to the Provincial Council, that commissions may issue accordingly. That the Colonel or Commanding Officer in such County have power to order two General Musters in every year; and that the Captains shall muster their Companies once a month, the Officers and Soldiers being subject to the same fines and punishments for non-attendance, &c., at these musters, as are directed by law for regulating the Militia.

That an Adjutant be appointed by the Field-Officers of each County, who shall attend on general and private muster of his said County, and shall be paid eight Shillings per day for every day he attends, to be certified by the Commanding Officer of their respective Regiments or Companies.

That the Committees of Safety in their respective Districts, upon any emergency, have power to order the Militia into service; their power to cease, however, in this respect, as soon as the Provincial Council shall meet and issue orders, and that in other respects the Militia be regulated by the law for that purpose; provided, except wherein it is, or may be, contradictory to the Resolutions of the Congress.

And provided also, that every publick Ferry-keeper shall set over ferry free every person who shall attend musters as Militia or Minute-Men, at all such times as they shall be called upon by their respective Officers.

The Order of the Day, that was referred to a Committee of the Whole House, was laid over till to-morrow.

Resolved, That Mr. John Ashe be allowed four Pounds, for so much advanced by him to Stephen Jackson, a Messenger appointed by this Congress to take, and bring in custody, James Cotton and others, before this Congress.

The Congress adjourned till to-morrow morning, nine o’clock.

Friday, September 8, 1775.

The Congress met according to adjournment.

Resolved, That Mr. Willie Jones, Mr. Burke, Mr. Thomas Person, and Mr. Long, be a Committee to state and settle Mr. James Davis’s Account, for services done as Printer to this Province.

Mr. Hooper laid before the House an Address to the Inhabitants of the British Empire; and the same being read was unanimously received, and is as follows, viz:

FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: The fate of the contest which at present subsists between these American Colonies, and the British Ministers who now sit at the helm of publick affairs, will be one of the most important epochs which can mark the annals of the British history. Foreign Nations with anxious expectation wait the result, and see with amazement the blind infatuated policy which the present Administration pursues to subjugate these Colonies, and reduce them, from being loyal and useful subjects, to an absolute dependance and abject slavery; as if the descendants of those ancestors who have shed rivers of blood, and expended millions of treasure, in fixing upon a lasting foundation the liberties of the British Constitution, saw with envy the once happy state of this western region, and strove to exterminate the patterns of those virtues which shone with a lustre that bid fair to rival and eclipse their own.

To enjoy the fruits of our own honest industry; to call that our own which we earn with the labour of our hands, and the sweat of our brows; to regulate that internal policy by which we, and not they, are to be affected; these are the mighty boons we ask. And traitors, rebels, and every harsh appellation that malice can dictate, or the virulence of language express, are the returns which we receive to the most humble petitions and earnest supplications. We have been told that independence is our object; that we seek to shake off all connection with the Parent State. Cruel suggestion! Do not all our professions, all our actions, uniformly contradict this?

We again declare, and we invoke that Almighty Being who searches the recesses of the human heart, and knows our most secret intentions, that it is our most earnest wish and prayer to be restored, with the other United Colonies, to the state in which we and they were placed before the year 1763; disposed to glance over any regulations which Britain had made previous to this, and which seem to be injurious and oppressive to these Colonies, hoping that at some future day she will benignly interpose, and remove from us every cause of complaint.

Whenever we have departed from the forms of the Constitution, our own safety and self-preservation have dictated the expedient; and if in any instances we have assumed powers which the laws invest in the Sovereign, or his representatives, it has been only in defence of our persons, properties and those rights which God and the Constitution have made inalienably ours. As soon as the cause of our fears and apprehensions are removed, with joy will we return these powers to their regular channels; and such institutions, formed from mere necessity, shall end with that necessity that created them.

These expressions flow from an affection bordering upon devotion to the succession of the House of Hanover as by law established, from subjects who view it as a monument that does honour to human nature—a monument capable of teaching Kings how glorious it is to reign over a free people. These are the heartfelt effusions of men ever ready to spend their blood and treasure, when constitutionally called upon, in support of succession of His Majesty King George the Third, his crown and dignity; and who fervently wish to transmit his reign to future ages as the era of common happiness to his People.

Could these our sentiments reach the throne, surely our Sovereign would forbid the horrours of war and desolation to intrude into this once peaceful and happy land, and would stop that deluge of human blood which now threatens to overflow this Colony—blood too precious to be shed but in a common cause against the common enemy of Great Britain and her sons.

This declaration we hold forth as a testimony of loyalty to our Sovereign, and affection to our Parent State, and as a sincere earnest of our present and future intentions.

We hope hereby to remove those impressions, which have been made by the representations of weak and wicked men, to the prejudice of this Colony, who thereby intended that the rectitude of our designs might be brought into distrust, and sedition, anarchy and confusion spread through this loyal Province.

We have discharged a duty which we owe to the world, to ourselves, and to posterity; and may the Almighty God give success to the means we make use of, so far as they are aimed to produce just, lawful and good purposes, and the salvation and happiness of the whole British Empire.

Resolved, That the Treasurers, or either of them, draw on the Continental Treasury, out of the sum directed to be drawn out of the Continental Funds for the use of the Army, five hundred Pounds for each of the three Delegates appointed to attend the Continental Congress in behalf of this Province, instead of the like sum ordered to be paid them out of the Provincial Treasury.

Resolved, That the Continental Troops to be raised in this Province be kept in pay three months, unless the Provincial Council should judge it necessary to continue them longer; and the said Council are empowered to disband them at any time before, or after the term of three months, when they shall judge that their service is unnecessary.

Mr. John Walker is appointed Captain of a Company in the Hillsborough District, in the room of Mr. John Williams, who resigned.

Resolved, That the Recruiting Officers of the Continental Army to be raised in this Province, advance to each Non-commissioned Officer and Soldier who shall be enlisted, forty Shillings, in part of his first month’s pay; that ten Shillings be allowed to each Captain, Lieutenant, or Ensign, for every man which they shall respectively enlist and enrol as a Soldier in the said service, as a full compensation for their expenses in recruiting their men.

Resolved, That Samuel Johnston, Esquire, be, and is hereby appointed Treasurer for the Northern District, and Richard Caswell, Esquire, be, and he is hereby appointed Treasurer for the Southern District; which said Treasurers respectively are invested with the same powers and authorities, and entitled to the same emoluments, and liable to the like fines, penalties and forfeitures, as Treasurers were by an act of Assembly of this Province, passed in the