The Fidgets, the Whims, the Caprice, the Vanity, the Superstition, the Irritability of Some of Us

On this date in 1775:

The Congress resumed the consideration of the petition to the King, which being debated by paragraph, was agreed to, and ordered to be engrossed.

Thus the so-called Olive Branch Petition was passed, to be signed a few days later.

And you know how salty John Adams was about the delay in declaring independence?  Yeah, he was salty about this, too, writing to James Wilson on the 24th:

In Confidence,—I am determined to write freely to you this Time. —A certain great Fortune and piddling Genius whose Fame has been trumpeted so loudly, has given a silly Cast to our whole Doings —We are between Hawk and Buzzard— 

We ought to have had in our Hands a Month ago, the whole Legislative, Executive and Judicial of the whole Continent, and have compleatly moddelled a Constitution, to have raised a Naval Power and opened all our Ports wide, to have arrested every Friend to Government on the Continent and held them as Hostages for the poor Victims in Boston. 

And then opened the Door as wide as possible for Peace and Reconcilliation: After this they might have petitioned and negotiated and addressed, &c. if they would.—Is all this extravagant?—Is it wild?—Is it not the soundest Policy?

And then what happened?

This letter, a letter of JA to AA of the same date...and a letter of Benjamin Harrison to George Washington, 21–24 July, were all three printed in sequence in the Massachusetts Gazette. They were seized by the British when Benjamin Hichborn, the bearer, was captured on Narragansett Bay en route to Massachusetts...Copies of JA's letters were forwarded to England by Adm. Graves, Gen. Gage, and others... 

With the oblique reference to John Dickinson as a “piddling Genius,” this letter brought to a head the conflict between him and JA over whether conciliatory or more vigorous measures should be pursued in the congress. The expression of JA's impatience and frustration was not new, for he had relieved his feelings in earlier letters to Warren and AA... 

Copies of the letters arrived in England on or about 17 Sept. and were immediately printed in Lloyd's Evening Post and British Chronicle, 18–20 Sept., and then in other newspapers as well...Their immediate impact was probably limited, for the king had already, on 23 Aug., proclaimed that the colonies were in rebellion, and the Olive Branch Petition had been submitted to Lord Dartmouth on 1 Sept., in whose hands it died...

RIP, John Adams, you would've loved using Signal...