letters, chiefly from William Williams and Roger Sherman, to the elder Trumbull, governor of Connecticut.

One particularly valuable record of the proceedings of Congress during a few days came to light about the time these materials were going into page-proof. This was the Notes of Debates kept by Secretary Thomson for July 24-29, 1777 (nos. 559a, 559b, 560a, 562A). The discovery of these notes naturally gives rise to the query whether Thomson habitually kept such a record of proceedings, and whether this small bit and the more extended journal for two months in the summer of 1782 (July 22 to September 2) happen to be the only fragments that have survived, or whether these two items represent the whole of Thomson's industry in the way of private note-taking.

Upon the first of the debates recorded by Thomson, that concerning the proposed plan for an expedition in 1777 against West Florida, the journals proper furnish but little information. Thomson's notes, cryptic as they are, throw a flood of light upon the manner in which such matters were dealt with in Congress, as well as upon the views of individual members. Additional light is thrown upon the discussion by Henry Laurens in two letters-one to General McIntosh, August II, and more particularly one to President Rutledge of South Carolina, August 12. According to Laurens, all that was necessary to cast the whole project into the discard was a breath of cold logic. This Laurens applied, and the air-castle tumbled to the ground. The whole episode was indeed a minor one, but if the project had actually been undertaken, perhaps it would not have remained minor in character. Other bubbles were blown in Congress first and last, many of them more pretentious and of more radiant hues, and not a few of them required time and the hard blows of experience for their bursting. The story of this bubble and its speedy collapse arouses the wish that many another dark spot in the journals might have been lighted up by similar revelations.

Thomson's notes and Lauren's account give the impression that the plan for an attack upon the British in West Florida had been killed and buried. In a form so ambitious it did not indeed rise again; yet a lesser project, which must have taken its rise from the same source, was presently attempted, although, it would appear, without the knowledge of Congress as a body. Some facts concerning the expedition of Captain James Willing to New Orleans in 1778 have been well known, particularly that the outcome of the affair did not redound to the honor either of Willing or of Congress, but the origin of the expedition has remained in obscurity. The letter of the commercial committee to General Edward Hand, November 21, 1777 (no. 749a), which came to light only as these materials were going through the press, together with other facts which may be gathered from the correspondence between the commercial committee and Oliver Pollock, agent of the United States at New Orleans, helps to clear up this obscurity.

The second of the debates recorded by Thomson, that upon the motion to appoint Gates to the command of the northern army in place of Schuyler, is one of which the journals give no intimation whatever. Letters of Duane and Duer, June 19, 1777, neither of which has before been printed, relate that Gates had, a day or so before, obtained admission to the floor of Congress with a view to having himself reinstated, as he expressed it, in command in the north, while Thomson's notes show that some five weeks later an acrimonious debate once more arose over the relative merits of Schuyler and Gates and continued for at least three days. These notes appear to end abruptly, but some letters and the journals show the sequel to have been the decision of Congress to institute an inquiry into the conduct of Schuyler and St. Clair.

Noteworthy among the new materials to be found here are also the Diary, or Notes, kept by Benjamin Rush of a number of important debates during the month of February, 1777, and the " Abstracts " of debates left by Thomas Burke, most of the latter being of the same month and to some extent of the same debates. Sections of Burke's Abstracts have been printed in the North Carolina State Records, but other considerable sections are printed now for the first time. These notes and abstracts. furnish our principal source of information of the proceedings of Congress upon several matters, notably those upon the conference of the New England states relative to the regulation of prices, those upon the question of raising the interest on loan-office certificates, those pertaining to the proposed conference with General Lee, and the question of adjournment from Baltimore to Philadelphia. One of Burke's extended abstracts, not hitherto printed, is of a debate, February 25, upon the measures proper to be taken relative to desertion, a debate in which Burke took a principal part, and in which he gives utterance to some of his characteristic views. Still another important unprinted manuscript of Burke is his comments on the Articles of Confederation, found under November 15, 1777.

