1. Letter not located.

2. JJ left Philadelphia about 4 May 1776 to visit his ailing wife at her father’s home in New Jersey. JJ’s parents were also in ill health at this time. LDC description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds., Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (26 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1976–98) description ends , 3: xix, 329; JJ to Philip Schuyler, 5 May 1776, NN: Schuyler; JJ to Robert R. Livingston, 29 May 1776, below.

3. Probably the same report mentioned in Robert R. Livingston to Schuyler, 6 May 1776: “We have just recd an account of the arrival of the Commissioners in Nantasket road together with seventy transports so that the poor Bostonians have had but a short respite. I dont however imagine they will land, but as we have no particulars, the express not yet being come in, and the acct we have being by water from Rhode Island we can only conjecture their force & destination.” LDC description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds., Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (26 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1976–98) description ends , 3: 624, 652.

4. On 10 May 1776 Congress resolved: “That it be recommended to the respective assemblies and conventions of the United Colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs have been hitherto established, to adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general.” After this resolution was adopted, John Adams, Edward Rutledge, and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia were named a committee to draft a preamble for the resolution. Composed by Adams, the preamble was approved on 15 May after vigorous debate. JCC description begins Worthington C. Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1904–37) description ends , 4: 342, 357–58; LDC description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds., Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (26 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1976–98) description ends , 3: 677–79; Adams, Diary description begins Lyman H. Butterfield et al., eds., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams (4 vols.; Cambridge, Mass., 1961) description ends , 3: 382–86.

5. Unfinished business.

6. The question of independence.

7. At the end of April 1776 and beginning of May, JJ, John Alsop, and George Clinton left Philadelphia, leaving only Duane, William Floyd, and Lewis Morris to represent the province. Three delegates were the minimum number capable of casting the colony’s vote in Congress. Robert R. Livingston had not attended Congress since November 1775 and arrived about 12 May 1776. JPC description begins Journals of the Provincial Congress, Provincial Convention, Committee of Safety and Council of Safety of the State of New-York (2 vols.; Albany, N.Y., 1842) description ends , 1: 231; LDC description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds., Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (26 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1976–98) description ends , 3: xix–xx.

8. Thomas Lynch Jr. (1749–79), joined Congress in April 1776 as a South Carolina delegate to aid his father, Thomas Lynch Sr., who had been disabled by a paralytic stroke in February 1776. LDC description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds., Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (26 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1976–98) description ends , 3: xxi, 290, 318.

9. Richard Peters (1744–1828), a Philadelphia attorney and militia captain, was named secretary to the Board of War by Congress on 13 June 1776.