FOR ULSTER.—Mr. Wynkoop.

FOR ORANGE.—Mr. Cuyper.

FOR SUFFOLK.—Mr. Tredwell.

FOR WESTCHESTER.—Colonel Cortlandt.

FOR KING’S.—Mr. Leffertse.

Henry Van Rensselaer, Esquire, attending, was admitted. At his request, they consented and agreed, that Mr.— have four weeks to complete his application for the loan of one thousand Pounds, for the erection of a Powder-Mill, by giving the necessary security, and entering into contract, agreeable to the Resolution of the Provincial Congress.

A draft of a Letter to the Committee of Albany, in answer to their Letter of the 11th, was read and approved of, and is in the words following, to wit:

GENTLEMEN: We acknowledge the receipt of your favour of the 11th instant, with the returns of the companies raising in your County. These companies, with the two companies from Tryon County, and one from Charlotte County, are placed under Colonel Wynkoop; and Lieutenant-Colonel Cortlandt, with one thousand pounds in cash, proceeds immediately for Albany, to take charge of the Regiment, unless Colonel Wynkoop should be there.

The Treasury has been empty many days. This has rendered us unable to give any prior assistance with cash.

Enclosed you have copies of the resolutions and recommendations for disarming disaffected persons. We again earnestly recommend to you to carry them into execution without delay, and with all possible vigour.

We expected Peter R. Livingston, Esq., had furnished you with these resolutions long since, and the arms of such disaffected persons would in part arm the troops raised in this Colony for Continental service.

We have not the number of blank commissions you request. We have not delivered out any blank commissions hitherto, and hope it will not be inconvenient to your Committee to have them delayed until the meeting of Congress.

We are, respectfully, gentlemen, yours, &c.

To Abraham Yates, Jun., Esq., Chairman, and the Members of the Committee of the County of Albany.

In Committee of Safety, New-York, April 29, 1776.

SIR:Your favour of the 27th, we have received; in answer to which, we would inform you that we shall, as soon as possible, take measures for putting our Militia in such a situation as to afford the Army the most speedy and effectual assistance in our power, whenever you shall think it necessary to call for their aid, either for the defence of this or the neighbouring Colonies. We thank you for the information respecting the signals fixed upon below to give intelligence of the approach of an enemy. We assure you, sir, we meant not by our letter to intimate the least desire of being consulted in that matter, for which the gentlemen of the Army must be more competent than ourselves; but as you intimated that similar signals might possibly be of service in assembling the Militia in the neighbourhood of this city and the adjacent parts of New-Jersey, we proposed to appoint a Committee to wait upon you; and that we might be informed of any plan that you might have thought of for that purpose.

We omitted in our last to inform you that we have not been entirely inattentive to the subject of this part of your recommendation. Every regiment of our Militia has its place of rendezvous appointed, and riders are fixed at different stages in this and the neighbouring Colonies, to alarm the country in case of invasion; but if, upon consideration, we shall judge that signals may be of service in calling in our Militia more speedily than can be done in that way, we shall communicate to you our determinations upon that head.

We are sorry to find there is a possibility of misunderstanding the passage in our letter respecting the four battalions raising in this Colony. Be assured, sir, that we never considered them as under our direction, except so far as concerned the forming and equipping them. And if you will be pleased to refer yourself to our last letter, the distinction taken therein between the four battalions and Van Schaick’s Regiment will convince you that we meant nothing more than, in obedience to Congress, to have the completing of them for the command of the Continental General. Nor do we esteem them so pointedly under our direction in this respect as to exclude your solicitude, as Commander-in-Chief, to have them speedily completed and armed; a solicitude highly becoming your station, and which, instead of affording the least ground for umbrage, serves to heighten the opinion which your former conduct has invariably taught us to entertain of your vigilant attention to the important duties of your office, and of your zeal for the defence and security of the rights of this much injured country. You have an un-questionable right to know the state of the regiments raising in this Colony; and it has given us no small concern that we have not been able to procure the necessary returns from the Counties (though we have some time since taken the proper steps for that purpose) to enable us to give you other than a very partial and unsatisfactory information upon that head.

We enclose you a return, in which you will find the first battalion is most deficient. The return is formed from information which came to hand since we had the honour of writing our last letter to you. We send you herewith a blank warrant containing our terms of inlistment, which are substantially a copy of the resolutions of Congress. But, upon these, we would observe, that although it appeared to us that the defence of this Colony was the primary or more immediate object for which the four battalions were designed, yet we took particular pains to inform the recruiting officers that we did not conceive that to be the only object, but that they would be liable to be ordered into any of the neighbouring Colonies, (Canada excepted,) where the commanding officer in this department should judge their assistance to be necessary for repelling the invasions of our common enemy. We hope, sir, that the general nature of the cause we are engaged in, the generous attention of the Continent to the defence and security of this Colony, and the readiness of our neighbours to come to our assistance from time to time when they have apprehended us to be in danger, will serve to exclude from our minds the narrow distinction of Colonies, and teach us to esteem the British fleets and armies as much our enemies while on the coasts of Connecticut, New-Jersey, or Carolina, as if they lay in the East River.

We have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this day, enclosing the resolve of Congress on the subject of arming the New-York Battalions. In answer to which, we beg leave to refer you to our letter of the 25th instant; and to assure you that we shall exert ourselves by every means in our power for their being properly armed and accoutred.

To General Washington.

In Committee of Safety, New-York, April 29, 1776.

GENTLEMEN: On the 23d of March last, we wrote to you upon a subject of the utmost importance—the command in the Marine department on the Lakes. Our application was occasioned by a letter from General Schuyler, a copy of which we then enclosed to you. The General, in that letter, informed our Congress that, in case Major Douglass should decline that command, there was “no person he would more willingly have to command the vessels than Captain Wynkoop; and requested, at any rate, to send him up the soonest possible, with a sufficient number of sailors for the two schooners and sloop.” We further informed you that we immediately sent for Captain Wynkoop, communicated to him the General’s letter, and sent him, with a copy of it, to Major Douglass; that he delivered it to him, and received for answer from Major Douglass, that “he was then in service, and that it would be at least two months before he could attend at the Lakes, if his health would permit;” that we thereupon wrote him a letter, a copy of which, and of his answer, we also enclosed to you. In our letter to him we gave him a gentle reproof for his uncertain answer to Wynkoop, and signified that we expected his immediate answer, and, in case of his acceptance, he should stand ready for the execution of his duty at a minute’s warning, whenever the service should require it. In his answer he informed us, “I told Captain Wynkoop what I now tell you, that whenever I should receive orders from the Congress or General, I was willing to comply, if my health would permit; and, as Captain Wynkoop is desired by the General to get his men and go up, I beg you would assist and forward him; and if I am not called upon, shall endeavour to serve my country in some station of as much importance as to command the Lakes.”We further reminded you in the above-mentioned letter, that the season was so far advanced that the service would suffer if the vessels on the Lakes

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