96 HAYS — DRAUGHT OF DECLARATIOX OF IXDEPEXDEXCE. [Ap. 1, 



pendence as agreed to by the House, and also as originally framed ' ' 

 and with Lee's reply thanking him for the '' inclosurej-." 



If this manuscript copy had been made after the 4th of July it 

 seems most likely that Jefferson would have copied the document as 

 finally adopted by the Congress on that date, or at least would have 

 indicated on the margin all the changes that had been made by the 

 Congress. It also seems probable that the copy of the text as 

 adopted by the Congress, enclosed by Jefferson for purpose of com- 

 parison, was a printed copy, as the document was by order of Con- 

 gress^ immediately put in print, and on the 5th the President trans- 

 mitted copies, probably in the form of a broadside, to several 

 assemblies,^ and it appeared in The Femtsylvania Evening Post, for 

 Saturday, July 6, 1776 (Vol. ii, No. 228); had it been another 

 manuscript copy it would have been preserved by Lee with the same 

 care as he gave to the one now in the possession of this Society. 

 The accompanying copy could not have been the copy in the Em- 

 met Collection now in the Lenox Library, hereafter to be referred 

 to, which is said, also, to have belonged to *Uhe Lee family," 

 since that, too, is a copy of the draught as presented by the Com- 

 mittee and not as adopted by the Congress. 



The marginal notes showing the additions to the text made by 

 the Congress are evidently written by a different hand from the one 

 that wrote the draught, and according to the endorsement, they 

 were written by Arthur Lee. The handwriting appears to be his 

 and I see no reason to doubt the correctness of the statement. 

 Arthur Lee was in Europe, and had been there for some years, when 

 the Declaration was adopted and did not return until September, 

 1780.' From which it would seem certain that at a date subse- 

 quent to this he and R. H. Lee compared the draught written by 

 Jefferson with the document as passed by the Congress and marked 

 the omissions and wrote on the margins the additions. 



It is probable that the endorsement on the document was 

 made some years after it was received, which may account for the 

 erroneous date on it of '' 1777," which error would not be likely 

 to have been made had it been written when received in 1776. 



^ " Resolved, That copies of the Declaration be sent to the several assemblies, 

 conventions and committees or councils of safety, and to the several commanding 

 -officers of the continental troops ; that it be proclaimed in each of the United 

 States, and at the head of the army." 



^ Frothingham, loc. cit., p. 544. 



•*See Life of Arthur Lee, by R, H. Lee, Vol. i, p. 164. 



