2 We are not insensible of the fact that the origin of tlie Congress of the Continent, which was assembled at I'hiladeliihia, in 17T4, has been variously stated, by many of those who have precedeil us : and we are equally sensible of the other fact, that imlividiuils, in different Colonies, without any connection with each other, had suggested, tlieufetirall!/, that Buch a Congress would be useful for vaiiiius Uinittil and, generally, local purposes, previously to that more general and practical proposition which was made by the Committee of Curre.spoiidence in New York, on the occasion under con.'iideration.

The Town of Providence, in Town-meeting, May IT, 1774, was, probably, the first organized body which recommended a ' ongress of the several Colonies, for general purposes: but it only requested the Deputies of the Town, in the approaching General Assembly, to " use their influ- "ence," in that body, nni ijet iissi-uiUhil, "for promoting a Congi ess, as soon "as may be, of the Representatives of the General Assemblies of the "several Colonies and Provinces in North .\merica,'" for the general purposes of the whole number, {I'rncee<liiirj« o f the Toirn-Mn liinj, reprinted in Force's Aniericaii Aixliivex, Fourth Series, i., 33:i ; I and the Committee of Correspondence of Philadelphia, in its reply to the Committee of Correspondence of Boston, dated " PHir.AnELPHi.i, .Vi/;/ 21. 1774," compared the jiroposition of Boston, to enter into an .Association of Non- E.\portation and Non-Intercourse, with the pri>i)osition of New-York, to convene a Congress of the Colonies, w ithout determining which of the two it would approve, (Letter, dated us alioee stuleft,) leaving the subject undecided, until the eighteenth of June, when the Congress was determined on, by a Meeting of the Citizens, without the intervention of the Committee, (Proceedinqs of the Meeting, reprinted in Force's Americaii Archifes, Fourth Series, i., 420, 427.)