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 58 HISTORY OF The following is the oath which was prescribed by the Pro- vincial Congress^ and which was administered to every mem- ber. You shall swear by the holy evangelist of the Almighty God, to be a true subject to our continental resolve and Pro- vincial Congress and committees, in this difficulty existing between G-reat Britain and America, and to answer upon such questions as you shall be examined in, so help you Grod/^* Isaac Patchin, who was afterwards among the prisoners captured by Brant, in the spring of 1780, and the particulars of which will be narrated in a future chapter of this work, was the efficient chairman of the committee during its entire deliberations. With the hope of influencing a portion of the Indians to join the American standard, or at least of obtaining pledges of neutrality in the forthcoming struggle, in the winter of 1776, Col. John Harper was despatched with a letter from the Pro- vincial Congress, to Oquago, the winter quarters of a large number of warriors of the Six Nations. The success of this mission was considered to be a matter of the utmost importance to the interests of the frontier settlements, and it was one, too, combining imminent hazard and peril, as it was reported that the J ohnsons had already stirred them up to hostile movements. Harper cheerfully undertook the performance of the arduous duties assigned him, and immediately made preparation for the journey, a distance of over seventy miles, through an almost unbroken wilderness. He was accompanied down the Susquehanna, a distance of nearly fifty miles, to the Johnston settlement, by the regiment of militia under his command, when, deeming it imprudent to march farther into the Indian country, lest the appearance of an armed force amongst them should frustrate the import-
 * Simms' History of Schoharie.