1. See Notes on Debates, 6 December, and nn. 12, 13, 15, 17, 18; 12 December, and n. 3; 13 December, and n. 3; 16 December; 17 December, and nn. 2, 4, 5, 7; Report on Breach of Secrecy, 12 December 1782, and nn. 1, 6, 10.

2. JM wrote “into” but canceled the first two letters of the word.

3. JM probably should have written “by” between “him” and “those.”

4. For the protest by David Howell to Congress on 18 December, see JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIII, 814–16. In this “declaration and protest,” Howell denied that he had revealed “secrets” of Congress; charged that, although what he had written about foreign loans in his controversial letter was “substantially true,” his enemies had wrenched his comments about the loans out of their context; and contended that Congress was “in effect” infringing Article V of the Articles of Confederation by curbing the “freedom of speech” which that Article guaranteed to all delegates in Congress. Furthermore, according to Howell, Congress by its treatment of him was establishing “a precedent dangerous to the freedom of the press, the palladium of liberty, civil and religious,” and tending “to erect a system of despotism” for the purpose of “deterring the minority from writing freely to their constituents such things as they have a right to know.” He concluded by bluntly reminding Congress that he was not the servant of Congress but of his constituents, who unanimously shared his opinion that the proposed 5 per cent impost amendment was “a dangerous measure.”

5. JM interlineated “some” and later added, slantwise in the case of “Hamilton” and in the cases of “Howell,” below, the full last name to the beginning initial.

6. JM was referring to a pending vote on a motion, introduced by Alexander Hamilton and seconded by David Ramsay, reading, “That the secretary for foreign affairs be discharged from the instruction given him on the 12 instant] Mr. [David] Howell, a delegate from the State of Rhode Island, having acknowledged himself the author of the extract of the letter quoted in the report of the committee” (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIII, 813–14). For the instruction to Robert R. Livingston, Howell’s acknowledgment of authorship, and the committee’s report, see Report on Breach of Secrecy, 12 December 1782, n. 1; Notes on Debates, 12 December and 13 December 1782.

Following the introduction of Hamilton’s motion, Congress evidently felt obliged to yield to Howell’s insistence that his “declaration and protest” (n. 4, above) should be heard and spread on the journal before Hamilton’s proposal was put to a vote. Having completed the reading of his protest, Howell moved the adoption of a motion, drafted and seconded by his Rhode Island colleague, Jonathan Arnold. This motion, which, except for not mentioning Howell’s name, was of the same purport as Hamilton’s, failed to attract support from any state delegation except Rhode Island’s. Having so decisively rejected Howell’s motion, Congress adopted Hamilton’s without tallying the vote (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIII, 814, 816–18). Thereupon, Hamilton introduced a motion, drafted by him and Daniel Carroll, calling upon Congress to appoint a committee “to report such measures as it will be proper for Congress to take” upon Howell’s protest, which had necessarily been entered in the journal but was “highly … derogatory to the honor and dignity of the United States in Congress assembled.” After Arnold and Howell failed to have the quoted passage expunged, Congress adopted the Hamilton-Carroll motion by an 8-to-1 vote and named John Taylor Gilman, Alexander Hamilton, and JM to be the committee (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIII, 818–19). For the committee’s report, drafted by JM, see Report on Howell’s Protest, 20 December; Notes on Debates, 20 December 1782.

7. See nn. 4, 6, above. Judging from the handwriting, JM appended the footnote when he wrote his notes. Obviously his terse summary of the proceedings would not be clear to a reader unable to refer to the journal of Congress.

8. See Notes on Debates, 6 December, and n. 12; 13 December, and n. 3; Report on Breach of Secrecy, 12 December 1782, and n. 1.

9. For Jonathan Arnold, see Notes on Debates, 3 December 1782, n. 25. Although JM excepted John Collins, Howell’s other colleague in Congress, Collins had ranged himself beside Howell and Arnold in the tallied votes of 18 December (Notes on Debates, 12 December 1782, n. 3; JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIII, 817, 818). On that day Arnold wrote Governor William Greene of Rhode Island to assure him that Howell had “vindicated himself with a firmness becoming a Representative of a free State” (Burnett, Letters description begins Edmund C. Burnett, ed., Letters of Members of the Continental Congress (8 vols.; Washington, 1921–36). description ends , VI, 565–66).

10. Presumably Howell’s “ruin” would be encompassed when some of the statements in his controversial letter and in his “declaration and protest” were exposed to the public view as falsehoods, misrepresentations, or at least as injurious to the Confederation, and as violations of the confidential nature of certain proceedings of, and dispatches to, Congress. The contention by Howell, mentioned in n. 4, above, that a delegate in Congress was free to communicate its proceedings to his constituents could not be sustained by citing any provision of the Articles of Confederation and was at least implicitly denied by Articles V and IX of that document (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XIX, 215, 220). On the other hand, the rules of Congress of 9 November 1775 and 15 August 1778, which had bound the delegates under oaths of secrecy in regard to specified matters, had lapsed because they had not been readopted following the ratification of the Articles of Confederation on 1 March 1781. Congress, furthermore, under the sanction of Article IX of the Articles of Confederation concerning secret matters which should not be published in the monthly journal, had adopted three rules during 1782, but no one of them bound the delegates themselves to secrecy (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXII, 57, 91; Motion To Inform Foreign Ministers, 21 November 1782, n. 10). For further evidence of the perplexing nature of the problem, see Notes on Debates, 6 December 1782; JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIII, 610 n., 751–52, 752, n. 1.

Confronted by the anomalies of a situation where the need for secrecy about some matters was generally recognized, where the means of defining these matters were obscure, and where the rules binding the delegates by oath to silence had lapsed, Congress on 23 December 1782 appointed a committee of three, with Richard Peters as chairman. This committee, which was instructed to inform Congress of the rules of secrecy “heretofore observed” and to recommend “any further regulations which may be necessary,” submitted its report on 10 January 1783 (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIII, 828–29, 829, n. 1; XXV, 849–50).

11. See Report on Howell’s Protest, 20 December; Notes on Debates, 20 December 1782.