As the laws of war are very arbitrary; and vest an absolute Power in the Hands of one Class of men, over the Lives of another who have no voice among them, and as the Association of freemen can and Ought to be conducted on the principles of freedom, the enclos’d plan is submitted to your Consideration and that of the Committee of Safety. The plan is partly that design’d for one of the Companies of this city before it was known that the Committee of Safety would undertake to form any plan, and it is now laid before you with the utmost humility and Deference, and without the most distant view or Desire of dictating or directing, but purely to lay before you a Plan which would be generally approv’d by the privates, and which is principally design’d to hint to you that the plan which would Approach nearest to that of a free cival Constitution would meet with the highest Approbation and be most likely to answer the ends of our Association.

The Plan is neither perfect nor intended as such. It is laid before you more to shew you that Plans have been thought of and something of this kind Generally Approv’d as far as it has been talk’d of, than with any other view. Submitting to your Superior Wisdom and discernment, I beg leave to subscribe myself Your Most Obedient Humble servant