| Popis: |
When the Continental Congress penned its eighth article that encouraged frugality and discouraged entertainments, David Douglass did not read about it in the New York newspapers. Rather, Peyton Randolph, the first president of the Congress, personally delivered the bad news to Douglass that informed him the desire had expired and war was likely.1 Both men were in New York at the time—November 1774—one to open a theatre, the other to create a nation. Randolph was the head of that impressive delegate of Virginians who represented the colony in Philadelphia at the first Continental Congress (along with Patrick Henry, George Washington, and Richard Henry Lee); he was also Virginia’s Speaker of the House of Burgesses (prorogued at the time), head of the Virginia militia (quite ready), and had been unanimously elected the first president of the Congress. He was, at the time, one of the most important and respected figures in that formidable assembly, and somehow he knew actor-manager David Douglass, knew him well enough and thought well enough of him to hand-deliver the news at the close of the Congress. Nor was he alone in his acquaintance. Dunlap informs us that the New York Committee of delegates—John Jay, James Duane, and Philip Livingston—also personally confirmed the resolution to Douglass. |
