Report of the Committee appointed to apply to Colonels of the Regiments

v3:317

Michael Farley, Esq˙, brought down the Report of the Committee appointed to apply to the Colonels of the several Regiments, raised in this Colony, for a List of the Non-Commissioned Officers and Soldiers in each Regiment, viz:

"In Council, August 9, 1775.

"The Committee appointed to apply to the Colonels of the several Regiments raised by this Colony, and to the Muster-Masters and Paymasters in the Camps at Cambridge and Roxbury, and obtain of them a complete List of the Non-Commissioned Officers and Soldiers in their respective Regiments, that such methods may be pursued as shall remove all just grounds of complaint, relative to the Soldiers not having their advance pay, have attended that service, and beg leave to report, that notwithstanding application has been made to the Colonels and Paymasters aforesaid, by your Committee, and a return having been ordered by the General to be made by the Colonels as directed by this Court, yet it has either been neglected by many of them, by which your Committee are unable to report what numbers of them are in the Whole Forces raised by this Colony, who have not received their advance wages, which delay causes great uneasiness in those Regiments, at least where the returns have been duly made, and will soon put it out of the power of the Officers to quiet their men, unless the grounds of their complaint are speedily removed. Your Committee, therefore, beg leave to suggest whether if some suitable person should be now appointed and empowered to receive the money out of the Treasury and pay the advance wages to those men who have not received it, so fast as your Committee shall be able to ascertain and report to him the numbers in each Regiment

v3:318

"BENJAMIN LINCOLN, per order"

Read and concurred, and Mr˙ Richard Devens was appointed for the purpose therein mentioned.