being more lucrative, might indemnify him for a part of the pecuniary losses already mentioned; but as it is less liable to those personal dangers which his natural disposition impels him to encounter, he would think himself more happy should you honour him with a commission amongst the gentlemen who shall be appointed Field Officers to supply the consequential vacancies occasioned by the alterations expected to happen in two regiments which have no Colonel,

Your Memorialist would not presume to solicit employment to the prejudice of the officers in any regiment, but he is assured it will give no disgust to the worthy gentlemen of two corps on this station, who, having honourably served in them, might with propriety claim such preferment.

Now that this country is threatened with a most formidable invasion, to assist in defending, at the risk of his life, those sacred rights which, as a citizen, he has asserted on every opportunity that his humble station offered him, is the most fervent wish of your Memorialist, who will strive to render himself worthy of the confidence that may be reposed in him by your honourable House, and to demonstrate that he is ever ready to sacrifice his own advantage to the publick good.

WILLIAM GODDARD.

New-York, June 21, 1776.

COLONEL FLEMING TO NEW-YORK CONGRESS.

New-York, June 21, 1776.

GENTLEMEN: I take occasion to express the high sense I entertain of that honourable testimony of your approbation which you were pleased to give by unanimously appointing me Deputy Adjutant-General in the Continental Army, and extremely regret the necessity 1 am now laid under of making a resignation of the trust committed to me.

I flatter myself that, considering my uniform conduct and my circumstances in life, you will do me the justice to believe that in accepting the office I was influenced by my zeal for, and attachment to, the cause of America; not by any avidity for the emoluments which might thence arise. It is unnecessary to say I left ease and competency, my wife and children, and everything dear to me, to encounter, at the expense of my health as well as at the risk of my life, all the rigours, difficulties, and dangers of a long campaign in Canada. Neither is it my part to determine whether my behaviour in the station I filled has been reprehensible or meritorious.

But this much I will venture to assert, that, however moderate my abilities, my assiduity and attention to the discharge of my duty were unremitted. What share of zeal and perseverance I may pretend to can easily be ascertained by the term of my continuance in Canada, under all the discouragements of an excruciating disorder. At any rate I am not conscious of any such neglect or desertion of my duty as may justly expose me to a manifest indignity, and when it is offered me I cannot forbear feeling it with the sensibility of a man.

As first Deputy I naturally expected to succeed to the Adjutant-Generalship when it became vacant, but to my great surprise I find the Continental Congress have thought proper to give the preference to another. True it is, the Congress have declared a resolution to reserve to themselves a right of dispensing preferments according to the merit of officers, and not to the seniority of commissions; but even on that ground the preference given to another contains an implied censure on my conduct. It is a tacit declaration that I am not competent to the place of Adjutant-General, and of course that I have not acted with propriety in my present character; for no man capable of acquitting himself well in the post of Deputy-Adjutant can be unqualified for that of Adjutant-General. I am, therefore, compelled to suppose that the Continental Congress disapprove of my past conduct, and think me unfit for the place to which I was appointed; otherwise it cannot be imagined they would step aside from the plain path of succession by seniority, and take the pains to place a gentleman not at all within the line of the department, over my head. This would be charging them with a degree of partiality of which I hope they are incapable.

I am now reduced to this dilemma, either to suppose that I have been much injured, and my honour as a soldier wounded in the tenderest part, by being excluded from a station, without sufficient cause, to which I had a good right to aspire; or to close with the opinion of the Continental Congress, and consider myself as inadequate to the office you were pleased to honour me with. In either case it is evidently my duty to resign; in the first, justice to myself requires it; in the last, justice to my country.

On whatever ground I act, be assured, gentlemen, my affection to this country, and my zeal for the preservation of its rights, will always remain unimpaired. As a private citizen, my property, my life, shall be cheerfully hazarded in the defence of America.

I am, gentlemen, with the greatest respect, your most obedient servant,

EDWARD FLEMING.

To the Honourable the Provincial Congress.

TO THE HONOURABLE GENTLEMEN OF THE PROVINCIAL CONGRESS OF THIS PROVINCE.

Province of NEW-YORK, CUMBERLAND County, ss:

Upon the handbills from you sent to us, purporting the expediency of instituting civil Government according to the exigencies of the County, the major part of whom have agreed thereto and elected their Delegates, and empowered them with their authority to agree with you in forming a mode of Government independent of the Crown, in the most mild, just, and equitable manner possible, for the. regulating their internal police, and the preservation of the rights, liberty, and property of the people, —all which, subjected, nevertheless, to those regulations, conditions, and restraints herewith transmitted you by the hands of the Delegates of this County, to all which they are by their constituents in the premises limited and restrained in such manner that if they break over and violate those sacred instructions herewith sent you in behalf of, in, and for our constituents, in matters of such infinite importance and delicacy, the County Committee declare, in behalf of the free and patriotick people thereof, that they mean to, and hereby do, reserve to themselves the full liberty of an absolute disavowance thereof, and every clause, article, and paragraph of such an institution.

Also, it is hereby acceded to and fully meant and intended by the good people of the County, that they, notwithstanding this compliance with the requisition of the said handbills above-mentioned, so directed to us for the purposes aforesaid, have fully and absolutely reserved to themselves and their heirs, &c., the full liberty of pursuing their former petition in behalf of the people included and specified therein some years ago, and preferred to the great and General Assembly of the ancient, ever respectable, and most patriotick Government of the Massachusetts-Say Province, that the whole District described in said petition may be hereafter reunited to that Province, and reserving to themselves also their right of offering their pleas, arguments, and proofs in full to induce to a reunion thereof to that ancient jurisdiction for those important reasons to be adduced when, where, and before whom the parties concerned shall be admitted to offer the same. As in duty bound shall ever pray.

The whole whereof, so as aforesaid, to you, ever respectable gentlemen, submitted with due congratulations of all the good people of said County.

Per order of the County Committee:

Copy compared with the original and extracted therefrom.

Wilmington, June 21, 1776.

Protest instantly entered by Elkanah Day, John Bridg-man, Esq., and John Norton.

To the President of the Honourable Congress for the Colony of New-York.

JOHN WATSON TO GOVERNOUR TRUMBULL.

Hartford, June 21, 1776.

SIR: I have been requested by the Committee for taking care of the prisoners, to take the charge and oversight of those stationed at Canaan; among whom one John Birchley has shown me a certificate, (signed by the commander of the Brilliant, one of the Royal Navy—his name I have forgotten,) showing that said Birchley was impressed at Quebeck, for his Majesty’s service, from on board the Carolina,