actual rebellion, attempting to render themselves independent of Great Britain.

We rely, with the fullest confidence, on the wisdom and prudence of your Majesty's councils, and must the most effectual measures will be taken, for restoring peace and tranquillity, upon the most permanent foundation, to all your Majesty's dominions. And we fervently pray for the preservation of your Majesty's Royal person and family, that your reign over us may be long and happy, and that you may ever triumph over the enemies of our most excellent Constitution.

By appointment of the meeting:

JOHN AGNEW, Prases.

THOMAS EWING TO COLONEL WILLIAM SMALLWOOD.

Baltimore, January 10, 1776.

DEAR SIR: With pleasure have I heard of your being much better of your late illness. I hope the bearer, Mr. Joseph Baxter, my Lieutenant, will find you thoroughly recovered. He now waits on you and the Convention, to get the commissions for our company, with orders for inlisting troops. As I suppose it will be found necessary to advance the soldiers a month's pay, or some advance money, you will please procure for him what you think necessary; and I do here engage, to be accountable to you, or the Convention, for any money you give him, on ac-count of our company. I am in hopes I shall have a very respectable company of farmers' sons, as I am determined I will take very few, if any, out of this town. If any troops are to be kept in this town, I am in hopes you will indulge me and my company by staying here.

I am, with due respect, dear Colonel, your most obedient, bumble servant,

THOMAS EWING.

To Colonel William Smallwood.

FREDERICKTOWN (MARYLAND) COMMITTEE TO PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Frederick, January 10, 1776.

SIR: By order of the Committee for the Upper District of Frederick County, I have sent you (under guard) one Doctor Smith; he was taken sometime in November last in company with Doctor Connolly, and confined in Fredericktown, from where he made his escape; since which he has been taken at the Little-Meadows, with the enclosed letters. The Committee has thought proper to send him to the Congress.

I have the honour to be your obedient servant,

SAMUEL HUGHES, President.

To the Honourable John Hancock.

P.S. The guard will expect something for their trouble.

Fredericktown, Maryland, November 24, 1775.

DEAR SIR: Little did I expect, when I last wrote you, that our next correspondence would be from this place, or so soon; but my unaccountable fate, still delights in leading me through numerous and perplexing labyrinths, and in adventures particularly singular and strange. 1 sit down to unbosom myself to my friend, as a relief to an anxiety of mind caused by confinement under a guard for several nights and days, and the painful suspense of as yet not knowing my doom from the Committee of this place; but I find myself very unfit for the task, occasioned by the depression of spirits to which I am often so subject, and the number and confusion of disagreeable ideas that depression raises in my mind, I endeavour to banish them, but in vain. Confinement is death and torture to me; and, to refine on the barbarity of my fate, my guard consists of Germans, whose dissonant jargon of corrupt high Dutch, is not only unintelligible to me, but also so extremely disagreeable, by its cursed noise and harshness, that it distracts my very soul. I often consider that I am in a place where you have enjoyed much satisfaction and agreeable society; but that reflection brings me no comfort, as I am deprived of every benefit of that nature. My two fellow-travellers, my only acquaintance and friends in this place, are, unhappily, in the same, circumstances, and we are separated one form the other, so that, as yet, we are not permitted to see or converse with each other, a circumstance which greatly adds to my pain. However, I shall endeavour to fortify my mind, so as to be able to bear whatever may be my doom. Pain, affliction, losses, misfortunes, and defamation, I am habituated to; they are become familiar; but confinement, which, to me, is more dreadful than death, I am but little able to endure; it is the last, and heaviest of all; but, as it is now my destiny, 1 shall make use of my best efforts to submit to it with patience, and make a virtue of necessity. But it is, indeed, a mortifying reflection, that when, through a crowd of misfortunes, I saw a prospect rise before me, of still doing well, and of attaining all my favourite wishes, it is, I say, a most mortifying reflection, to be then thrown down from this, and to lose every ray of hope—"a long dependance in an hour is lost."*

I have a care, an anxious, deep concern still on my mind, which ought to depend upon me, but, in my situation, am unable to. I must rely on my dear and worthy friend's protection. Your feeling heart can guess whom I mean, and must point out those whom nature itself prompts me to hold dear; remember me to them, with all the affection you can conceive, or they can merit, and assure them, that they

* After these groundless and most ridiculous suspicions were happily cleared up, the whole intention and substance of a secret expedition to the back country, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Connolly, then appointed commandant of the Queen's Royal regiment of Rangers, was disclosed to me, and I was earnestly solicited by the Colonel to ac company him, along with another gentleman named Cameron; to this I most cheerfully consented, and, in the above regiment, we all received oar commissions.

