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every assistance in our power, towards rendering your Excellency's administration easy and happy to yourself, and effective of the most permanent tranquillity and welfare of this community.
To which Address his EXCELLENCY was pleased to return the following Answer:
GENTLEMEN: The loyalty you express to the King, and your kind Address to me on my appointment to this Government, claim my warmest acknowledgments.
I receive the greatest satisfaction in the assurances you give of your intentions towards the preservation of the peace and welfare of the community, and return you thanks for the assistance you offer to render my administration easy and happy.
I beg you to believe, that as it is my duty, so it is my inclination to give a close attention to the administration of justice, and the due execution of the laws; and that I shall exert every power lodged in my hands, for the protection of his Majesty's subjects, that every individual may enjoy the blessings peculiar to a British Constitution, by being secured both in his person and property.
FROM PHILADELPHIA TO THE BOSTON COMMITTEE.
Extract.
Philadelphia, May 24, 1774.
We lament with you the distress of Boston, and think Great Britain must be out of her senses. We are fully sensible your cause is the common cause of all the Colonies; we must have a push for it, with all our strength against the whole strength of Great Britain; by sea they will beat us; by land, they will not attempt us; we must try it out in a way of commerce.
1st. By suspending all trade with Great Britain, we can lessen the revenue of the Crown near a million sterling per annum.
2d. By suspending all trade with the West Indies, we can starve them and ruin their plantations; by withholding our provisions and lumber, in six months, which will stop the four and a half per cent to the Crown, ruin a great number of merchants in London, who are concerned in the West Indies, and deliver us from the slow poison we usually import from thence.
3d. By withholding flax-seed from Ireland, we can ruin the linen manufactory in twelve months. This will reduce about three hundred thousand people to a want of employ; which, with near an equal number of British manufacturers in Great Britain reduced to the same state, will soon muster tumults enough to fill their hands and hearts at home, for there is no satisfying starving people, but by killing or feeding them.
These are the means we are coolly deliberating; we have other things in contemplation; as stopping our ports entirely, and laying up all our shipping; and some other things; we shall try to convene a general Congress of all the Colonies as soon as may be. May God give wisdom and firmness, prudence, and patience, in this time of trial
Talbot Court House, Maryland, May 24, 1774.
Alarmed at the present situation of America, and impressed with the most tender feelings for the distresses of their brethren and fellow-subjects in Boston, a number of gentlemen having met at this place, took into their serious consideration the part they ought to act, as friends to liberty, and to the general interests of mankind.
To preserve the rights, and to secure the property of the subject, they apprehend is the end of Government. But when those rights are invaded—when the mode prescribed by the laws for the punishment of offences, and obtaining justice, is disregarded and spurned: when, without being heard in their defence, force is employed, and the severest penalties are inflicted; the people, they clearly conceive, have a right not only to complain, but likewise to exert their utmost endeavours to prevent the effect of such measures as may be adopted by a weak or corrupt Ministry to destroy their liberties; deprive them of their property; and rob them of their dearest birth-right as Britons.
Impressed with the warmest zeal for, and loyalty to their most gracious Sovereign; and with the most sincere affection for their fellow-subjects in Great Britain, they are determined calmly and steadily, to unite with their fellow-subjects in pursuing every legal and constitutional measure, to avert the evils threatened by the late Act of Parliament for shutting up the port and harbour of Boston; to support the common rights of America; and to promote that union and harmony between the mother country and her Colonies, on which the preservation of both must finally depend.
I. TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE BRITISH COLONIES IN AMERICA.
Philadelphia, May 24, 1774.
BRETHREN: Divine Providence has been pleased to place us, in this age and country, under such circumstances as to be reduced to the necessity of choosing one of these conditions: either to submit to the dominion of others holding our lives, liberties, and properties, by the precarious tenure of their will; or, to exert that understanding, resolution, and power, with which Heaven has favoured us, in striving to maintain our rank in the class of freemen.
The importance of these objects is so immensely great, and the treatment of one of these Colonies so extremely alarming, as to call for your most earnest and immediate consideration.
The subject of the present dispute between Great Britain and us is so generally understood, that to enlarge upon it is needless. We know the extent of her claims; we begin to feel the enforcement of those claims; we may foresee the consequences of them; for, reason teaching us to infer actions from principles, and events from examples, should convince us what a perfection of servitude is to be fixed on us and our posterity; I call it perfection, because the wit of man, it is apprehended, cannot devise a plan of domination more completely tending to bear down the governed into the lowest and meanest state in society, than that now meditated, avowed, and in part executed on this Continent.
If this system becomes established, it may with truth be said of the inhabitants of these Colonies, "that they hold their lives, liberties, and properties, by the precarious tenure of the will of others."*
Allowing the danger to be real at the prospect of so abject and so lasting a subjection, what must be the sentiments of judicious and virtuous Americans? They will quickly determine whether the first part of the alternative should be adopted.
Here arguments would be absurd; not more ridiculous would be an attempt to prove vice preferable to virtue; the climate of St. Vincent more pleasant than that of Pennsylvania; the natives of Indostan, under the Government of the East India Company, as happy as English freeholders; or the inhabitants of Great Britain more loyal subjects than those of the Colonies.
That liberty is inestimable, and should if possible, be preserved, you know. To pretend to convince you of the truth of the former proposition, or of the duty of the latter, would be to insult you. You must be; you are resolved to observe the most proper conduct for securing your best and dearest interests. What that may be, deserves, demands, your closest attention, your calmest deliberation.
On this head, I venture to submit some observations to your consideration. I am by every tie of interest and duty an American; and, unless my heart deceives me, I am an American in affection; my fortunes, hopes, and wishes are bound up in your prosperity; with my countrymen I must mourn or rejoice; and therefore, though I am perfectly sensible I cannot present to them reflections arising from great abilities, or extensive learning, and adorned by elegance of composition; yet, I trust they will lend a careful and candid attention to plain thoughts; dictated by honest intentions, and a participation of afflictions. Aiming solely at your welfare, and not at the trifling reputation of a writer, far be from me, the over-weening presumption that my opinions are free from errour; conscious of my frailties, I desire those opinions to be severely examined; the correction of them will confer a real obligation upon
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