174 NATURAL AND CIVIL 



an early day, to choose delegates for the general 

 Congress^ a committee of safety, and to form a 

 constitution for your state. Your friends here 

 tell me, that some are in doubt, whether dele- 

 gates from your district, would be admitted into 

 Congress. I tell you to organize fairly, and 

 make the experiment, and i will ensure your 

 success, at the risk of my reputation as a man 

 of honor or common sense. Indeed they can 

 by no means refuse you ! You have as good a 

 right to choose how you will be governed, and 

 by whom, as they had."* 



Publications and measures thus avowing 

 the cause, and designed to establish the inde- 

 pendence of Vermont, were beheld by New 

 York, with great indignation and concern. On 

 May the 28th, the council of safety for that state, 

 made a third attempt to engage the attention of 

 Congress. By iheir direction, their president 

 wrote to that body, that a report prevailed and 

 daily gained credit, that the revolters were pri- 

 vately countenanced in their designs, by certain 

 members of Congress ; that they esteemed it 

 their duty to give them such information, that 

 by proper resolutions on the subject, Congress 

 might cease to be injured, by imputations so 

 disgraceful and dishonorable. " However un- 

 willing we may be to entertain suspicions so 

 disrespectful to any member of Congress, yet 

 the truth is, that no inconsiderable numbers of 

 the people of this state^ do believe the report t© 

 be well founded."* 



• Printed letter to the inhabitanti of Vermont, April li, IJjy, by 

 T. Yeung. 



• Pierre Van Cortlandt's letter t« Caiigrcss, May 38, 1777. 



