[MANUSCRIPT DOCUMENT, SIGNED BY THOMAS PAINE AS CLERK OF THE PENNSYLVANIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY, TRANSMITTING A RESOLUTION REGARDING THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN PENNSYLVANIA AND VIRGINIA]

[Philadelphia, November 19, 1779].. [1]p. on a bifolium sheet, the following two pages blank, the document addressed and docketed on the fourth page. Old fold lines. Near fine. An official communication, signed by Thomas Paine, transmitting a resolution of the Pennsylvania General Assembly. Paine was involved in Pennsylvania politics for several years after his arrival in America in 1774. He was associated with the men who drafted the state's new constitution in 1776, and he wrote a series of letters in local newspapers supporting the constitution. In 1777, Paine was elected to the Committee of Correspondence of the Whig Society in Pennsylvania. He was appointed clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly in November 1779, shortly after resigning his position as secretary of foreign affairs for the Continental Congress. He needed other employment in order to supplement his income as a writer. In this document Paine, as clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly, transmits a resolution to the state's Supreme Executive Council in care of Gov. Joseph Reed. The resolution (not present here) addressed the question of the state's boundary with Virginia and the extension of the Mason-Dixon line.