agreeable to a Resolve of the honourable Continental Congress. I do authorize and empower you to exercise your said office in a due performance of the duties thereof, in and for the Regiment aforesaid; keep proper accounts, and the same render on oath, when required, according to the trust reposed in you; for which this is a sufficient warrant. Given under my hand and seal at arms, in Lebanon, this 8th day of June, in the fifteenth year of His Majesty’s reign, Annoque Domini 1775.

JONATHAN TRUMBULL.

WILLIAM SCHUYLER, ETC., TO JOHN MARLETT.

Warrensburgh, July 4, 1775.

These may inform you that I received your letter from New-York on the 2d instant. I also received a letter from Mr. Daniel Lane, on the 28th of June, but could not do any thing in it at that time, by reason of the port being so near shut.

As to the people who have signed where I live, there is only one, to wit: John Snuke. Those that have not signed, who have been asked, are, the Reverend John Stuart and Henry Hare. We also hear from the Oneida, that the Indians will not join with Colonel Guy Johnson, nor have any thing to do with him; also, that Abraham C. Cuyler, Mayor of Albany, has gone up to Oswego, under pretence of collecting some debts; but we did not put so much trust in him, as he had two loaded batteaus with him; and sent word immediately to John Fry, Esq., that we apprehended that he had some stores for the enemy against America; which John Fry, Esq., sent word back that their Committee should meet the next day at Van Alsten’s, for business.

From your most obedient and humble servants,

WM, SCHUYLER,
JOHN BLEVIN, Clerk,
JAMES MCMASTER.

To John Marlett, Esq., now at New-York.

N. B. After the above was wrote, we received a letter informing us, that yesterday, at Abraham Hodges’s, there were a company of men met together, and in talking about the troublesome times, Esquire Peter Meetin being present amongst them, in cool blood told them that he had the King’s Proclamation from Governour Gage, to offer any person or persons who would recant from the Association and sign the King’s Proclamation, should be pardoned; and he expected soon to have all their estates to handle.

This may also inform you, that Peter Bowen, on Tripe’s Hill, refuses to sign the Association, and Nicholas Ross.

BROOK WATSON TO THE NEW-YORK CONGRESS.

Lake Champlain, near St. John’s, July 4, 1775.

By the general assistance which your letter to the officers in the service of the Colonies procured me, I am now so near Montreal that I expect to get there this evening, therefore, embrace the opportunity of the returning boat, to make you my thanks for your kind attention to me and my friends; and I pray you, Sir, to make my warmest acknowledgment to your Provincial Congress, for the obliging letter they kindly favoured me with, and for the pleasing expressions in my regard which it contained. A sincere friend to America and its rights I truly am, and as such cannot help expressing my uneasiness at the general spirit which I have observed amongst the Colonies’ Troops quartered at Fort George, Ticonderoga, and Crown Point. They talk and act as if it was fully determined they should soon march into the Province of Quebeck. Surely this, my good Sir, cannot be the intention of the General Congress. If it is not, immediate pains should be taken to suppress the dangerous idea, or it may soon produce the most dangerous consequences. Should the Colonies send their troops into that Province, or should they go without orders, the Canadians and the Indians, their friends, will naturally fall upon your back settlements with fire and sword. Then the King’s Troops on one side, and the Canadians and Indians on the other, what are the Colonists to expect but slaughter. For God’s sake exert every faculty to prevent so great an evil.

I know the body of gentlemen who have so properly chose you for their President are greatly alarmed at the deplorable situation of affairs between Great Britain and her Colonies. America must look forward with the greatest anxiety, and rejoice in any prudent plan for the restoring of harmony and the security of property. I would to God I had a head to contrive, and a pen to persuade what might produce so desirable an event; for the credit and comfort of all their future movements depend upon it. But while liberty and slavery, in their greatest extreme, is the alternative held out by the violent and designing on this side the waters, and submission or destruction the language of the others, what hopes have the people but in the moderation, wisdom, and justice of the General Congress. In their address to His Majesty of last year, they wisely declared that they “asked but for peace, liberty, and safety; that they wished not a diminution of the prerogative; nor did they solicit any new rights in their favour; that his royal authority over them, and their connexion with Great Britain, they would carefully and zealously endeavour to support and maintain.” This declaration breathed the spirit of good subjects, valuing their just rights too much to abuse them; but these sentiments were not constitutionally conveyed to the royal ear.

That Government is ready to receive any fair propositions which may be constitutionally offered, cannot be “doubted, after we consider the Minister’s declaration in Parliament, “that if the dispute in which the Americans are engaged goes to the whole of their authority, they can enter into no negotiation; they can meet no compromise: but if it be only as to the suspension of the exercise of their rights; or as to the mode of laying and levying taxes for a contribution towards the common defence, it might be just as wise to meet any fair proposition which might come from any Province or Colony.”

This declaration, I humbly conceive, clearly points out the line of conduct which the General Congress ought to pursue, as it cannot be the wish of that Assembly to carry matters to an extreme, by which the whole Empire must suffer, and America drove to the last distress. Would they state their real grievances with temper and wisdom; their desires with moderation and justice, in a dutiful memorial to the King, to be transmitted by the Provincial Assemblies to their respective agents in London; such application could not fail to produce the most desirable effects. But if, on the other hand, the Congress should order or suffer the people to proceed to extremes, which I now much fear, nothing but the sword can determine the unnatural contest; and they would soon discover the fatal truth of what hath been so emphatically expressed by the judicious Mr. Glover, “that high sounding words produce no food for the hungry, no raiment for the naked.”

I am, Sir, your obliged humble servant,

BROOK WATSON.

P. V. B. Livingston, President of the Provincial Congress of New-York

P. S. I have received the kindest treatment from Captain Fisher, Colonel Hinman, and Major Elmer.

GOVERNOUR OF RHODE-ISLAND TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

[Read July 11, 1775.]

Providence, July 4, 1775.

SIR: Your letter of the 10th of June last came duly to hand. I wrote immediately to the Delegates from this Colony upon the contents of it, to whom I beg leave to refer you.

I have now to acknowledge the receipt of yours of the 20th of the same month. Immediately after the late battle upon Bunker’s Hill, the remaining forces from the Colony joined the Army near Boston and it appears by a return from the Brigadier-General, that the Army of this Colony consists of thirteen hundred and ninety effective men. We are also equipping two armed vessels, to carry one hundred men, exclusive of officers

Upon a most urgent application from the Provincial Congress of the Massachusetts-Bay, the General Assembly ordered six companies, of sixty men each, to be raised to join the Regiments in the service of this Colony, and have ordered one-fourth part of the Militia to be enlisted as Minute-men. They have also passed an act putting the Troops of this Colony under the command of the General