" ' Your Petitioners do therefore most humbly pray, that this honour- "' able House of Delegates would be pleased to take the premises into " ' their consideration, and devise some expedient to prevent, for the " ' future, the Inhabitants of any of the neighbouring Colonies " ' coming into this, to direct the publick affairs of it, or to destroy the " 'property or invade the liberty of its Inhabitants, without the direc- '"tion of the Continental or this Congress, or the Committee of Safety, '" or the Committee of the County into which such Inhabitants may " ' come, or of the Continental Generals, unless there should he an Inva- " 'sion made into this Colony.

" ' And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever pray, ete.

" 'By order of the Committee. 1

"Ordered, That the same be fairly copied, and Bigned by the Chair- " man of this Committee, and delivered to the Chairman of the Con- "gress."

6 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Friday morning, December 8, "1775."

6 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Die Martis, 10 ho., A.M., Decem- "ber 12, 1775;" and the same, "Die Martis, 3 ho., P.M., Deer. 12, "1775."

The following is a copy of that very important letter:

" In Provinoial Congress,

"New-York, 12th Deer., 1775. "Sir:

"It gives us concern that we are under the necessity of addressing

been a regular military operation : that the fact was, then, unknown, thnt it was only an inroad of banditti, winked at, it is true, but without any authority, legal or revolutionary : that the Committee did not even suspect that the raiders were only an organized band of robbers, composed only of the floating population of another Colony.