was accidentally their mutual Interest to fight Side by Side? If the Cincinnati had a Right to erect themselves into an order for the national Purposes of their Institution, had they a Right to call in foreign Aid for those Purposes? It appears to me as impolitic, preposterous & dangerous as it would be for the United States to invite & admit a Delegation from that foreign Power into their Congress. I take Notice that the Committee of Congress propose that the Govts of the ten new States to be formd shall be in Republican form & shall admit no Person to be a Citizen who holds any hereditary Title. I hope Congress will not fail to make this an indispensible Condition. Your Letter of the 2d relating to Colo Gridleys Affair came to hand. I am obligd to you for the Care you have taken. Believe me to be yr sincere & affectionate Friend, 1 Cf. J. F. Jameson, Essays in Constitutional History, pp. 32 et seq. TO NOAH WEBSTER. [MS., Ford Collection, Lenox Library; a draft is in the Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library,] BOSTON April 30th 1784 SIR I was favord with your Letter of 24th March, but by a Multiplicity of Affairs, which, as it happened I was at that Time engaged in, I was prevented returning an Answer so speedily as you desired. For this Reason I afterwards thought an Answer would be of no Importance. Decency alone should, however, have induced me to have acknowledgd the Favor. I hope you will excuse the Omission. Some time in the Month of September last, a Gentleman in Connecticutt requested me to give him my Opinion of a Subject, perhaps too much altercated in that State as well as this, The Commutation of half Pay granted by Congress to the Officers of the late Army for Life for full Pay during the Term of five years. I did not hesitate to say in Return, that in my Opinion Congress was, in the Nature of their Appointment, the sole Judge of the necessary Means of supporting the late Army raised for the Defence of our Common Rights against the Invasions of Great Britain; and if, upon their own deliberate Councils & the repeated Representations of the Commander in Chiefe of the Army, they judgd that the Grant of half Pay for Life was a Measure absolutely necessary for the Support of a disciplined Army for the Purpose before mentiond, they had an undoubted Right to make it; and as it was made in behalf of the United States by their Representative authorizd to do it, each State was bound in Justice & Honor to comply with it, even tho it should seem to any to have been an ill judgd Measure; because States & Individual Persons are equally bound to fulfill their Obligations, and it is given as Characteristick of an honest Man, that "though he sweareth (or promiseth) to his own hurt he changeth not." I moreover acquainted him, that although I was never pleasd with the Idea of half Pay for Life, for Reasons which appeard satisfactory to myself, some of which I freely explaind to him, yet I had always thought, that as the