A draft of an Answer to General Schuyler's several Letters above-mentioned, was read and filed, and is in the words following, to wit:

                         In Provincial Congress, March 4, 1776.
    SIR: We have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of yours of the 21st and 27th ultimo, with a list of such officers as have served in the last campaign. We fear, from a want of proper information, and the necessity we are under of immediately completing the four regiments ordered to be raised for the defence of this Colony, some gentlemen now absent may be neglected, whose merits ought to be considered. In our confused state, we shall endeavour to do justice to individuals, as far as is consistent with the publick service. In this arrangement, Mr. Paine's merit will be considered.
    In the appointment of the Captains to our four battalions, we have, through mistake, omitted Captain Wynkoop, whose services, during the last summer, justly merit the attention of the publick. We could wish, sir, it was in your power to provide for him on the lake, as we are informed he is well qualified for service in that department; but if it should not be in your power to provide for him, we beg to have the earliest notice, that we may appoint him to the first vacancy.
    We have ordered six hundred fathoms of tarred rope, two fishing nets, and ropes for four, to be sent to Mr. Commissary Livingston, at Albany, to whom we have also ordered the quantity of pitch and tar you formerly wrote for to be sent. You will receive by this conveyance blank commissions for Colonel Van Schaick's Regiment.
    We are, sir, with esteem, your obedient humble servants.
        By order of Congress.
To Major General Schuyler.

    Ordered that a copy thereof be engrossed, and signed by the President, and transmitted by Monsieur De Gas, together with sixty blank Continental Commissions.
    And the same were all transmitted accordingly.

    A letter from Colonel James Holmes to Captain Jacobus Wynkoop, dated at Ticonderoga, on the 7th day of December last, was read and filed.
    Pursuant to a Resolution of the Provincial Congress of the 3d of November last, he therein directs Captain Wynkoop to make an immediate stoppage in the pay of Thomas Hampton, James Davenport, and Henry May, late deserters from Captain Wynkoop's Company, in Colonel Holmes's Regiment, to reimburse the sum of thirteen Pounds, eight Shillings and seven Pence, expended and paid by the Provincial Congress for apprehending the said deserters.
    Captain Wynkoop, at the door, informs a Member that he has stopped the said payment out of the pay of the said deserters, and has the money ready to pay to this Congress, or their order.
    Ordered, that Captain Jacobus Wynkoop pay to Peter Van Brugh Livingston, Esq., Treasurer of this Congress, the sum of thirteen Pounds, eight Shillings and seven Pence, now in his hands, stopped out of the pay of Thomas Hampton, James Davenport, and Henry May, three deserters from his Company, in the Regiment late Colonel Holmes's, to replace the money advanced and paid out of the said Treasury for the apprehending and sending back of the said deserters to their Regiment; and that Captain Wynkoop, on behalf of Colonel Holmes, take a receipt of the Deputy Treasurer for that sum.

Source:

Force, Peter, American Archives: Consisting of a collection of authentick records, state papers, debates, and letters and other notices of publick affairs, the whole forming a documentary history of the origin and progress of the North American colonies; of the causes and accomplishment of the American revolution; and of the Constitution of government for the United States, to the final ratification thereof., 4th Series, M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force, 1837-46, Volume 5, pp. 331-332