In the mean time I am with great Esteem &c

1 Secretary of State of New York.

TO JAMES LOVELL.

[Ms., Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library.]

Boston Mar 5 1780

MY DEAR SIR

I have receivd since I last wrote, your 21st, 25th & 28th of Jany and 8th & 16th of Feby, with the inclosd which I have distributed according to your Request.  My Time has been spent for two Months past, partly in my sick Chamber and partly in our Convention for forming a Constitution which we finishd yesterday for the Inspection of the People.  You shall have a Copy of it when it can be got thro the Press.  Considering the Winter we have had and the utmost Impossibility of travelling, I am not so much surprizd at your Presidents not having receivd the Letters which have been sent from the General Assembly relating to Vermont.  Mr Avery assures me that Duplicates were sent, so that I hope they have before this time got to hand.  A Committee was appointed by the General Assembly to state our Right to the Land in Question, with an Intention that our Agent mt be ready at Congress by the Time appointed, but on their representing that they should not be able to report at the last Session they were directed to do it at the next which will begin next Wednesday.  I will then endeavor to get the Number of our Delegates necessary to be present in Congress reducd.

I wish you would send your Account of Time & Expences to the Assembly.  Twenty five Dollars pr Day and Expences were allowd to me for the year 79.  I inform you of this that you may judge whether the Allowance for Time & Service is raisd in Proportion to other things.

In your Letter of the 16 of Feb you mention your having inclosd to me the Day before two Letters from Gen1 Lincoln, and your having had four sent to your Care.  I have receivd only two, and them by Mr Torrey, one of them for the Generals Lady which I have forwarded by a safe hand, and the other for his Son.

“Our Newspapers are remarkeable lately for more groundless Paragraphs than most others.”  It is true.  And there are some Men who with all other political Qualities, cannot keep a political Secret.  I thought it not prudent to mention it, and did not to any one; but to my great Surprize saw it in one of the Papers.  It was however a great Wonder, as I was told a paragraph of one of your own Letters was either read or explaind in a large table Circle, and so it got into the Press.  The Intelligence was far from being displeasing to any of your virtuous fellow Citizens, unless to those who think your Presence in Congress indispensible.

In the Hint I gave you in one of my Letters I was far from intending you should think I meant Capt Mc Neil.  I am sure he is a Man of too much Honor to write the anonimous Letter the Committee receivd.