New York Provincial Congress to the New York Delegates to the Continental Congress, 29 June 1775
New York Provincial Congress to the New York Delegates to the Continental Congress
[In Provincial Congress New York June 29th. 1775.]
Gentlemen
Deeply impressed with the Importance, the Utility and necessity of an Accomodation with our Parent State and conscious that the best Service we can render to the present and all future Generations, must consist in promoting it; We have laboured without intermission to point out such moderate Terms as may tend to reconcile the unhappy Differences which threaten the whole Empire with Destruction.—
We now take the Liberty of inclosing to you the Result of our Deliberations,1 and altho’ we have not the presumption to suppose that our Weak Ideas on this momentuous Subject will be entirely approved of by you, much less by that august Body of which You are Members; yet we take leave to observe that the breach hath been much widened since our first Dispute on the Subject of Taxation, and that as this was the Source of all our Grievances, so we have the hope, that the Temptations being taken away, our Civil and Religious and Political Rights will be easily adjusted and Confirmed.—
You will observe Gentlemen that by a Resolution of the House subjoined to the Report of our Committee, We consider the whole as entirely subjected to your better Judgment, & each Article as far independent of every other, as you may think most proper or inconvenient.—2 We must now repeat to you, the common and just Observation that Contests for liberty, fostered in their Infancy by the Virtuous and Wise, become Sources of Power to wicked and designing Men. From whence it follows that such Controversies as we are now engaged in frequently end in the Demolition of those Rights and Priviledges which they were instituted to defend—We pray you therefore to use every effort for the Compromising of this unnatural Quarrel between the Parent and Child; and if such terms as You may think best shall not be complied with; earnestly to labour, that at least some Terms may be held up, whereby a
Treaty shall be set on foot, to restore Peace and Harmony to our Country, and spare the further Effusion of human Blood; So that if even at the last our well meant Endeavors shall fail of Effect, We may stand fair, and unreproachable by our own Consciences, in the last solemn Appeal to the God of Battles.—We are Gentlemen Your most Obedt. & humble Servt.
By Order.—
P.V.B. Livingston President3
To the New York Delegates in Continental Congress.—
LS, NHi: Duane Papers (EJ: 3593). Enclosure: Plan of Accommodation of the New York Provincial Congress, 27 June 1775, printed in , 1: 58, under date of 28 June. A draft of this letter to the delegates was adopted on 28 June, and directions were given that two copies of the letter be signed by the president of the provincial congress; one copy was to be dispatched by express to Philadelphia on 29 June, while the other was to be carried to the Continental Congress by Francis Lewis, one of the colony’s delegates. Ibid., 1: 59. For the delegates’ reply of 6 July, see ibid., 1: 73.
1. On 2 June 1775, the provincial congress named 14 members to a committee to draft a “plan of accommodation” between Britain and the colonies. This committee reported its draft plan on 24 June; debates on the proposal began that day and concluded on 27 June, when the amended plan was adopted. For details of the revisions made in the draft during debate, see below, Gouverneur Morris to JJ, 30 June 1775. , 1: 26, 52–54, 58.
2. The concluding paragraph read: “Resolved, that no one article of the aforegoing report be considered preliminary to another, so as to preclude an accommodation without such article, and that no part of the said report be deemed binding or obligatory upon the Representatives of this Colony in Continental Congress.”
3. Peter Van Brugh Livingston (1710–92), Sarah Livingston Jay’s uncle, was a prominent New York merchant.