I lately troubled you with two Addresses under the 7th and 13th (1) respectively by the hands of Messenger Freeman-since which I have had the honor of receiving and presenting to Congress your favor of the 6th Instant together with a Memorial and Petition of Mr. William Hoskins, which are committed to a special Committee and I trust will soon be reported.(2)
Within the present Cover you will receive Sir, an Act of Congress (3) of this date for preventing the spreading of seditious Papers by the Enemy under the sanction of pretended flags of Truce or otherwise and for punishing Persons detected in attempts to disperse such Papers.(4) I have the honor to be &c.
1 See Laurens' letters to Rawlins Lowndes, October 5, note 2, and to the States, October 13, 1778.
2 Trumbull's October 6 letter and Hoskins' September 17 petition, which contained proposals for the settlement of the accounts of the late commissary Joseph Trumbull, are in PCC, item 66, 1:414-21. They were referred to a committee consisting of Samuel Adams, Josiah Bartlett, Oliver Ellsworth, and Richard Henry Lee on October 15, which submitted a report to Congress on November 2. After reading .the report, however, Congress simply decided to have it "recommitted," and not until March 31, 1779, were the committee's recommendations adopted. See JCC, 12:1011, 1091-92, 13:395 401.
3 See Samuel Adams to Timothy Matlack, this date, note. Laurens enclosed this act and communicated the substance of this paragraph in brief letters of this date to all the states. PCC, item 13, 2:113-16. 'those directed to Maryland and the states southward, however, were combined with his October 13 circular letter to those states, which had not yet been dispatched. Ibid., fols. 110-11.
4 Laurens' letter enclosing this act to Rhode Island governor William Greene also included a brief paragraph introducing "an Act of Congress of the 13th Instant approving the advice and instructions of the Council of War of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations acting under a Resolve of Congress of the 22nd November 1777, respecting the advance of Cloathing made to Officers doing duty in that State & the rate of payment for the same." See JCC, 12:1006-7; and Rhode Island delegates to William Greene, June 27, 1778, note 5.