From Diary of the American Revolution, Vol I. Compiled by Frank Moore and published in 1859.
They are very weak, who flatter themselves that in the state to which things have come, the colonies will be easily conquered by force alone. The persons who now govern the resolutions of what they call the Continental Congress, feel in themselves, at this moment, a degree of importance, which, perhaps, the greatest subjects in Europe scarce feel. From shop-keepers, tradesmen, and attorneys, they are become statesmen and legislators, and are employed in contriving a new system of government for an extensive empire, which they flatter themselves will become, and which, indeed, seems very likely to become, one of the greatest and most formidable that ever was in the world. Five hundred different people, perhaps, who in different ways act immediately under the Continental Congress; and five hundred thousand, perhaps, who act under those five hundred, all feel, in the same manner, a proportionable rise in their own importance. Almost every individual of the governing party in America, fills at present, in his own fancy, a station superior not only to what he had ever filled before, but to what he had ever expected to fill; and unless some new object of ambition is presented, either to him or to his leaders, if he has the ordinary spirit of a man, he will die in defence of that station. 1
1 Middlesex Journal, April 6, 1776.