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Rivington’s Intelligence Extraordinary

From Diary of the American Revolution, Vol II. Compiled by Frank Moore and published in 1859.

October 27.—By letters from Philadelphia, we learn that on the receipt of the last manifesto from the English commissioners, one of the Congress had the resolution to make the following short speech:

“I have listened to this manifesto with great attention, and I am not ashamed to acknowledge that it breathes a spirit of candor and resolution by which I am considerably influenced. No man in this august assembly will dare to express a doubt of my sincere attachment to the true interest of my country. I am convinced that the interest of America is inseparable from that of Britain, and that our alliance with France is unnatural, unprofitable, absurd. I therefore move, that this phantom of independence may be given up.” He had scarcely uttered the words before the President sent a message to fetch the Polish count, Pulaski, who happened to be exercising part of Ms legion in the courtyard below. The count flew to the chamber where the Congress sat, and with his sabre, in an instant severed from his body the head of this honest delegate. The head was ordered by the Congress to be fixed on the top of the liberty pole of Philadelphia, as a perpetual monument of the freedom of debate in the Continental Congress of the United States of America.1

 

1 Rivington’s Royal Gazette, October 28.