution. the old members as had left the Congress before the 2d of August and did not return before the end of the year could not sign it. Of course Mr. Alsop, though one of the members present on the 4th of July, did not sign the Declaration. The Declaration was not "signed by every member present" on the 4th of July "except only Mr. Dickinson." This will explain why Mr. Dickinson's name is not found among the signers of the Declaration. He was not in Congress on the 2d of August, 1776, when it received its first signatures, nor afterwards in that year. But, Thomas M'Kean, of Delaware, was present because his name is not there, it is by no in the Congress of the 2d of July, and voted means to be inferred that he was in the slight- for the Resolution of Independence, yet his est degree disaffected to the cause. John name was not subscribed to the Declaration in Dickinson, like Robert Morris, opposed inde- 1776. Like John Dickinson he commanded pendence on the ground that at that time such a regiment, and early in July marched to the a measure was premature. On this ground Jerseys. When discharged from his military they both opposed the resolution in debate duties he attended the Convention of Delaand voted against it when the question was ware, which met on the 27th of August to form a State constitution, and was dissolved | July; both were on that day in the Maryland on the 21st of September, 1776, after which Convention, then in session at -Annapolis. he resumed his seat in Congress. On the 8th They were in Congress by the middle of the of November, when the delegates to Congress month, and signed with the other members on from Delaware were chosen by the Assem- the 2d of August, as directed by the resolubly of that State, Mr. M'Keen was not reëlect- tion of the 19th of July. ed; nor was he again appointed a delegate until the 17th of December, 1777. And it was under this order of the 19th of July, "that the Declaration be signed by On the 2d of July five delegates from New every member of the Congress," that Mr. York were present in Congress, namely Geo. Thornton subscribed his name as late as NoClinton, Henry Wisner, William Floyd, Fran-vember. cis Lewis, and John Alsop, as appears by a letter of that date to the Provincial Congress, asking for instructions on the question of independence. Neither Philip Livingston nor Lewis Morris were present on that day. Yet their names are found on the Declaration of the 4th, while those of Clinton and Wisner and Alsop are not found there. The signing by the members was discontinued at the close of the year 1776. On the 18th of January, 1777, the Congress Ordered, That an authenticated copy of the Declaration of Independence, with the names of the members of the Congress signing the same, be sent to each of the United States, and that they be desired to have the same put on record. 1 As the New York delegates had no authority to vote on the question of independence on the 4th of July, they were not authorized In compliance with this order it was printto sign the Declaration on that day. On the ed with the names of the subscribing mem15th, however, when the new instructions bers, and authenticated by the autograph sigwere received, they had full authority to do natures of John Hancock, President, and so; and on the 2d of August such of the Charles Thomson, Secretary, was sent to the delegation as were in the Congress subscribed several States for record, one signature only, their names, to wit: William Floyd, Francis that of Thomas M'Kean, was afterwards Lewis, and Philip Livingston, the latter of added to the Declaration of Independence. whom took his scat in the Congress on the 5th or 6th of July; having, on his representing to the Provincial Congress, on the 26th of June, that his attendance at the Continental Congress was necessary, received permission to leave the Convention after the 29th. So much for Lord Mahon's "History" of the Declaration of Independence. If he has not "vindicated the honor" of England, he has endeavored with a persevering earnestness of purpose, to disparage and throw discredit on the principles and the men of the In his efforts to accom Lewis Morris probably signed in Septem-" opposite cause." ber. On the 26th of August and on the 3d of plish this, (which with him appears to be a December he was in his seat in the New York labor of love,) his pen was guided not by the Convention. In September and October he was in the Continental Congress. honest historian, but by the less scrupulous partisan, with whom the truth of history is at Of those who were present on the 4th of best a secondary consideration. What excuse July, and who did not sign the Declaration, can be offered for him? While a few of his it is sufficient to say that when the New York variations from the truth may be attributed to delegates received authority to sign it, and be- an imperfect knowledge of the American side fore the order for the signing of it by the mem- of the question, there are others for which bers, George Clinton, like John Dickinson, had joined the army, and was in command in the Highlands; and Henry Wisner and Robert R. Livingston were in their seats in the New York Convention. John Alsop, as already stated, resigned. Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll, were neither of them in Congress on the 4th of no such excuse-nor any excuse-can be ad- IN Murray's Railway Reading, a new edition, brought out this edition in a form and at a prico the twenty-fourth, appears of The Rejected Ad- which will exclude all successful rivalry. It condresses, by James Smith and Horace Smith. The tains the author's latest corrections, notes, and copyright of this popular work, "one of the luck-illustrations, with extracts from reviews and iest hits in literature," having recently expired, notices of the work, and the prefaces and adver and more than one announcement of reprinting tisements to former editions. having been made, the publisher has wisely From Fraser's Magazine THE LATEST ACQUISITION OF RUSSIA. THE RIVER Amoor. I sit on the shore and wait for a wind.-Russian Proverb. In the course of last year a large share of public attention was attracted by an expedition sent from the United States to the Pacific Ocean, and its movements * were in Europe, was already navigated by steamboats, and that fortifications were springing up at various points upon its banks, under a flag which was that neither of China nor Japan, while ships of war were gradually as sembling in a noble harbor at its mouth, to which European geographers had not even vouchsafed a name! We have been accustomed to smile with pity and contempt at the costly but apparently useless and insignificant settlements of Russia in Kamtschatka and North America, and to most of us it had never occurred that by a single step in advance, taken at an op States. watched with much interest throughout the whole of Europe, where the belief was universal that the Americans were going to swallow up at a mouthful the ancient and wealthy empire of Japan, without giving any other portune moment, these distant and puny possessions would be converted into a source of power a chance to share the spoil. The truth however seems to have been that Brother Jon-culable danger to England first, and afterenormous strength to Russia, and of incalathan, or rather President Pierce, had begun wards to the United States. to suspect the possibility of an European war, of the English and French squadrons at PeThe reception and found Japan a convenient pretext for equipping a powerful fleet, in time of peace, these settlements have been brought within tropaulovski may serve to convince us that in order that it might be ready to carry out his views upon Central America or Cuba, as also suggest to us the difficulties to be eneasy reach of the arsenals of Russia, and may soon as the thoughts and arms of England countered at the mouth of the Amoor, where, should be fully occupied elsewhere. But in addition to the fortifications, we shall find while the United States Government was pre-ships of war from the Baltic, which have been tending to threaten Japan, a more dangerous repaired and strengthened in the English spoiler, whose encroachments upon the islands of that empire have been going on for many built for Russia in the harbors of the United dockyards, and large and well-armed steamers years, was actually at work close by, and it is to be regretted that neither the British Government nor that of the United States found time to cast their eyes upon the landlocked sea, a little further to the north. Had they done so, they would have observed that the Sea of Okotsk receives the waters of one of the noblest rivers of the Old World, and of fers advantages as great and a position as impregnable as will be afforded by the Baltic and the Black Seas, when their shores and outlets shall have fallen under the dominion of a single sovereign. They would have seen that a chain of posts had been gradually established on the islands, formerly belonging to Japan, which divide the Sea of Okotsh from the ocean; and also that the harbor at the favorite national Russian motto, and it has month of the Amoor or Sagalin River was never been better exemplified than in the already being fortified, and threatened to long enduring patience and watchful perequal in strength either Cronstadt or Sebas-ited in its efforts to appropriate the valley of severance which that Government has exhibtopol, with incalculable seperiority in position, the Amoor. The first attempt was made soon soil, and climate over each of those strong after the middle of the seventeenth century, holds. They would have observed that a riv- when the Russians built some forts on its er, the name of which is scarcely ever heard banks; but at that time the Manchou rulers of China, although they had scarcely consoli"As they (the Russians) have taken posses- dated their power, would by no means consent sion of Rakko Seina, and resort to Yedrofou and Atskesi, they may easily in time get down to the to yield their birth-place and their patrimo western parts of Yeso, turn their eyes to the north- nial possessions to the despised and but lately west tribes of that country, and so reach Japan. emancipated Czar of Muscovy. They thereYeso is for our kingdom what lips and teeth are for the body. We must therefore be upon our guard. "San Kokf Tsou Ran To Sets (General View of the Five Kingdoms)." A work published by the Committee of the Oriental Translation Fund. The time has at length arrived when the great States of Europe and America must fleets of Russia, or suffer her to become a firsteither cripple the strength and annihilate the the Sea of Okotsk are shut in by no portals rate power on the continent; for her ships in which can be closed at the will of a hostile neighbor, and she has there a position which will secure for her the lion's share in any future spoliation of the Chinese and Japanese Emthe commerce of the East, but also the Indian