The twelve United Colonies by their delegates in Congress to the inhabitants of Great Britain, July 8, 1775 (Philad., 1775; Newport, 1775,—Sabin, iv. 15,596). It was drafted by R. H. Lee. Cf. his Life, i. 143. Cf. Ramsay's Rev. in S. Carolina, p. 362.
Address of the twelve United Colonies ... to the people of Ireland (Philad. and New York, 1775,—Sabin, iv. 15,512).
Address from the delegates of the twelve United Colonies to the people of New England (Newport, 1775; reprinted in the R. I. Hist. Mag., 1885).
A petition to the king was adopted July 8th. It is said to have been moulded, in part at least, upon an appeal of Richard Stockton, of New Jersey, dated Dec. 12, 1774 (Orderly-book of Sir John Johnson, p. 176-78). Cf. Force, 4th ser., iv. 607; Ramsay, i. 355; Sparks's Franklin, i. 372, x. 435; Bancroft, vii. 186; Barry's Mass., ii. 60, 61, with references; Lee's Arthur Lee, i. 47; ii. 312. The London agents were instructed to print and circulate it (Journals, i. 112). Mahon (vol. vi.) says that the king was influenced by a mere punctilio in not replying to it, and Dartmouth writes to Carleton that it found no favor in or out of Parliament.
On the choice by Congress of Washington as commander-in-chief, see John Adams's Works, ii. 417; Bancroft, orig. ed., vii. ch. 37; Hildreth's United States; Hamilton's Hamilton, i. 110; Frothingham's Rise of the Repub., 430, and his paper in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., March, 1876, and C. F. Adams in Ibid., June, 1858.
On the proposed articles of confederation (May 10th) and the debate thereon, see Sparks's Franklin, v. 91; N. Jersey Archives, x. 692; Secret Journals of Congress (July and Aug., 1775); and a contemporary draft of the articles in Letters and Papers, 1761-1776 (MSS. in Mass. Hist. Soc. library).
In June, 1775, the Congress was called upon to approve the form of autonomy into which the progress of events had forced the people of Massachusetts Bay. Mr. A. C. Goodell, Jr., has traced the legal bearings of successive steps in a paper in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., May, 1884, p. 192. The word "province" was renounced, as the dependence upon the royal governor had ceased; and the word "colony" accepted, as indicating the modified dependence which still held applicable to the relations of the people to the throne. Up to April, 1776, the regnal year was used in acts, but upon the Declaration of Independence being received, all legislative acts run in the name of the "State." For the change of government in New Hampshire, see Belknap's Hist. of N. Hampshire, and papers in the Belknap MSS. (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., x. 324). An Historical Sketch of the Hillsborough County Congresses held at Amherst, N. H., 1774 and 1775, with other Revolutionary Records, by Edw. D. Boylston, was published at Amherst in 1884.
On May 10th Congress adopted Rules and articles for the better government of the troops raised and to be raised by the twelve United English Colonies (Philad., Watertown, Mass., New York, 1775). Also in Force, 4th ser., ii., 1855; N. H. Prov. Papers, vii. 538; R. I. Col. Rec., vii. 340; N. J. Prov. Cong., etc. (1879), p. 264. The Massachusetts articles of war were much the same. The Rules arranged by Timothy Pickering were published in 1775, and a presentation copy from Pickering to Gen. John Thomas, with a letter annexed, belongs to W. A. Thomas, of Kingston, Mass.
The plan of Congress for organizing the militia is given in their Journals, i. 118. They also caused to be printed W. Sewall's Method of making saltpetre (Philad., 1775). A paper by C. C. Smith on the making of gunpowder during the Revolution is in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., March, 1876. As to the manufacture of other munitions of war, see Bishop's Hist. Amer. Manuf., i. ch. 17 and 18, and index, under cannon and firearms; and J. F. Tuttle on the Hibernia furnace, in the N. J. Hist. Soc. Proc., 2d ser., vi. 148.
An agreement of the members (Nov. 9th) to keep the proceedings secret is given in fac-simile in Force, 4th ser., iii. 1,918. A Committee of Secret Correspondence, for preserving relations with sympathizers in Europe, was established Nov. 29th. (Cf. C. W. F. Dumas's letters in Diplom. Corresp., ix.; and Force, 5th ser., ii. and iii.)