For the last half of the year 1777 we have also the letters of Henry Laurens, for which we are indebted to the kindness of the South Carolina Historical Society, and very few of which, beyond some of his official letters written as President of Congress, have hitherto been printed, except that some extracts appear in the recent life of Laurens by Professor Wallace. During the next two years the correspondence of Laurens furnishes by far the greatest single source of information of the proceedings of Congress, outside of the journals themselves.

Among the other sources from which new materials have been drawn. should be mentioned the letter-book of President Hancock, in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, as well as numerous other letters from the same repository; and there are a number of important letters from the Gates Papers, in possession of the New York Historical

Society; from the Schuyler Papers, in possession of the New York Public Library; from the Bartlett Correspondence in the Dartmouth College Library; from the Force Transcripts in the Library of Congress, and lesser bodies from several other sources. The editor desires again to record his sense of obligation, as well as that of the Department of Historical Research, to Mr. Stan. V. Henkels of Philadelphia, through whose kindness some twenty-five letters found in this volume have been obtained. In addition to acknowledgments made in the first volume for courtesies extended in connection with this work, it is desired to express cordial appreciation of the kindness of Mr. Johnston L. Redmond and Mrs. W. A. Read, both of New York City, and of Mr. Charles E. Goodspeed of Boston, in respect to letters found in this volume.

With the passage of the Declaration of Independence Congress became, to borrow a phrase of John Adams, "high-charged " with a new purpose. Whether the struggle would be shortened or prolonged in consequence of the Declaration no man could foretell; but the end and purpose of the contest were now beyond question. Redress of grievances might mean one thing and it might mean many things; independence was a goal clear-cut and unmistakable. There could henceforth be no middle ground; there was no longer a place for the lukewarm and hesitant. The Declaration was a trumpet call to the continent: Choose you this day whom ye will serve; henceforth he that is not with us is against us. Men like John Adams might shout with joy over the event, but there was much anxious searching of the heart nevertheless. Some indeed who had come thus far on the journey turned back their footsteps and walked no more with the party called patriot. Many no doubt felt as did Abraham Clark, who, although one of the stoutest advocates of independence, nevertheless keenly appreciated the risk. "A few weeks", he wrote, "will determine our fate-perfect freedom, or Absolute Slavery-to some of us freedom or a halter." There were also those who, like Robert Morris, remained long unconvinced that the Declaration was not premature, but threw their whole might nevertheless into the contest. The general voice was probably, however, that expressed by John Adams: the river is passed and the bridge cut away.

Accordingly, in the early months after the Declaration, Congress was stirred with new energies, animated with high enthusiasm, buoyant with hopes of a speedy victory. These hopes were, however, doomed to disappointment. Instead of victory, the period of a year and a half which this volume embraces was one of almost unbroken failure and defeat; defeat on the field of battle and failure for the most part in the lesser fields of organization and administration. Twice during this period Congress had found it necessary to flee from Philadelphia to save itself from capWhile it chafed in its banishment to Baltimore, it was indeed cheered, just as the year 1776 was drawing to a close, by Washington's

brilliant stroke at Trenton, and likewise in the autumn of 1777, during its anxious exile in York, it was made happy by the victory over Burgoyne; but the outlook at the end of the year 1777 was exceedingly dark. No doubt others than Abraham Clark in this gloomy period had visions of the halter. Nevertheless, Congress continued to drudge doggedly at its task, not quite despairing, but earnestly seeking a specific for the ailments of its cause. The period was in fact one in which Congress learned many of its most necessary lessons; it was, so to speak, the period in which Congress was finding itself.

