which must be a mortifying circumstance, as well to my Lord North as to the India Company. We value ourselves much on having given our sister Colonies so striking an instance of our virtue and opposition to Ministerial schemes; if it is not sent for soon it will be good for nothing. I could wish the town of Boston had taken this legal way of destroying theirs, as it is equally effectual; besides giving a proof to all the world that we are so much attached to the cause of liberty, that there are not even individuals among us who would purchase the baneful herb.

CHARLES COUNTY (MARYLAND) RESOLUTIONS.

At a Meeting of the Inhabitants of Charles County, on the 14th of June, 1774, at the Court House, in Port-Tobacco town, to deliberate on the effect and tendency of the Act of Parliament, for blocking up the port and harbour of Boston.

Mr. WALTER HANSON unanimously chosen Chairman.

1st. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this meeting that the Act of the British Parliament passed to block up the harbour and port of Boston, and suspend the trade and commerce of that town, is a violent attack upon the liberty and property of the inhabitants thereof, and in its consequences tends to render insecure and destroy the rights and privileges of all British America.

2d. That the town of Boston, now suffering under the execution of the said Act, justly demands the most speedy and effectual assistance of every Colony in America to obtain a repeal of the same.

3d. That the inhabitants of this county will join in an Association with the several counties of this Province to put a stop to all imports from Great Britain after the first day of August next, except the articles of medicine, until the said Act be repealed.

4th. That if the said Act of Parliament is not repealed by the 31st day of October, in the year 1775, that then the inhabitants of (.his county will join with the several counties of this Province, and the principal Colonies in America, to break off all commercial connection with Great Britain and the West Indies.

5th. It is the opinion of this meeting, that a Congress of Deputies from the several Colonies will be the most probable means of uniting America in one general measure to effectuate a repeal of the said Act of Parliament.

6th. That Deputies shall be sent from this county to meet at the City of Annapolis, on th6 22d instant, and join with the Deputies appointed by the several counties in a general, rational, and practicable Association for this Province, and to appoint Deputies to attend a Congress of those nominated by the several Colonies, and to adopt any other measures for the relief of the people of Boston, which to them seems fit and reasonable.

7th. That the inhabitants of this county will break off all trade, commerce, and dealings, with that Colony, town, or county, which shall decline or refuse to associate in some rational and effectual means to procure a repeal of the said Act of Parliament.

8th. That the inhabitants of this county will adopt and steadily pursue such measures, as tend to protect and secure the liberties of this county, according to the true principles of the English Constitution, and thereby show themselves loyal and faithful subjects to his Majesty King George the Third.

9th. That Messrs. Walter Hanson, William Smallwood, Josias Hawkins, Francis Ware, Joseph Hanson Harrison, Thomas Stone, George Dent, Gustavus Richard Brown, John Dent, Thomas Hanson Marshall, Daniel Jenifer, Samuel Love, James Forbes, Robert T. Hooe, Philip Richard Fendall, Zephaniah Turner, James Key, and James Craik, or any seven of them, be a Committee of Correspondence, to receive and answer all letters, and, on any emergency, to call a general meeting of the county; and that Messrs. Walter Hanson, William Smallwood, Josias Hawkins, Francis Ware, Joseph Hanson Harrison, Thomas Stone, John Dent, Daniel Jenifer, and Robert T. Hooe, are appointed Deputies for this county to attend the general meeting at Annapolis, the 22d instant.

Signed per order,                                                                                          JOHN GWIN, Clerk

IV. TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE BRITISH COLONIES IN AMERICA.

Philadelphia, June 15, 1774.

BRETHREN: The intelligence received since the preceding letter was written, seems to render needless every attempt to prove from former transactions, my first intention, if health had permitted, that a regular plan Las been Invariably pursued to enslave these Colonies, and that the Act of Parliament for the blocking up the port of Boston is a part of the plan. However unprecedented and cruel that measure is, yet some persons among us might have flattered themselves that the resentment of the Parliament is directed solely against the town. The last advices mention two Bills to be passing in Parliament, one changing the chartered Constitution of the Province of Massachusetts Bay into a Military Government; and another empowering Administration to send for and try persons in England for actions committed in that Colony.*

By these instances we perceive that Administration has not only renounced all respect, and all appearance of respect for the rights of these Colonies, but even the plainest principles of justice and humanity. Were the Representatives of the people of Massachusetts Bay called upon to make satisfaction for the damage done to private property in any late tumult there? No. Yet it was known that those Representatives had made ample reparation for the injuries committed on occasion of the Stamp Act. It was known that the like reparation had been made by the Assemblies of New-York and Rhode-Island. In short, it was known, that notwithstanding the incessant pains taken by many Ministers to tease the Colonies by oppressions and insults into madness, yet they have, with difficulty, excited only a few tumults, for which the popular branch of the Legislature in the several Colonies has ever been ready to atone, upon requisitions from the Crown.

Great clamour has been raised at home against Massachusetts Bay, on account of resolutions at some of their own town meetings, and other writings published in that Colony; and better it were that many of them had been suppressed. The truth is, that people, animated by an ardent and generous love of liberty, saw, and peculiarly felt, the projects against the freedom and happiness of America. I know them well; and if ever a State deserved the character, they are a moral, religious, quiet, and loyal people, affectionately attached to the welfare and honour of Great Britain, and dearly valuing their dependence on her. Observant and sensible as they were of the present and approaching evils, some of them adopted a very imprudent, but what appeared to them a very peaceable and justifiable method, of discouraging Administration from proceeding in such alarming and dangerous measures—that of speaking in a high tone. Words were opposed to injuries; and menaces, never designed for execution, to insults intolerable. What could they do? Their humble petitions were haughtily and contemptuously rejected. The more they supplicated the more they were abused. By their tears, and Heaven knows many they have shed, their persecutions flourished as trees by water poured on their roots. Their very virtue and passionate fondness for concord for their mother country, occasioned this objected errour. "Surely," says Solomon, "oppression maketh a wise man mad." A silly man may disregard it. In playing the fool they showed their wisdom. This is the true history of those futile pieces that produced so much solid eloquence in Great Britain.

* By the first of these Bills the Governour is to be invested with the power of a Justice of the Peace, to call out the military to effect, though the Minister says in his speech: "I shall always consider that a military power, acting under the authority and controul of a Civil Magistrate, is a part of the Constitution." By the second, Americans are to be seized, confined, and carried to England, to be tried, that is, hanged on charges for an act done in a Colony. This is not all. Soldiers and others, who shall commit any offence, such as murdering the Colonists, under the pretence of supporting the authority of Parliament, shall be carried to England to be tried—that is—acquitted. Of the habeas corpus and trial by peers, "stat nominis umbra."

"That the absolute power, claimed and exercised in a neighbouring Nation, is more tolerable than that of the Eastern Empires, is in a great measure owing to their having united the judicial power in their Parliaments, a body separate and distinct from both the Legislative and Executive, and if ever that Nation recovers its former liberty, it will owe it to the efforts of those Assemblies. In Turkey, where every thing is centered in the Sultan, or his Minister, despotic power is in its meridian, and wears a most dreadful aspect."—5 BLACKSTONE, 269, 270.