pires, and will enable her to threaten not only and Australian possessions of Great Britain. a "I sit on the shore and wait for a wind" is fore treated with contempt the ambassadors sent to Pekin by Alexey Michaelovitch, and despatched an army in 1680,, which destroyed the Russian forts and settlements, and brought Her the intruders as prisoners to Pekin. Hence with the affronts she had received. the Russian church and college in that city; design however has never been lost sight of for although it is usually believed that these by the Russian Cabinet, although the ambition were founded in 1728, the truth is that they of Napoleon, the reforms of Sultan Mahmoud, were established for the Russian prisoners and the determined courage of the Circas nearly fifty years earlier, and it was merely sians, have tended to delay its execution. their continuance which was granted by the treaty of Kiakta. The Opium War, which was planned by the cunning and worked out by the agents of In 1685, Golovin was sent by the Czar to re- Russia, in China and elsewhere, gave her an gain by diplomacy what had been lost by arms, admirable opportunity for sending an embassy but it took him two years to reach the frontiers to Pekin, and for making large professions of of China, and he had to wait two years more friendship, as well as liberal offers of assistance. at Selenginsk for the arrival of the Chinese She induced the Chinese to believe that she envoys, who were to treat with him. When was on the very point of going to war with the latter appeared, they were provided with England; and when Commissioner Lin arrivarguments which were too potent even for ed at Canton, he anxiously inquired "whether Muscovite craft, for their suite consisted of hostilities had not already broken out between 12,000 men, accompanied by a large force of Russia and England." And the English artillery. The consequence was that Golovin Superintendent, Captain Elliot, was so conwas compelled to cede all claim to the valley vinced of her interference, that he did not of the Amoor, and to accept the rugged and hesitate to attribute to it "the increasing inalmost impassable mountain chain, in some disposition of the Chinese to trade by the seaplaces several hundred miles to the north of shores." But neither her promises nor the it, as the boundary between the two empires. necessities of the Chinese Government were This treaty was signed on the 27th of August, yet sufficient to enable her to obtain permis1689, and down to the year 1852 the Russians, sion to navigate the Amoor, and in spite of in spite of constant efforts, had succeeded in the efforts she had been making to discipline effecting only some insignificant encroach- the wild horsemen of Tartary and Siberia, she ments to the south of the great Yablounoi wisely abstained from seizing upon the prey she had so long coveted, for she was not range. It seems scarcely credible to us that a cen- ignorant of the fate of the Nepaulese and tury ago the Chinese were a martial and vic- Sikh invaders of Tibet. torious nation; but it was only in 1750 that The Nepaulese overran Tibet in 1792, and they conquered Zungary, took Kashgar and took Teshoo Loomboo. The Grand Lama, Yarkend, which they keep to this day, who escaped with difficulty, applied to the threatened with subjugation the whole of English for assistance, but met with an immeCentral Asia, and spread terror to the Cas-diate refusal. The Chinese Emperor however pian. Their progress however was stopped was not long in sending aid to the Head of by Achmet, the sovereign of Affghanistan, his Faith and to his peace-loving followers. who marched to the assistance of his brother On the approach of his troops, who were Mussulmans-entered into negotiations with marched in haste from the frontiers of Tartary, the invaders, and induced them to retire; but the Nepaulese retreated, carrying with them their lust of conquest was by no means satiat- the accumulated wealth which they had found ed, for in 1758 they invaded Siberia, and in the monasteries. But they were overtaken caused serious apprehensions to the Gov- by the Chinese troops, and, after suffering two ernment of St. Petersburg. Nineteen years severe defeats, escaped into their own country. later, owing to the protection granted by the The Chinese, who were not satisfied with the Chinese Emperor to several hundred thousand chastisement they had inflicted on the invaders, Calmucks, who escaped from their Russian op- forced the frontier post of Coti, and entered pressors by flying from the banks of the Nepaul. The Nepaulese, in their turn, apVolga, in the winter of 1771, and in conse-plied to the English for their aid or good of quence of the ineffable contempt with which fices. And in consequence of their applithe ambassadors sent to reclaim them were cation, Captain Kirkpatrick, said to be the received, the Empress Catherine determined first Englishman who ever entered Nepaul, to invade China. Her design was to march was sent thither as our ambassador. The an army into the valley of the Amoor, at the Chinese refused to listen to his mediation, and same time that she sent ships of war all the received his interference most unfavorably, for way from the Baltic to co-operate with them they could not forget that we had declined all at its mouth. But the distance and the dif ficulties of transport, or, more probably, unceasing pre-occupations nearer home, frustrated her project, and compelled her to put up *See "Captain Bingham's