On the day following I received an order to take any vessel in the harbour, and also such of the pilots on board His Majesty's sloop the Otter, as I judged proper, for the use of this expedition.

This circumstance was no small satisfaction to me, as I thereby convinced Captain Squire of my being no spy, as he had alleged; and, on going on board his ship, made choice of two of his best pilots.

When we departed from Norfolk on this expedition, I was obliged to leave behind me my servant and all the property I had been able to bring down there. My servant and horses, which were valuable, were to be sent to the plantation of Mr. Atchison, at Lord Dunmore's request; and the rest of my property I left in the house of a Mr. Pierce, in Portsmouth, but I have never since that time heard the least account of any thing belonging to me.

We embarked on board a flat-bottomed decked schooner, which I had engaged for that purpose, with our horses, and only one servant, who belonged to the Colonel.

Our small party consisted of Lieutenant-Colonel Connolly, Mr. Cameron, myself, and the servant; and we intended to proceed in this vessel up the Chesapeake, into Potomack River, and land, if possible, near to my house,+ or Port-Tobacco Creek, and after wards to pass through the country on horseback, until we arrived at Detroit, in Canada.

It was proposed that I should pass through Pittsburgh, with despatches to Mr. McKee, the Indian Superintendant, and to some other friends of Government, then proceed down the river Okio to the mouth of the Seiota, and from thence up that river, through the Shawanese, Delawares, and Wyandolts, and down Sandusky River to Sandusky Old Fort; from thence I was to cross Luke Erie, by the Rattle Snake Islands, to Detroit; while the other two gentlemen were to cross the Allegany River, at the Pittsburgh, and proceed by the nearest and most direct route to Detroit. Here a very considerable force was to be collected from all the nearest posts in Canada, and transported, early in the Spring, across the Lake Erie to Presque Isle, where I was to be employed during the Winter with a detachment of two hundred men, in covering and conducting the building batteaus, and collecting provisions, in order to proceed by the way of French Creek, Venango, and the Allegany River, to Pittsburgh, which we were to seiza on, and establish as Head Quarters, until the disaffected interest was entirely crushed, and the whole strength of the country collected, and formed into regular disciplined regiments.

After leaving a sufficient garrison at Pittsburgh, we were to advance across the Allegany Mountains with our whole force upon the back of Virginia; and, after establishing a strong post at Fort Cumberland, it was proposed to fall down the river Pototmack, and seize on Alexandria, where the Earl of Dunmore was to meet us with the fleet, and all the force of the lower part of the Province. Alexandria was to be trongly fortified, as a place of arms, and the communication between the southern and northern parts of the Continent thereby cut off.

If a misfortune, of such magnitude, should have happened, as to oblige us to give up this enterprise at any particular stage thereof, our retreat was then secured by these posts which we occupied in our rear; and if it should have failed in the first part of the expedition, by our finding it impracticable to seize upon Pittsburgh, we were to fall down the Okio in our batteaus to the Mississippi, where we were to be joined by the garrison, artillery, and stores from Fort Gage of Kiskuskias, at the Illinois; and then to proceed down to the mouth of the river Mississippi, in West Florida; where we were to embark in transports, and come round to Norfolk, in Virginia, there to join the Earl of Dunmore.

For the execution of this well formed, judicious, and vast undertaking, Lieutenant-Colonel Connolly was furnished with the proper and necessary powers, both from General Gage, the Commander-in-chief, and from the Earl of Dunmore, and with ample instructions for his future conduct, as well as commissions for the formation of a complete regiment at Detroit, or Pittsburgh, all of which, containing no less than eighteen sheets of paper, we carried along with us, in a secret manner, invented by, and executed under the inspection of his Lordship. All these papers were concealed in the mail pillion-sticks on which the servant carried his portmanteau, they being made hollow, for that purpose, and covered with tin plates, and then canvass glued thereon as usual; this was so dextrously and completely executed that it could not be discovered on the strictest examination,—J. F. D. Smyth's Tour.

[* About two miles below Cedar-Point.]