Go. WASHINGTON.



STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS,
_In General Assembly, September Session, 1789_.

_To the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the
Eleven United States of America in Congress assembled_:

The critical situation in which the people of this State are placed
engage us to make these assurances on their behalf of their attachment
and friendship to their sister States and of their disposition to
cultivate mutual harmony and friendly intercourse. They know themselves
to be a handful, comparatively viewed; and although they now stand, as
it were, alone, they have not separated themselves or departed from the
principles of that Confederation which was formed by the sister States
in their struggle for freedom and in the hour of danger. They seek by
this memorial to call to your remembrance the hazards which we have run,
the hardships we have endured, the treasure we have spent, and the blood
we have lost together in one common cause, and especially the object
we had in view--the preservation of our liberty; wherein, ability
considered, they may truly say they were equal in exertions with the
foremost, the effects whereof, in great embarrassments and other
distresses consequent thereon, we have since experienced with severity;
which common sufferings and common danger we hope and trust yet form a
bond of union and friendship not easily to be broken.

Our not having acceded to or adopted the new system of government formed
and adopted by most of our sister States we doubt not have given