officers. The loss of the inhabitants was inconsiderable.

Compelled, therefore, to behold thousands of our countrymen imprisoned, and men, women, and children involved in promiscuous and unmerited misery; when we find all faith at an end, and sacred treaties turned into tricks of state; when we perceive our friends and kinsmen massacred, our habitations plundered, our houses in flames, and their once happy inhabitants fed only by the hand of charity, who can blame us for endeavouring to restrain the progress of desolation? Who can censure our repelling the attacks of such a barbarous band? Who, in such circumstances, would not obey the great, the universal, the divine law of self-preservation?

Though vilified as wanting spirit, we are determined to behave like men; though insulted and abused, we wish for reconciliation; though defamed as seditious, we are ready to obey the laws; and though charged with rebellion, will cheerfully bleed in defence of our Sovereign in a righteous cause. What more can we say? What more can we offer?

But we forbear to trouble you with a tedious detail of the various and fruitless offers and applications we have repeatedly made, not for pensions, for wealth, or for honours, but for the humble boon of being permitted to possess the fruits of honest industry, and to enjoy that degree of liberty to which God and the Constitution have given us an undoubted right.

Blessed with an indissoluble union, with a variety of internal resources, and with a firm reliance on the justice of the Supreme Disposer of all human events, we have no doubt of rising superiour to all the machinations of evil and abandoned Ministers. We already anticipate the golden period, when liberty, with all the gentle arts of peace and humanity, shall establish her mild dominion in this Western world, and erect eternal monuments to the memory of those virtuous patriots and martyrs, who shall have fought and bled, and suffered in her cause.

Accept our most grateful acknowledgments for the friendly disposition you have always shown towards us. We know that you are not without your grievances. We sympathize with you in your distress, and are pleased to find that the design of subjugating us has persuaded Administration to dispense to Ireland some vagrant rays of Ministerial sunshine. Even the tender mercies of Government have long been cruel towards you. In the rich pastures of Ireland, many hungry parricides have fed and grown strong to labour in its destruction. We hope the patient abiding of the meek may not always be forgotten; and God grant that the iniquitous schemes of extirpating liberty from the British Empire, may be soon defeated. But we should be wanting to ourselves; we should be perfidious to posterity; we should be unworthy that ancestry from which we derive our descent, should we submit, with folded arms, to military butchery and depredation, to gratify the lordly ambition, or sate the avarice of a British Ministry. In defence of our persons and properties, under actual violation, we have taken up arms; when that violence shall be removed, and hostilities cease on the part of the aggressors, they shall cease on our part also. For the achievement of this happy event, we confide in the good offices of our fellow-subjects beyond the Atlantick. Of their friendly disposition, we do not yet despond; aware, as they must be, that they have nothing more to expect from the same common enemy, than the humble favour of being last devoured.

Adjourned till to-morrow, at eight o’clock.

Saturday, July 29, 1775.

Met according to adjournment.

The Congress resumed the consideration of the Report from the Committee of the Whole, and came to the following Resolution:

Resolved, That the pay of the Commissary-General of Musters be forty Dollars per month.

That the pay of the Deputy Commissary-General of Stores and Provisions be sixty Dollars per do.

Deputy Adjutant-General, fifty Dollars per do.

Deputy Mustermaster-General, forty Dollars per do.

Brigade-Major, thirty-three Dollars per do.

Commissary of Artillery, thirty Dollars per month.

Judge Advocate, twenty Dollars per do.

Colonel, fifty Dollars per do.

Lieutenant-Colonel, forty Dollars per do.

Major, thirty-three Dollars and one-third per do.

Captain, twenty Dollars per do.

Lieutenant, thirteen Dollars and one-third per do.

Ensign, ten Dollars per do.

Sergeant, eight Dollars per do.

Corporal, Drummer, and Fifer, each seven Dollars and one-third per do.

Private, six Dollars and two-thirds per do.

Adjutant, eighteen Dollars and one-third per do.

Quartermaster, eighteen Dollars and one-third per do.

Chaplain, twenty Dollars per do.

That the pay of the Light-Infantry be the same as that in the Regiment, from a Captain to a Private, both included.

That in the Artillery, the pay of a Captain be twenty-six Dollars and two-thirds per month.

Captain-Lieutenant, twenty Dollars per do.

First and Second Lieutenants, eighteen Dollars and one-third per do.

Lieutenant-Fireworker, thirteen Dollars and one-third per do.

Sergeant, eight Dollars and one-third per do.

Corporal, seven Dollars and a half per do.

Bombardier, seven Dollars per do.

Matrosses, six Dollars and five-sixths of a Dollar per do.

That the appointment of Provost-Marshal, Wagon-Master, and Master Carpenter, be left to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, who is to fix their pay, having regard to the pay such receive in the Ministerial Army, and the proportion that the pay of the Officers in said Army bears to the pay of our Officers.

William Tudor, Esquire, was elected Judge Advocate of the Army.

Resolved, That Michael Hillegas and George Clymer, Esquires, be, and they are hereby appointed joint Treasurers of the United Colonies; that the Treasurers reside in Philadelphia, and that they shall give bond, with surety, for the faithful performance of their office, in the sum of One Hundred Thousand Dollars, to John Hancock, Henry Middleton, John Dickinson, John Alsop, Thomas Lynch, Richard Henry Lee, and James Wilson, Esquires, and the survivor of them, in trust for the United Colonies.

That the Provincial Assemblies or Conventions do each choose a Treasurer for their respective Colonies, and take sufficient security for the faithful performance of the trust.

That each Colony provide ways and means to sink its proportion of the Bills ordered to be emitted by this Congress, in such manner as may be most effectual and best adapted to the condition, circumstances, and usual mode of levying taxes in such Colony.

That the proportion or quota of each Colony be determined according to the number of inhabitants, of all ages, including negroes and mulattoes in each Colony; but, as this cannot at present be ascertained, that the quotas of the several Colonies be settled, for the present, as follows, to undergo a revision and correction when the list of each Colony is obtained:

That each Colony pay its respective quota in four equal annual payments; the first payment to be made on or before the last day of November, which will be in the year of our Lord, 1779; the second on or before the last day of November, 1780; the third on or before the last day of November, 1781; and the fourth and last, on or before the last day of November, 1782. And that for this end the several Provincial Assemblies or Conventions provide for laying and levying Taxes in their respective Provinces or Colonies, towards sinking the Continental Bills; that the said Bills be received by the Collectors in payment of such taxes, and be by the said Collectors paid into the hands of