Narrative." † See "Despatch to Lord Palmerston," dated Canton, April 13th, 1839. aid to the Grand Lama, nor could they be miles, is formed by the junction of two rivers, convinced that we were not now assisting their one of which rises in Mongolia and the other enemies. They therefore continued to follow has its source in the Siberian province of up their success, and it was only when the Irkutsk, at no great distance from the Lake Nepaulese made the most abject submission, of Baikal, the waters of which flow by the undertook to restore all their spoil, promised Yenisei, into the Frozen Ocean. The most to pay tribute, and consented to cede Sikkim, important of its tributaries is the Songari, which lies between Nepaul and Botan and which rises in the mountains to the north of borders on Bengal, that they could be induced Corea, and is almost as noble a river as itself. to retire. The only result of our interference Cannon and stores are already carried down was that the Chinese Government immediately the Amoor by steamboats,* and sent from its put an end to all intercourse between Bengal mouth to the Russian possessions in America; and Tibet. and it may, at no distant day, be one of the The Sikh invasion, which took place shortly great channels of European and Asiatic comafter the close of the Affghan and during the merce, for the water communication between Opium War, was equally disastrous. Their the Baltic and the Caspian has long been army, consisting of 12,000 disciplined troops, complete, and, according to Cottrell, only 400 crossed the mountains from Cashmere, and versts, or 260 miles, of additional canal, will invaded the province of Ladak. They quick-be required to connect the Pacific with the ly took possession of Leh of Lassa, the capital Caspian. of Little Tibet, for they met with scarcely any It is a marvel even in the history of Rus resistance from a people who for ages had re-sian diplomacy and Russian success, that at a quired neither soldiers to defend their country | moment when she is an object of jealousy and nor police to protect their property; and a cause of alarm to every European and whose rulers, the priest of Buddha, were for- Asiatic people, and is actually at war with bidden by their religion to deprive any three great empires, she should have been creature of life. It was not until after the able to secure such an acquisition as the Sikhs had held quiet possession of the country Amoor, and at the same time so nearly to for two years that a Chinese force arrived to expel them; and the invaders were so completely defeated in the first battle, that out of the 12,000 only between two and three hundred stragglers are said to have escaped, by making their way over the higher passes of the Himaleh Mountains, into the territories of Great Britain or Nepaul. complete a gigantic system of inland communication, 8000 miles in length, without more than a vague rumor of her design having reached the enlightened and far-seeing nations of the West. Should they suffer her to consolidate this her latest conquest, they will soon discover that the course of commerce has been changed, the balance of power altered, It is evident that the present great rebellion and that the giant, whom they vainly imagin in China owes much of its importance and ed to be still fettered by the Sound and the success to some foreign agency, but it is not Bosphorus, has shaken off his chains, and can yet certain whether that agency is Russian or defy with impunity the navies of England, American, or both combined. One thing France, and the United States. But although however is clear, namely that Russia is the Russia has made this great advance towards only power which has yet known how to profit the universal dominion which has been for by it; for since its commencement she has centuries the aim and object of her craft and obtained, from the embarrassments of the her ambition, yet was she never in so danCourt of Pekin, a treaty yielding to her the gerous and so critical a position as at this monavigation of the Amoor, and she has already ment. It is true that the war she has proconverted that permission into absolute pos- voked has not been the signal for revolt session of the whole course of the river and an enormous tract of country, above 1000 miles in length and in some parts as much as 500 in breadth. But, in addition to the mere extension of territory, she has acquired the exclusive ownership of the Yablounoi Mountains. from which her subjects have already procured large quantities of gold and silver by the rudest methods, and which are said to surpass in mineral wealth anything that has yet been discovered in California or Australia. And, what is to her of far greater importance, she has gained access to the Pacific Ocean, in temperate climate. a The Amoor, which has a course of 2240 amongst the disaffected millions whom she rules with a rod of iron, that it has only crip pled-not destroyed-her commerce. But it has had one effect, the consequences of which may be fatal to her. It has aroused the people of England from their ignorance and their indifference, and if their new-born determination to put a final stop to the aggressions of Russia should find an earnest and faithful *We heard, two years ago, that twelve steamers built in Sweden were sent by canal to the Cas pian, to be taken to pieces on its eastern shore, and to be thence transported by land to the Sea of gating the Amoor. Aral. These are probably the vessels now navi. |