Saturday, June 15, 1776

Resolved, That the report of the committee on General Washington’s letters of the 9th and 10, which was left unfinished, together with the amendments moved and seconded, be referred to the committee of the whole Congress.

The Congress then resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to take into consideration the several reports referred to them; and, after some time spent thereon, the president resumed the chair, and Mr. Harrison reported, that the committee have had under consideration the several reports to them referred, and have come to sundry resolutions, which they ordered him to report; but, not having had time to go through the whole, desired him to move for leave to sit again.

227

The report from the committee of the whole being delivered in,

Resolved, That a committee of three four be appointed to digest and arrange the several resolutions reported, in order to be laid before Congress; and that the committee of the whole be discharged of the reports, so far as they relate to the cartel entered into between General Arnold and Captain Foster for an exchange of prisoners,1 and that the same be referred to the committee now to be appointed:2

The members chosen, Mr. Jefferson,3 Mr. Braxton, Mr. Paine, and Mr. Middleton.

Printed in Journals of the Continental Congress, 5:446.

1.

Gen. Benedict Arnold and Capt. George Forster of the British army were negotiating a prisoner exchange to include some 500 Americans captured at the Cedars near Montreal in May.

2.

Jefferson’s notes on an interview with Maj. Henry Sherburne, a Rhode Island officer who had been captured at the Cedars, along with the committee report, appear in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd [Princeton, N.J., 1950– ], 1:396–404).

3.

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of the Virginia delegation to the Continental Congress in 1775 and 1776, drafted the Declaration of Independence as chairman of the committee considering the issue. He resigned from Congress shortly after its signing and returned to Virginia. His later career included time as governor of Virginia (1779–1781), a return to the Continental Congress (1783–1784), times as minister to France and secretary of state, and then as vice president (1797–1801) and president (1801–1809) of the United States ( DAB ). RTP and Jefferson served on several committees together during this period.