COLONEL HEARD TO NEW-TOKK CONGRESS.

Staten-Island, February 16, 1776.

GENTLEMEN: Agreeable to your requisition to the Provincial Congress of New-Jersey, I am now on Staten-Island, with a battalion of seven hundred men, waiting your further orders and instructions, which I should be glad to have as soon as is convenient, and am, in the mean time., gentlemen, yours, &c.

NATHANIEL HEARD.

To the Provincial Congress, at New-York.

P. S. Since I have been on the Island, there have been sundry complaints made, of many of the principal men here threatening they would kill any of the troops that should come on the Island to disarm them, and others that have supplied the barges with live stock.

PHILIP BROOKS TO NEW-YORK CONGRESS.

New-York, February 16, 1776.

GENTLEMEN: Having had an opportunity of feeling the oppression exercised by the Ministry over Ireland, the place of my nativity, and as I have tasted the sweets of American liberty before this unhappy contest, common sense directs in the choice I should make for myself and posterity. Therefore, as a young, unmarried man, I can neither think myself excusable, nor a useful member of society, while content with indifferently examining the publick prints at home.

To act as I could wish, among the Independents, would not answer the frugality with which I am obliged to manage my time. To enter among the private Provincials would be agreeable, could the generality of my companions be formed to the agreement of religious, or even genteel behaviour; but the contrary, which is often the case, would be very disagreeable to a person of any sensibility.

These considerations have urged me to apply for any commission in the service beneath a Captain, as I do not imagine myself capable of conducting that important rank.

Your complying with this request shall be gratefully acknowledged, and I hope suitably improved, by, gentlemen, your respectful, humble servant,

PHILIP BROOKS.

To the Honourable Provincial Congress.

GOVERNOER TRUMBULL TO GENERAL WASHINGTON.

Lebanon, February 16, 1776.

SIR: In consequence of your pressing request, by Lieutenant-Colonel Gay, I have ordered, in addition to about three tons of powder a few days ago directed to you from Providence, two tons more, from Norwich, which is all that can possibly be spared from this Colony at present. I have, also, sent you thirty arms, and believe in good order. The powder, to the amount of four tons, we must beg to have replaced by the Continent, as soon as you can advise the Congress thereof, to be sent and lodged, one ton at Fairfield, one ton at New-Haven, and two tons at Middletown, and trust you will be so good as to advise the Congress of your being supplied with the above quantity from this Colony, at your request, and the full expectation of its being replaced in the manner above-mentioned, as this is but a small part we have furnished the Army with since last Spring.

The arms I have sent you, are of barrels taken at Ticonderoga, which have been fitted up here with stocks, locks, iron ramrods, bayonets, &c, beside having the barrels to straighten, and many bruises to take out, the cost of which will be upwards of fifty shillings, each, an account of which shall soon transmit to you.

May the God of armies direct you in all your plans of operation, and succeed you therein to the salvation of this oppressed country, is the most sincere desire of your obedient, humble servant,

JONATHAN TRUMBULL.

To His Excellency General Washington.

COSMOPOLITAN, NO. VIII.

To the Inhabitants of the AMERICAN Colonies.

FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: Without a repetition I shall, in this paper, stick in part to the text preached from in my last, relying upon the reader's recollection. In proof of the then allegations against the prime procurer of our present distresses, I produced in evidence letters wrote when he was second in Provincial authority, but first in the chair of mischief; I shall now consider him where we have occasionally placed him twice before, as first in command, and in villany second to none under Heaven.

It gives me no pleasure, but the reverse to collect those arrows which so mortally wound the character of one of my countrymen, which stab humanity itself, and degrade one of the species into a rank of beings that wants a name. Happier for me, more pleasing to the reader, could materials be found to decorate, his temples with the laurels of merited praise. Much rather had I bear his crimes in the, arms of silent oblivion to the pit of forgetfulness, than, in the blaze of day, to impute such treacherous designs as are scarce to be met with in the story of the world, and as would blacken the memoirs of a perfidious savage. But injured innocence and aspersed communities call for justice.

Scarcely warm in his prostituted chair, he hurls the full bolts of his collected malice against the people he governed, against their chartered rights, and the charter itself. In order to complete its ruin, in spite of opposition, he declares a variety of plans had engrossed his thoughts. Instead of seeing the beneficent hand of an affectionate father stretched out for the support and protection of the rights of the people, we see them plotted against, and torn away by the claws of a devouring harpy. Great Britain and America Provinces and Counties, Towns and Parishes, the leaders and the led, fall equally under the lash of his malignant pen.

It was not enough at home, by virtue of illegal warrant?, to seize those who dare to oppose the torrent of oppression, and to haul them to jails and to dungeons, if they were suffered to come out, with shouts and with bonfires. It was difficult to restrain the licentiousness of the child, until the disorders of the parent were rectified. Government must act with vigour, and assume in Britain its most rigorous tone.

Not contented with the destruction of one Province, he aims his blows and strikes at the being of all. Being formed into a threefold division, with a nobleman at their head, upon the servile plan of a Spanish origin, they were to be practised into obedience by a quick succession of those little despots. Each Colony was to receive from every session of Parliament acts peculiar to itself, and others in common to all. Measures, says he, respecting America, must be extended to every Colony. Every Assembly was to be totally under the control and direction of the sovereign power of Parliament; and if they refused this servile subjection, all their proceedings were to be null and void: that is, if they did not govern themselves as the subjects of Great Britain or a Minister of State might direct, they were to be deprived of the governing power. What state more abject? What bondage more complete?

As an emblem of gratitude, he is more liberal in his provisions for his own Province, as a requital for received favours. Not satiated with annually mangling and murdering a new elected Council; not satisfied with an absolute negative upon all the proceedings of both branches; not easy with substituting the opinion of a noble Lord in the stead of his own judgment, and superseding the designs of the Constitution by a mandate from a Minister, he importunes with the perseverance of a beggar, either that the Crown might be empowered to appoint a Council instead of the then present one, and to determine it at pleasure, or the Governour to select twelve from the twenty-eight, or the body at large, as he pleased, with whom he might perform every office of Government, and accomplish every oppressive measure; the others to remain merely for the advantage of a check upon the House, and a plague to the community; that he might dispense with calling the Assembly yearly, and that limits might be fixed to the number of its members, as the former would make them more obsequious to his nod and subservient to his purposes,