The English notion of the way in which the proclamation was made may be learned from Edward Bernard's contemporary folio _Hist. of England_ (p. 689), where a large print represents an uncovered man on horseback reading a scroll to a crowd in the street, called "The manner in which the American Colonies declared themselves independent of the King of England throughout the different provinces on July 4, 1776." The reading took place in New York July 9th (Bancroft, ix. 36), and in Boston July 18th (_Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 183). Moore's _Diary of the Rev._, i. (1776), records from contemporary journals the way in which it was received in various places. A letter of Major F. Barber in the _New Jersey Hist. Soc. Proc._, v., shows how the reception of the news was observed at Fort Stanwix.]
For the convention in New York, see _Debates of the N. Y. Conventions_ (1821), App., p. 691; Flanders's _Life of Jay_, ch. 8; and Sparks's _Gouverneur Morris_.[717] For Georgia, see C. C. Jones's _Georgia_, ii. ch. 13. Jameson (p. 138) outlines the peculiar circumstances of the early constitutional history of Vermont. Massachusetts was the last (1780) of the original States to frame a constitution. (See _John Adams's Works_, iv. 213; ix. 618.) Adams drafted the constitution presented by the committee, which was printed as _Report of a Constitution or form of government_,[718] and is printed without embodying the Errata in _John Adams's Works_ (iv. 219), which copies it from the Appendix of the _Journal of the Convention_ (Boston, 1832), where it was also printed in that defective manner.[719]
John Adams, in his _Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America_ (1787,—in _Works_, iv. 271), set forth the views which influenced largely the framers of many of the constitutions of the States. Connecticut and Rhode Island retained their original charters through the war.
This action of the States rendered easier a plan of confederation, which seems to have been proposed by Franklin as early as Aug. 21, 1775. On July 12, 1776, a plan in Dickinson's handwriting, based on Franklin's, was reported, and was finally adopted by Congress, Nov. 15, 1777 (_Journals_, ii. 330), which was ratified by all the States in 1778 except Delaware (1779) and Maryland (1781), at which last date it became obligatory on all.[720]