tyranny, it becomes absolutely necessary for the people’s safety, when they delegate an authority, that they retain in their own hands an effectual check over it, to prevent its being employed, contrary to its design, for their destruction; for power without control is tyranny; and unlimited subjection, without any means of redress, is slavery. And the question is, in framing a new Constitution, how this shall be done? The supreme Legislature having power to make laws, and constitute all judicial and executive officers amenable to itself, is both necessary and safe for the people; for the honour and interest of the Legislature, as well as the safety of the people, are concerned in having the laws duly executed. The difference between legislative and executive powers are too obvious to need a moment’s reflection. To constitute legislators with power to make other legislators, is erecting a supreme authority upon a supreme authority; the former elective only by the latter, and totally out of the reach of the people. If the Delegates to the General Congress are appointed by the Provincial Assemblies, then, in case they mis-conduct, encroach upon, and invade the rights of the people, the people will have no certain means of redress left them; they may change their Assemblies, but this may not alter the Delegates; the next Assembly may choose the same, and approve their measures, and the people may continue to alter their Assemblies, yet the obnoxious Delegates and their oppressive measures be continued. Thus the people may be aggrieved and oppressed, without the power of redress.

Again, I query, if such a power can be delegated, can any freeman empower another to vote for him in the choice of Governour and Council, &c.? If one may, all may. And is there any difference between this and the freemen’s delegating the power of choosing members of Congress to the General Assembly? Will it not be most safe? The people most certainly will be less likely to betray their liberties and privileges than any other. Will it not render more satisfactory and important the regulations of Congress, to be formed by Delegates, in the election of whom all had a voice?

Further, it is a right inherent in every free agent, of which he cannot be divested, and of which he cannot safely divest himself, for he thereby would put it in the power of another to enslave him, by putting it out of his own power to prevent and redress it. Every one is tenacious of borrowed power; and shall the people, in whom alone power resides in its native, original state, be indifferent about it?

It may be objected, that if the Delegates are chosen by the freemen, they will not be amenable to the Assembly. To which I answer, that this consequence will not follow; for the regulations prescribing the mode of their appointment, granting and defining the powers they shall have, and directing to whom they shall be amenable, are yet to be formed. The Governour and Council, &c, are chosen by the freemen, and yet are amenable to the General Assembly, by force of the Constitution under which they are chosen. As the General Assembly of each Colony is the Legislature thereof, invested with supreme powers of Government therein, and may not be infringed upon by the General Congress, the Delegates from each Colony must be amenable to their respective Assemblies for any unjust encroachments on their rights, or the people under their Government; and their being amenable to the General Assembly does not depend on their being elected by that body, but on the regulations under which they shall be elected. The power of the General Congress must extend to all matters of common concernment, as making war and peace, sending and receiving ambassadors, levying troops and paying them, constructing a navy, and to every other thing proper and necessary for the safety of the whole; to form general regulations respecting maritime affairs; and to decide all controversies between Colony and Colony, relative to their limits and boundaries, and to superintend and regulate every other matter and thing that concerns the whole, and doth not come within the territorial jurisdiction of any particular Assembly or Provincial Congress. For these purposes the Delegates are to be appointed, and must have power given them competent therefor; for the abuse or misuse of which, to be accountable not only to their constituents, by being dropped at the next election, but also to the General Assemblies of their respective Colonies, and be liable to be recalled or displaced for gross negligence, or other criminal conduct. And as it is thought that the proper proportion ought to be one Delegate to thirty thousand inhabitants, seven, at that rate, will be the proportion of Connecticut; let the freemen, on freemen’s meeting day in September, give in their suffrages for twelve persons, whom they would choose to stand in nomination, out of whom seven to be chosen in the spring, to serve as Delegates to the General Congress the ensuing year; said Delegates to be incapable of being chosen for more than three years successively, and until three years are elapsed from their having been thus successively appointed; that the members of Congress may, at the time of enacting regulations for others, consider them likewise for themselves; and while acting as rulers have the feelings of subjects.

J.R.

Connecticut, June 10, 1776.

Hartford, June 17, 1776.

By a letter from a gentleman at Albany, we are informed that the Honourable General Thomas died of the small-pox at Chambly about a fortnight since.

Since our last, advice has been received in town from Albany that a large number of the Mohawk tribe of Indians, headed by Sir John Johnson, had come down the Mohawk River in a hostile manner, and that General Schuyler had marched with a body of troops to meet them. We have not yet received any further particulars.

Governour Trumbull has received an express from the Continental Congress desiring him to lose no time in raising men, as certain intelligence is received that New-York will be attacked by the enemy in a few days.

Newport, June 10, 1776.

Last Saturday arrived here the ship True-Blue, of three hundred tons, taken about fourteen days past by the brig Cabot, Captain Hinman; her cargo consists of one hundred and fifteen puncheons and twenty-two hogsheads of rum; eighty-four hogsheads, twenty tierces, and eighteen barrels of sugar; twenty-three tierces of coffee; sixty bags and two casks of pimento; two hundred bags and ten casks of ginger; one hundred and eighty-two bags of cotton, and forty-eight hides. She was from Jamaica, bound to Lancaster, in England, mounted six carriage guns, and had sixteen men, but made no resistance. Captain Hinman was waiting for a ship of six hundred tons when this prize left him.

A Philadelphia armed pilot-boat has lately carried into Cape-Anne a Jamaica ship, homeward bound, with four hundred hogsheads of sugar, one hundred puncheons of rum, a large quantity of cotton and coffee, and twenty thousand dollars in cash.

A gentleman who left the Vineyard on Monday informs that some Continental cruisers or privateers had sent a ship of three hundred tons in there, loaded with sugar, rum, and Madeira wine, bound from Jamaica to England; and they had taken three or four more, which were to make the first port they could. The above ship was to be carried into Dartmouth the first wind.

Watertown, June 10, 1776.

On Monday, the 3d instant, one of the Continental frigates, of twenty-four guns, built at Newburyport, under the direction of the Honourable Thomas dishing, Esquire, was launched in view of a great number of spectators: she is highly approved of by all who are judges, as a very fine ship; she is built with the very best of timber, and the workmanship is complete.

Tuesday last arrived safe at Newburyport a sloop from Tortola and a schooner from Barbadoes, as prizes, taken by Captain O‘Brien, in one of this Colony’s cruizers, who was left in chase of a ship when the above prizes parted with him.

Thursday last was sent into Cape-Anne a large Jamaica-man, with five hundred hogsheads of sugar, besides other valuable goods, and a large sum in specie. She was taken by one of the Continental cruisers, who put the Captain, his lady, and all the hands (which did not voluntarily enter on board the cruiser) ashore at New-Providence. The prize-master of the ship, on his passage from the West-Indies, met with a Scotch vessel of force, with ninety soldiers, bound for Boston, on board of which he breakfasted, and told the Scotch Captain he was destined from Jamaica for London,