On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress resolved that “a director general and chief physician of the Hospital in Massachusetts be appointed in place of Doctor Benjamin Church, who is taken into custody for holding a correspondence with the enemy” and scheduled the vote for his replacement on the next day the Congress was scheduled to meet.

Source: https://americanfounding.org/entries/second-continental-congress-october-14-1775/

On this day 250 years ago, from his home at Gunston Hall, Virginia, George Mason wrote a lengthy report to his friend George Washington on the resolutions adopted by the Virginia Convention:

The Convention, not thinking this a time to relye upon Resolves & Recommendations only, and to give obligatory Force to their proceedings, adopted the Style & Form of Legislation, changing the word enact into ordain: their Ordinances were all introduced in the Form of Bills, were regularly referred to a Committee of the whole House, and underwent their Readings before they were passed. I inclose You the Ordinance for rising an arm’d Force for the Defence & protection of this Colony; . . . I hope it will merit your Approbation. The Minute-plan I think is a wise one, & will in a short time furnish 8,000 good Troops, ready for Action, & composed of Men in whose Hands the Sword may be safely trusted: to defray the Expence of the Provisions made by this Ordinance, & to pay the Charge of the last Year’s Indian war, we are now emitting the Sum of 350,000£ in Paper Curry. I have great Apprehensions that the large Sums in Bills of Credit now issueing all over the Continent may have fatal Effects in depreciating the Value, and therefore opposed any Suspension of Taxation, and urged the necessity of imediatly laying such Taxes as the people cou’d bear, to sink the Sum emitted as soon as possible; but was able only to reduce the proposed Suspension from three Years to one. . . . Our Friend the Treasurer was the warmest Man in the Convention for imediatly raising a standing Army of not less than 4000 Men, upon constant Pay: they stood a considerable time at 3000, exclusive of the Troops upon the western Frontiers; but at the last reading (as you will see by the Ordinance) were reduced to 1020 rank & file. In my Opinion a well judged Reduction, not only from our Inability to furnish at present such a Number with Arms & Ammunition, but I think it extreamly imprudent to exhaust ourselves before we know when we are to be attack’d: the Part we have to act at present seems to require our laying in good Magazines, training our People, & having a good Number of them ready for Action. An Ordinance is passed for regulating an annual Election of Members to the Convention, & County-Committees—for encouraging the making of Saltpetre, Sulphur & Gunpowder—for establishing a Manufactory of Arms, under the Direction of Commissioners; and for appointing a Committee of Safety, consisting of eleven Members, for carrying the Ordinances of the Convention into Execution, directing the Stations of the Troops, & calling the Minute Battalions, & Draughts from the Militia into Service, if necessary &c.

There is also an Ordinance establishing Articles for the Government of the Troops, principally taken from those drawn up by the Congress, except that a Court Martial upon Life & Death is more cautiously constituted, & brought nearer to the Principles of the common Law.

Source: “George Mason to George Washington, 14 October 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0156. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2, 16 September 1775 – 31 December 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 163–166.]