490 Journal and Correspondence

C. S. C.

No. 24.

[Council to Maryland Deputies.]

To the Deputies for Maryland in Congress.
Gentⁿ
Your favour of the 11^th inst we rec^d at 10 ^o'Clock this morn-
ing — we have already complied with almost every thing you
request^d, and we wish we had time to collect the fair and unin-
fluenced sense of our people on the most important point of
Independence before the meeting of the Convention; but as
the assembling of that body is already fixed on the 20^th of this
month, it will be impossible to [send express to the Delegates
who are distant so that they could] make the necessary
enquiry before that time. We presume the first business of
the Convention will be regulating the movement of the militia,
and that if necessary in the mean time the several committees
of observation may be directed fairly to collect the sense of
the Province on the subject of Independence, and make report
thereof to the Convention. Any mode their Representatives
may think proper to point out would be better relished by the
people, than for us to put them into a violent ferment in a way
that might not be approved of — 'tis a point of great magni-
tude, and we think it's best, the shortness of time considered,
to leave it untouched until the meeting of the Convention on
thursday next. M^r Paca no doubt is with you before now,
Mess^rs Johnson & Goldsborough still with their families we
hear — we wish to have you all down when the grand question
is decided, we leave it however to yourselves to judge whether
you can be spared from Congress, and hope whatever is done
will be generally agreed to. — from the Virginia paper we learn
that Clinton left Cape Fear with his Troops on the 29^th of
May, this comes to that colony by express in a letter from
General Lee to their Convention. General Howe's house was
burnt and some of his domestics illtreated, no other damage of
consequence, say the papers; and Clinton published a procla-
mation warning the people of N^o Carolina to flee from the
wrath that was hereafter to come upon them, and exhorting
them to return to duty; where he is gone is not ascertained,
the paper says that the prevailing opinion is that they are gone
to the Southward, Gen^l Lee writes he thinks they are coming
round to Virginia. If they are coming this way we shall soon
hear of them and will let you know.
14^th June 1776