situation the legislature is in, and they rely on the wisdom of Congress to adopt and propose some measure for relief in this extremity. "In the name and by order of the General Court, "We are your Excellency's most obedient humble servants, "SAMUEL ADAMS, _President of the Senate_. "TRISTRAM DALTON, _Speaker of the House of Representatives_. "HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS." This letter was thought worthy an answer, and accordingly a report upon it was brought in by Mr. Madison, and adopted in Congress, containing among other things the following:-- "Your committee consider the measure of Congress as the result of a deliberate judgment, framed on a general view of the interests of the Union at large. They consider it to be a truth, that no State in this Confederacy can claim (more equitably than an individual in a society) to derive advantages from a Union, without conforming to the judgment of a constitutional majority of those who compose it; still, however, they conceive it will be found no less true, that, if a State every way so important as Massachusetts should withhold her solid support to constitutional measures of the Confederacy, the result must be a dissolution of the Union;--and then she must hold herself as alone responsible for the anarchy and domestic confusion that may succeed, and for exposing all these confederated States (who at the commencement of the late war leagued to defend her violated rights) an easy prey to the machinations of their enemies, and the sport of European politics; and therefore they are of opinion, that Congress should still confide that a free, enlightened, and generous people will never hazard consequences so perilous and alarming, and in all circumstances rely on the wisdom, temper, and virtue of their constituents, which (guided by an all-wise Providence) have ever interposed to avert impending evils and misfortunes. Your committee beg leave further to observe, that, from an earnest desire to give satisfaction to such of the States as expressed a dislike to the half-pay establishment, a sum in gross was proposed by Congress, and accepted by the officers, as an equivalent for their half-pay. That your committee are informed, that such equivalent was ascertained on established principles which are acknowledged to be just, and adopted in similar cases; but that if the objections against the commutation were ever so valid, yet, as it is not now under the arbitration of Congress, but an act finally adopted, and the national faith pledged to carry it into effect, they could not be taken into consideration. With regard to the