officer, and afterwards, when he had executed his commission, to appoint a Committee to examine if he was fit for his post. I think the examination should have been prior to the commission, and that after executing that commission they should order a younger officer of the same rank to take the command of the fortresses, vessels, &c, conquered, plainly indicates the loss of their confidence, and is a most disgraceful reflection on him and the body of troops he commands, which is a sufficient inducement to resign, not to mention the very great hardship on the private men, who, having served well near two months, are now to be mustered, and if, by sickness or hard labour, they are reduced and fit for service, and of course do not pass muster, they are to lose their former time and service, and reduced to the distress of begging their bread until they can get home to their friends.

The last objection I have to make is, that I have so far lost the confidence of the Congress, that they have declined sending me money, as was promised by Captain Brown, to discharge the small and unavoidable debts I have contracted for necessaries for the use of the Army, for which my own credit is at stake, and I am reduced to the necessity of leaving the place with dishonour, or waiting until I can send home and discharge those debts out of my private purse. The latter of which I am determined to do, though I have already advanced one hundred Pounds, lawful money, out of my private purse. All which reasons I believe will be thought a sufficient inducement for me to decline holding my commission longer.

I am, Gentlemen, your most humble servant,

BENEDICT ARNOLD.

Messrs, Spooner, Foster, and Sullivan, present.

Ticonderoga, June 28, 1775.

HONOURABLE GENTLEMEN: Agreeable to your motion and encouragement when present at this place, together with a view of quickening the minds of the soldiers of my Company, I herewith present you with an account of the several proportions of time each person named in the payroll have actually served in my Company in the present northern expedition, together with the several capacities in which they have severally served, and have endeavoured, to the utmost of my ability, to exhibit it with impartiality and exactness. And if mistake is found in exhibiting the particular sum of the different capacity in which either has served, I hope it will be imputed solely to inadvertence, as I have not a form of the establishment of the Massachusetts-Bay at command; therefore, should you find, on examination, any mistake of the kind, beg the favour you would please to make such additions to, or substractions from, as is equitable, agreeable to the form as established for that Province.

I have received seven Pounds and four Shillings, and my Lieutenant, Mr. Satterlee, sixteen Pounds and eight Shillings, amounting, in the whole, to twenty-three Pounds and twelve Shillings, lawful money, from Colonel Arnold, for the use of the soldiers in my Company, which you will either please to deduct from the foot of the pay-bill, and discharge me for the same from him, or send the whole contents, with directions to me to repay him, which I shall readily comply with, which I humbly submit to your wisdom.

I have sent no account in the pay-bill for extra expense in enlisting a Company, for billeting, and otherwise supplying my soldiers in a forced march, &c, nor included any allowance therein for good Mr. Satterlee’s extra fatigue and faithfulness as Adjutant of the Regiment; but leave it to some future period, not doubting such ample reward will be made as is provided for others in like capacity in your Government.

Your paying the amount of the pay-bill to Lieutenant William Satterlee, the hearer, with his receipt on the back therefor, shall be your sufficient discharge for so much received for the use of my Company, and the favours shall be ever gratefully acknowledged by, gentlemen, your most obedient and very humble servant,

JONAS FAY,

By order and in behalf of SAMUEL HERRICK, Captain.

Honourable Walter Spooner, Jedediah Foster, and James Sullivan, Esquires, Committee, &c, for the Province of Massachusetts-Bay.

Ordnance Stores at CROWN POINT, JUNE 23, 1775.

Seven punches for vents of guns, 14 wooden setters, 3 scoops for shells, 1 pair brass scales, 14 mallets for driving fuzes, 1 set of measures for powder, 310 pounds of slow match, 118 pounds shot, 580 twelve-pound shot, 580 nine-pound shot, 580 six-pound shot, 1,430 grape shot, 68 shells for an eight-inch howitzer, 370 shells, 6 sponges with ramrods, 6 wagon bodies, 906 wheels of all sorts, 22 wadhooks with ramrods, 1 cross-cut saw, 1 mill whipsaw.

