Virginia Delegates in Congress to the Virginia Convention, 18 [May] 1776

Virginia Delegates in Congress to the Virginia Convention

Philadelphia, 18 April, [i.e., May] 1776.

Gentlemen

The inclosed resolutions were reported by a committee appointed to consider of a letter from general Lee to the president. We have nothing to observe upon them unless it be, that the surgeons whom the director general of the hospital is empowered to appoint, and the regimental surgeons to be nominated by the convention, according to a resolution lately forwarded to you, are different officers. Upon the arrival of two ships of war, two frigates and one tender at Quebeck, the 6th instant, the […]1 with the forces the vessels brought, of no more than about a thousand men, made a sally upon our army there, and routed it. The resolution of the 15th of May we send a printed copy of, lest the manuscript, which we desired the secretary to furnish us with, should not come time enough to go by this opportunity. We are, Gentlemen, Your most obedient servants.

Dft in Wythe’s hand (DLC). Enclosures missing. TJ retained this paper and used blank portions of it for a table of values of coins; see his Report of 2 Sep. 1776.

Drafted by Wythe for all the Virginia delegates to sign, this letter was presumably revised before it was dispatched. It is probably the letter received and read in Convention on 27 May (Conv. Jour. description begins Proceedings of the Convention of Delegates… in the Colony of Virginia (cited by session and date of publication) description ends , May, 1776, 1816 edn., p. 25). The error in the date is manifest from the fact that the inclosed resolutions on Gen. Lee’s letter were passed on 18 May (JCC description begins Worthington C. Ford and others, eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, Washington, D.C., 1904–37, 34 vols. description ends , iv, 363–5). For the resolution of the 15th of May, see TJ to Nelson, 16 May 1776.

1. Two or three words faded or worn beyond legibility.

Index Entries

You Are Looking At

Source Project: Jefferson Papers
Title: Virginia Delegates in Congress to the Virginia Convention, 18 [May] 1776
Author: Virginia Delegates
Recipient: Virginia Convention
Date: 18 May 1776

Reference

Cite as: “Virginia Delegates in Congress to the Virginia Convention, 18 [May] 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0155. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, 1760–1776, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp. 294–295.]