As regards the Continental Army it may be said that Mr. George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of Washington, says in his Personal Recollections, that Ireland contributed to the Continental Army one hundred to one of any nation before the coming of the French. Among the French, as is well known, there were many Irish. Others have put the number of Irish in Washington’s army as high as fifty per cent. Since I have not been able to get original records regarding the Irish in the Revolutionary army I shall leave the question with the statement, supported by fairly wide reading on the subject, that to put it conservatively a very large number of the soldiers were Irish, or of Irish origin, as were many of the officers. The question of the Irish, composition of the army of the Revolution is being considered and an investigation of the muster rolls is being made by one of our members, so that in the near future the Irish contribution in this regard will receive an unquestionable verification. The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick was founded at Philadelphia in 1771, where Catholic, Presbyterian, Quaker, and Episcopalian were united like a band of brothers. It was composed of the most active and influential men. The devotion of its members to the cause of freedom was acknowledged by Washington in a letter to the President of the Society where he described the Society as “distinguished for the firmness of its members to the glorious cause in which we are embarked.” Of the Society seven were generals in the Revolutionary army. Wayne, Stewart, William Thompson, Knox, Irvine, Hand, and Moylan, the latter being the first President of the Society. This Society rendered material assistance to the necessities of the army. At a time when everything depended on a vigorous prosecution of the war it was found impossible to arouse the public spirit of the Americans. In this emergency was conceived and carried into operation the plan of the Bank of Pennsylvania, established for supplying the army of the United States with provisions for two months. Ninety-three individuals and firms subscribed and the amount realized was three hundred thousand pounds. Of this twenty-seven members of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick subscribed one hundred and three thousand five hundred pounds. John Sullivan and John Langdon, in 1774, seized the military stores at Fort William and Mary at the entrance of the Harbor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and thus enabled the so-called rebels to fight the battle of Bunker Hill. Richard Montgomery, who was born in the County of Donegal, Ireland, was the first general of the Continental Army to fall.