At TICONDEROGA.—Three guns and triangle, 1 reparable and 3 useless, 6 gages for shot for twelve-pounders, 3 copper hoops, 6 copper ladles, 12 iron ladles, shells, shot, &c, in vast quantities.

Colonel Arnold informs that he has just bought four oxen for use, price twenty-eight Pounds; six cows, at four Pounds per head, and twenty sheep; which he will turn over to the Connecticut forces, if the Commander-in-Chief will receive them.

Also, further informs he has engaged twenty seamen, two armourers, and two gunners.

THEODORE ATKINSON TO NEW-HAMPSHIRE CONGRESS,*

Portsmouth, New-Hampshire, July 6, 1775.

GENTLEMEN: In answer to your request touching my delivery of the records and files belonging to, and now in the Secretary’s office of this Province, I beg leave to acquaint you that I am, by His Majesty’s special commission, appointed Secretary of this Province during His Majesty’s pleasure and my residence in this Province; and agreeable thereto I was admitted and sworn into that office, and had the keeping the archives belonging thereto delivered to me, and put under my direction and in my keeping. You cannot but see my honour and my oath forbids my consent

* COPY OF A LETTER PREPARED FOR THE CONGRESS AT EXETER BY MR. ATKINSON, BUT NOT FORWARDED.

GENTLEMEN: I have seen your appointment and directions from the Provincial Congress to receive from me the records and files of the Secretary’s office. This delivery by me would be a transaction that I dare not be a volunteer in. My appointment is by His Majesty’s special commission to be Secretary of this Province, and to hold the same during His Majesty’s pleasure and my residence in the same; by which appointment I execute that office in the different branches of duty, viz: as recording the transactions of the General Assembly, and of the Governour and Council when they meet on any other or special occasion; also, when they sit as a Court of Appeals from the Courts of the Common Law in this Province, or from sentences of the Courts of Probate of Wills, &c. I am also to give every vessel a certificate and passport that she is regularly cleared outwards. These are all separate branches of the Secretary’s office, and I am under oath to keep the game agreeable to the directions of the law in all things whereunto that office hath relation; and thus the records, &c, are committed to my care and trust, &c.

Now, gentlemen, consider my situation. If I am active, and voluntarily deliver these archives so committed to my care without proper authority, am I not criminal? In this Province I know there is not above one single precedent of this nature, and that not a parallel. This happened in Governour Cranfield’s time, or soon after he abdicated the chair of government of this Province. A number of men armed attacked the Secretary’s office, (one Chamberlain then Secretary,) and forced from him all the records and files thereof, not only what is now esteemed the Secretary’s office, but also what is now called the Recorder’s, such as deeds and conveyances of freehold estates; also, those of the Court of Probate of W ills, &c, and the several Courts of Common Law, General Sessions of the Peace, &c, &c. What confusion this transaction occasioned is not to Be conceived. All the archives of the Province thus held in the hands of the multitude, and which so remained till the glorious revolution in King William and Queen Mary’s time, when a general amnesty took place, &c, &c. Notwithstanding, those records and files have never, to this day, found the way to their respective offices, but still remain (what is left of them) in that confused condition to this time; and doubtless many widows and or-phans, as well as others, have met great disadvantages, and suffered much loss. If you turn your thoughts to the present distrossing situation of North America—two armies of twelve or fifteen thousand men each, and both His Majesty’s subjects, now encamped within cannon shot of each other, alternately spilling the blood and spreading the carnage of their fellow subjects—these, I think, call for all our thoughts and endeavours how to extricate us without haling into action any affair not likely to contribute to the first and grand affair of peace and harmony between Great Britain and America. If you examine the transactions of the neighbouring Province for precedents, your search, I imagine, will be fruitless. General Gage has been personally at Salem, and though he disapproved the transaction of the town meetings, he never pretended to intermeddle with the records; Cambridge, whose situation is in the midst of the dispute, nor Concord, though that town has been plundered, yet the County or Town records remain unaffected.

For these reasons I cannot think any such power as taking the records from the usual places, &c, was delegated to you in your appointment. I have been thus prolix in giving the reasons why, if the records of the Secretary’s office are taken out of my possession by you, they will be taken without my consent or approbation.

I am, Gentlemen, yours.