the badness of bis masts. The time is very short for expecting more prizes, the season being so far advanced. This is one reason for his Excellency’s determination not to fit out more cruisers for the present.

Captain Mariindah’smen, &c., will, I hope, set out this day. It is unnecessary to repeat how anxious his Excellency is to hear of his being at sea.

I am, Sir, your most bumble servant,

S. M OYLAN, Secretary p. t.

To Captain E. Bowen, Jun., Plymouth.

WILLIAM BARTLETT TO GENERAL WASHINGTON.

Beverly, November 8, 1775.

SIR: I have the pleasure of informing your Excellency, that this morning, Sergeant Doak,belonging to Captain Selman,brought in here a sloop and her cargo, consisting of three hundred and seventy quintals of dry fish, seventy barrels of mackerel, three barrels of train oil, one barrel of salmon, by the best accounts I can collect from the people on board. I can find nothing to ascertain the cargo she has by any papers delivered me, the whole of which I send to your Excellency. Sergeant Doak,who will deliver this, can better inform your Excellency than I possibly can.

I shall wait your Excellency’s further orders with regard to her; and am your Excellency’s most obedient bumble servant,

W ILLIAM BARTLETT.

To General Washington.

ADDRESS OF THE GENTLEMEN, ETC., OF THE COUNTY OF STIRLING.

Address of the Gentlemen, Justices of the Peace, Clergy, and Freeholders of the County of Stirling,presented to His Majesty by the Right Honourable Sir Lawrence Qundas,Baronet.

To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.

The humble Address of the Gentlemen, Justices of the Peace, Clergy, and Freeholders, of the County of STIRLING.

We, your Majesty’s faithful subjects, the Gentlemen, Justices of the Peace, Clergy, and Freeholders of the County aforesaid, impressed with the deepest sense of the happiness we enjoy under the reign of a Prince so mild and beneficent, beg leave to approach your throne, with assurances of our warmest gratitude and most faithful allegiance.

We have seen, with equal concern and surprise, many of your Majesty’s Colonies, who derive their origin from Britain,and owe their protection to her arms, influenced and misled by men of turbulent dispositions and democratick principles, oppose, by sedition and tumult, every constitutional act of Government, till at length, throwing aside even the appearance of obedience to the legislative authority of Great Britain,they have openly in the field displayed the ensigns and unsheathed the sword of rebellion.

We trust in your Majesty’s steadiness and wisdom for such an exertion of the power of your Kingdoms as shall effectually enforce submission and obedience from the most refractory: and that no terms of accommodation will be listened to, till, abandoning every idea of resistance, they acknowledge the supreme authority of the Mother Country, in terms the most explicit, and in a manner the most unreserved.

When so desirable a period to the contest shall arrive, we rely, with perfect confidence, on your Majesty’s clemency, for giving to that deluded people as favourable and indulgent terms as your Majesty in your wisdom shall see consistent with the nature of their future dependance on the BritishNation.

We cannot but express our astonishment that there should be found any of our fellow-subjects so infatuated by prejudice, or so insensible to the blessings of regular Government, as to countenance, in the smallest degree, this unprovoked and daring rebellion. We confide in your Majesty’s vigilance for directing such an inquiry into the correspondence from these Kingdoms with the disaffected in America,as shall effectually disconcert and annihilate a practice so unnatural and dangerous.

For our parts, we shall esteem it our highest honour, as it is unquestionably our duty, to hazard our lives and fortunes in the support of the dignity of your Majesty’s crown, and the undoubted rights of the Nation; and shall embrace with ardour every occasion to testify our affection to your Majesty’s person, and attachment to your family.

Signed in the presence and by appointment of ihe meeting, by James Bruce,of Kinaird, Preæes.

JAMES BRUCE.

INSTRUCTIONS TO THE PENNSYLVANIA DELEGATES IN CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

Thursday, November 9, 1775, A.M.

The Committee appointed to prepare and bring in a draught of Instructions for the Delegates of this Province in Congress, reported an Essay for that purpose, which, being read and considered, was agreed to by the House, and is as follows, viz:

“GENTLEMEN: The trust reposed in you is of such a nature, and the modes of executing it may be so diversified in the course of your deliberations, that it is scarcely possible to give you particular instructions respecting it.

“We therefore, in general, direct, that you, or any four of you, meet in Congress the Delegates of the several Colonies now assembled in this City, and any such Delegates as may meet in Congress next year; that you consult together on the present critical and alarming state of puhlick affairs; that you exert your utmost endeavours to agree upon and recommend such measures as you shall judge to afford the best prospect of obtaining redress of Americangrievances, and restoring that union and harmony between Great Britainand the Colonies so essential to the welfare and happiness of both Countries. Though the oppressive measures of the BritishParliament and Administration have compelled us to resist their violence by force of arms, yet we striclly enjoin you, that you, in behalf of this Colony, dissent from, and utterly reject, any propositions, should such be made, that may cause or lead to a separation from our Mother Country, or a change of the form of this Government.

“You are directed to make report of your proceedings to this House.”

Signed by order of the House:

J OHN M ORTON, Speaker.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

I address you by the above title for the want of another; because the line of business you now move in differs as much from the business of an Assembly, acting by virtue of what you call the present Constitution,as if you professedly renounced the name.

But be your title what it may, I cannot help expressing my surprise at seeing, in your votes of the 9th instant, an Essay for instructing the Delegates of this Province respecting their conduct in the Continental Congress, and the said Instructions couched in terms amounting to a command. When I voted at the last election for a Representative in the House in which you now sit, I never meant to invest any of you with such a power, and I protest against your assuming it. The Delegates in Congress are not the Delegates of the Assembly, but of the people, of the body at large. For convenience sake only, we at present consent to your nominating them; but we may as well be without Delegates, if they must act solely under your influence, and thus circumstanced they can only sit there as ciphers.

The Constitution of England,decayed and complicated as it is, never suffers one House to instruct the other; neither doth it permit a person to sit in both Houses. Instruction is as sacredly the right of the people as election. It was your duty to give them all possible information, but nothing further; because, respecting that body of men, you are but as individuals.

As I hope never to see the day when the Continent shall be without a Congress, so I hope in proper season to see a Congress chosen by the people, which may as easily be done as the choosing an Assembly; by which means not only every Colony, but every part of it, will be represented.

As an individual, I have no right to instruct; wherefore,