N (DLC). Portions of the text worn and faded; certain figures or parts thereof have been supplied, in brackets, by simple calculation. The caption for the table of bills of credit has also been supplied.

These tabular notes may have been originally compiled by TJ, or he may have merely copied them from papers drawn up during the sittings of the Congress as a committee of the whole “on the state of America” from 11 May until 22 July 1775. Whichever is the case, the notes display at the outset of TJ’s national career his habit of making and keeping records of current transactions for later reference that marked his whole public life. Apparently not available elsewhere in print (with the exception noted below), they are well worth study as records of the earliest steps taken by Congress after the outbreak of hostilities. For this first emission of Continental bills of credit, the Journals have only the brief entry, under 22 June, that bills of credit to the value of 2,000,000 Spanish milled dollars were to be emitted “for the defence of America,” and that the “twelve confederated colonies” were pledged to redeem them (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 , ii, 103). In 1786 TJ turned over the table showing the apportionment of the bills of credit to J. N. Démeunier for use in the Encyclopédie methodique: Economie politique et diplomatique, Paris, 1784–1788, where it is printed in the article “Etats-Unis” (ii, 415) as an official estimate of American population at the outbreak of the Revolution; see TJ’s Observations on the Article Etats-Unis, 22 June 1786. Concerning the numbers and staff of the Continental army when first organized, there were protracted discussions by the Congress that are impossible to follow because conducted in a committee of the whole, though see the resolutions of 26 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 , ii, 65), 14 June (p. 89–90), 15 June (p. 91), 16 June (p. 93–4), 22 June (p. 103–4), and 21 July (p. 201–2).