Yesterday the City met agreeable to notification in the field before the State House, a stage being erected for the Moderator (Col Roberdeau) and the chief speakers (Mr McKean &c). I am told they unanimously voted that the present House of Assembly are not competent to changing the form of Govt and have given orders for calling a Convention. Pennsylvania Assembly was to meet yesterday. I fear some convulsions in the Colony. The infamous instructions given by the Assembly to their Delegates which they, at their last meeting refused to alter, is the cause of their losing their confidence of the people.(1)
One of the rifle men taken at Quebeck, last fall is arrived in this City last evening. I am told he has brought letters sewed up in his clothes for the Congress and that he left England the 24th of March last.(2) I saw him last evening, when he first came in the Coffee House. I expect to know more at Congress as the letters are sent to the President, but the post is now setting off, so must conclude by assuring you I am, Your steady and sincere friend,
Josiah Bartlett
P.S. Col Whipple has enclosed one of the Addresses.
Tr (DLC). A continuation of Bartlett to Langdon, May 19, 1776.
1 See John Adams to James Warren, May 20, 1776, note 4.
2 Apparently Langdon himself had sent this man, George Merchant, to George Washington and to Congress, after Merchant escaped from Halifax to New Hampshire. Among the letters brought by Merchant were three Arthur Lee letters of February 13 and 14, 1776, containing information on "the Ministerial intentions, and their force for the next campaign." See John Langdon to George Washington, May 10, 1776, in Am.. Archives, 4th ser. 6:501; and JCC, 4:369, 405. Lee's letters two of which were disguised so as to appear to have been written to Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden.at New York, are printed in Am. Archives, 4th ser. 4:1125-28, See also Benjamin Franklin to George Washington, June 21, 1776, note 1.