Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
Our General Assembly are now sitting, they have agreed to Stop the currency of the Bills of this State (except small change under a dollar) by the 20th. of march next in private dealing, and in the Treasury by the first day of July next, except from persons in the Army & out of the State making proof that they had not opportunity to bring them in by that time, who may bring them in by the 1 Novr. next & not afterward. Both Houses have also Agreed to Accept & approve the report of the Convention for Regulating prices without any alteration & ordered a Bill for an Act to be drawn thereon. The Assembly have also laid Taxes for Collecting 600,000 dollars toward Supplying the Continental Treasury, one half to be paid the first Day of June & the other the first of November next. It is the General opinion here that we can neither fill up, or keep up the Army unless immediate & effectual measures are taken to reduce the present high prices, & render the medium Stable. It is hoped that the System of measures recommended by congress if Strictly Adhered to by all the States will produce those Salutary effects.
I wish to be Informed what your Assembly have done or are likely to do respecting those measures. Some Traders & Speculators here, are opposed to the regulation of prices by Law, but by the best Information I have been able to Collect the people in General are in favour of it. An express Sent by the Governor to Congress returned Yesterday & brought Several letters & 23 papers but they contain no very material news. He Says he was informed on his way home that a party of our Troops had taken a foraging party of the Enemy, of 300 men with Sixty Waggons & two Field pieces.
The General Court of the State of Massachusetts Bay having attentively Considered the Articles of confederation and perpetual Union between the United States of America recommended to our attention by the Honble. Congress do approve of them in general as well calculated to secure the Freedom, Sovereignty and Independence of the United States, perhaps no plan could have been proposed better adapted to the Circumstances of all. We therefore the Council and House of Representatives of this State in General Court Assembled, do in the Name and behalf of the good People of this State Instruct you their Delegates to subscribe said Articles of Confederation & perpetual Union, as they were recommended by Congress unless the following alterations or such as may be proposed by the other States can be received and adopted wth.out endangering the Union proposed.1
The first thing We desire your attention to, before you ratify and Confirm these Articles, is the mode of supplying the Continental Treasury with money to defray the public Expences pointed out in the eighth Article, in short we conceive the Questions upon this Article to be so difficult of solution without some experience of the Effect, any method proposed may be attended with, that we apprehend Provision ought to be made for varying the mode from time to time untill experience has discovered which will be the most equitable plan, which when discovered & laid before the several States will doubtless be confirmed.
The Provision made in the sixth paragraph of the ninth Article, which makes the assent of nine States necessary to exercise the Powers with wch. Congress are vested, does not give all that security to the States in these 24 important matters which we think necessary & which perhaps was intended by Congress: As the paragraph now stands, it will put it in the power of the five smallest States to give a Negative on the most important & necessary Business, & as it is probable that a very small Majority of the People of the United States will be contained in the nine smallest States, nay perhaps less the half, it certainly ought not to be in their power to give Law in the important matters mentioned in this paragraph. We apprehend it would be better to substitute in the room of nine States these words Ten States or at least the Delegates for two thirds of the People of the United States of America, represented in Congress.
The paragraph which determines the principle on which each State is to furnish its Quota of the Army, demands your special Attention because it appears to be unequal, & consequently injurious; if the numbers to be furnished by each State to the Army are to be rated in proportion to the number of whites, it will be unequal because those numbers are so, & will be injurious by Operating as a Tax by the Bounties necessary to be given, & by an unequal drain of the Inhabitants & consequently a diminution of the many advantages derived from their Industry and Labour, while other States who have a less number of whites tho’ perhaps an equal if not greater number of Inhabitants are free from the Burthen of the first & the disadvantages arising from the last.
If any improper term or Words are now in any Article, or if any Sentiment may in your Opinion be better Expressed, you will propose & agree to have proper alterations made.
You will consider yourselves, also at Liberty to consent to amendments proposed by other States or their members provided that such amendments are not materially repugnant to the Articles of Confederation, or the Spirit of these Instructions.
On June 23, 1778, the Massachusetts delegates reported on the “sundry objections transmitted to them by their constituents.” These requested reconsideration of the proportion of taxes to be paid by each state, the apportionment of forces from each state, and the rule requiring assent of nine states as necessary to the 25 exercise of congressional powers. All three considerations were rejected by Congress (Journals of the Continental Congress, 11:638).
Jeremiah Dummer Powell (1720–1784) of North Yarmouth served on the Massachusetts Council, including as Council president from 1776 to 1779. After the adoption of the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution, he served as president of the Senate until 1781 (John A. Schutz, Legislators of the Massachusetts General Court, 1691–1780: A Biographical Directory [Boston, 1997], 316).