Extract of a letter from Poughkeepsie, dated on the morning of the 11th. inst.1 ". . . When the Convention met on Thursday, Mr. Lansing came forward with the amendments, arranged in three classes; explanatory, CONDITIONAL, and recommendatory. The Bill of Rights is among those that are explanatory. The following are conditional; 1st. That there shall be no standing army in time of peace, without the consent of two-thirds of Congress:—2d. That there shall be no DIRECT TAXES, nor excises on American manufactures:-3d. That the militia shall not be ordered out of the state, except by the previous consent of the executive thereof; nor then for a longer time than six weeks, without the consent of the state legislature; —and 4th, that there shall be no interference in the elections, unless when a state shall neglect or refuse to provide for the same.
"In reading the amendments, Mr. Lansing observed, that they had not only been changed in form, but in substance. One of them has been changed indeed; it is Melancton Smith's first amendment, and about which there was several day's debate: the original amendment was for having the House of Representatives doubled in the first instance, and that it should encrease at the rate of one for every 20,000, till it got to 300. As it now stands, it is that there shall be a representative for every 30,000, till it get to 200; beyond which it may not go.
"After the amendments were read, it was proposed by Mr. Lansing, that the Convention should adjourn, and that a committee of both parties should be informally appointed, who should endeavor to make such an accommodation, and so to arrange the amendments as to bring the business to a quick and friendly decision: accordingly the Convention adjourned.
"When the committee met, Mr. Jay declared that the word conditional should be erased before there could be any discussion on the merits of the amendment[s]; this occasioned about an hour's debate, and the Anties determining not to give up that point, the committee was dissolved without effecting any thing. In this committee I am told that Mr. Jones and Mr. M. Smith, discovered a disposition somewhat moderate; the others it is said were quite violent.
"How
the matter will now terminate, I know not. It is expected that something of importance will take place this forenoon, of which I shall give the earliest information."
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