Naturally one of the most important lessons which Congress learned, although slowly and only after severe experiences, was that battles could not be won without a well-organized and well-disciplined army. Rather early in the contest doubts had arisen as to the wisdom of relying upon militia or short-term enlistments, but the fear of the military power, the bogey of a standing army, for a long time loomed large in the minds of most of the members. The continuing influence of these fears may be seen in the defeat, in January, 1776, of a motion to enlist troops for three years or the duration of the war (vol. I., no. 454), and of a similar proposition of Washington a month later (ibid., nos. 515, 516). As might be expected, however, Congress from its higher outlook learned the lesson sooner than the provincial statesmen on whom the success of its measures so largely depended. Early in the summer of 1776 Congress appears to have become convinced that success could be achieved only with an army organized on a more enduring basis (see, for instance, the report on the miscarriages in Canada, July 30), and on September 16 it resolved to raise eighty-eight battalions to serve during the war, unless sooner discharged by Congress. To encourage enlistments bounties of money and lands were offered.

This seemed a fair beginning toward a formidable army. But obstacles at once arose in the states. Massachusetts found difficulty in prevailing upon troops to engage for the period of the war and endeavored to overcome the reluctance by offering larger inducements than Congress had provided; and Massachusetts was followed in this course by some of the other New England states. Congress agreed by way of compromise to allow an alternative enlistment period of three years; but the action of Massachusetts created such difficulties for the whole measure that even some of the New England delegates complained that Congress was much embarrassed by the action of that state, William Whipple, in particular, asserting that "this affair has caus'd more perplexity and uneasiness than any thing that has happened in my time", while William Hooper was even more bitter in his denunciations of the course which Massachusetts had pursued. Maryland also discovered difficulties, chiefly with regard to the matter of land bounties, and there must needs be much negotiating and some controversy before the problem was adjusted.

These were some of the serious initial difficulties in raising the new army, but they were not all. The privilege retained by the states of appointing the officers, and the insistence upon having their full quotas of them, added greatly to the complications. Recruiting encountered many obstacles in the states and went on at less than the proverbial snail's pace. In December the existing army was all but dissolved. In February Washington declared that he had scarcely sufficient troops to mount the common guard (see no. 369). Meanwhile, through the winter, the spring, the summer, the autumn, Washington continued to beseech Congress, Congress to urge the states, and delegates to implore their principals to hasten the measures of recruiting. Finally, on the last day of the year 1777 Congress reached the decision that the whole problem of the army required a thorough overhauling.

Congress has often been condemned for its failure to establish a regular and efficient army early in the struggle; and no doubt a goodly portion of the blame is properly attributable to that body. But a larger measure of responsibility must be ascribed to the several states, where the fear of the military power clung tenaciously to the provincial mind and concern for provincial interests continued to exercise dominance over thought and action. The strength of sentiment in Congress for an efficient army is abundantly attested by the circular letter sent out by President Hancock (September 24, 1776), and still more by the numerous expressions of individual members. These letters, many of the most significant of which are now printed for the first time, point clearly to the dilatoriness of the states, to their obstruction of the measure, to their persistent seeking after local advantage regardless of the general weal.

Congress was never indeed quite able to banish the dread of a military dictator, yet in December, 1776, so imminent was the collapse of the whole cause and such was the confidence in General Washington, that Congress conferred upon him for the period of six months practically dictatorial powers and authorized him to raise and officer on his own responsibility sixteen additional regiments; but while men like Samuel Adams, whose fears of dictatorship had always been large, acquiesced in the measure as necessary, there were grumblings and forebodings, and there were presently vociferous denials that the powers bestowed upon Washington were dictatorial at all. These or similar powers were later renewed, always for a limited time, but toward the end of 1777 the grumblings, joined with criticisms of Washington's conduct of military operations, increased in volume and intensity. Some who in the first instance had been the strongest advocates of the bestowal of extraordinary powers became Washington's bitterest critics. A letter of Henry Laurens to his son John, October 16, gives intimations of these mutterings, even of an ominous growl; while some letters of James Lovell to General Gates (November 17, 27) show that the snipers and the sappers and miners