United states, September 26, 1789.

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: 

Having yesterday received a letter written in this month by the governor of Rhode Island at the request and in behalf of the general assembly of that State, addressed to the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the eleven United States of America in Congress assembled, I take the earliest opportunity of laying a copy of it before you.

Go.  Washington.

State of Rhode island and Providence plantations,
  In General Assembly, September Session, 1789.

To the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the Eleven United States of America in Congress assembled: 

The critical situation in which the people of this State are placed engage us to make these assurances on their behalf of their attachment and friendship to their sister States and of their disposition to cultivate mutual harmony and friendly intercourse.  They know themselves to be a handful, comparatively viewed; and although they now stand, as it were, alone, they have not separated themselves or departed from the principles of that Confederation which was formed by the sister States in their struggle for freedom and in the hour of danger.  They seek by this memorial to call to your remembrance the hazards which we have run, the hardships we have endured, the treasure we have spent, and the blood we have lost together in one common cause, and especially the object we had in view—­the preservation of our liberty; wherein, ability considered, they may truly say they were equal in exertions with the foremost, the effects whereof, in great embarrassments and other distresses consequent thereon, we have since experienced with severity; which common sufferings and common danger we hope and trust yet form a bond of union and friendship not easily to be broken.

Our not having acceded to or adopted the new system of government formed and adopted by most of our sister States we doubt not have given uneasiness to them.  That we have not seen our way clear to do it consistent with our idea of the principles upon which we all embarked together has also given pain to us.  We have not doubted but we might thereby avoid present difficulties, but we have apprehended future mischief.  The people of this State from its first settlement have been accustomed and strongly attached to a democratical form of government.  They have viewed in the Constitution an approach, though perhaps but small, toward that form of government from which we have lately dissolved our connection at so much hazard and expense of life and treasure; they have seen with pleasure the administration thereof from the most important trust downward committed to men who have highly merited and in whom the people of the United States place unbounded confidence.