Delegates to Congress . Letters of delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, Volume 3, January 1 1776-May 15 1776
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Henry Wisner to To: John McKesson


Sir,
[January 13? 1776]
(1)

   I have only to ask the favor of you to read this pamphlet, consulting Mr. Scott and such of the Committee of Safety as you think proper,


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particularly Orange and Ulster, and let me know their and your opinion of the general spirit of it. I would have wrote a letter on the subject, but the bearer is waiting.


Note: Reprinted from Franklin Burdge, A Sccond Memorial of Henry Wisner (New York: Privately printed, 1898), p. 23.

1 According to Burdge, this brief letter was written "on the margin of the first page" of "a copy of the first edition" of Thomas Paine, Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America. . . (Philadelphia: R. Bell, 1776). Since this edition was first advertised on January 9, and since the first mention of it in the correspondence of other delegates occurs on January 13, Wisner's letter has been arbitrarily assigned the latter date. For other evidence of the early dissemination of Paine's classic by the delegates, see the letters of this date from Samuel Adams to James Warren and from Josiah Bartlett to John Langdon.