port the execution of the laws, and render your Excellency's administration successful and prosperous.

HIS EXCELLENCY'S ANSWER.

GENTLEMEN: I return you my most sincere and hearty thanks for your very affectionate and truly patriotic Address. Your disavowal of the malevolent labour of a desperate faction, who, by raising groundless fears and jealousies, and using every sort of artifice and fraud, endeavour to delude and intimidate the people, and create in them an aversion and enmity towards their brethren in Great Britain, is a proof that you hold sentiments the most friendly to your country.

May your designs to discountenance such proceedings meet with all the success that every real patriot must hope and wish for; and I will, at all times, be ready to advance so laudable a work, which alone can give peace and happiness to the Province, and restore the union so necessary to be cemented with the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Williamsburg, June 23, 1774,

By letters from Fort Pitt, (since rebuilt, called Fort Dunmore,) of the 7th instant, there is advice that two days before a family on the west side of the Monongahela, consisting of a man, woman, and six children, were killed and scalped by a party of Indians, with many circumstances of cruelty; and that a man has been killed near Grave Creek, on the Ohio. The day following another man was killed on the Monongahela by the Indians.

EXTRACT FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE TOWN OF WINDHAM, IN CONNECTICUT.

June 23, 1774.

We cannot close this meeting without expressing our utmost abhorrence and detestation of those few in a devoted Province, styling themselves Ministers, Merchants, Barristers and Attorneys, who have, against the sense and opinion of this vast Continent, distinguished themselves in their late fawning, adulating Address to Governour Hutchinson, the scourge of the Province which gave him birth, and the pest of America. His principles and conduct, evidenced by his letters, and those under his approbation, are so replete with treason against his country, and with the meanest of self-exaltation, as cannot be palliated by art, nor disguised by subtlety.

We esteem those Addresses a high-handed insult on the town of Boston, and the Province of Massachusetts Bay in particular, and all the American Colonies in general. Those styled Merchants may plead their profound ignorance of the constitutional rights of Englishmen, as an excuse, in some degree. But for those who style themselves Barristers and Attorneys, they have either assumed a false character, or they must, in some measure, be acquainted with the constitutional rights of Englishmen, and those of their own Province. For them to present such an Address is a daring affront to common sense, a high insult on all others of the profession, and treason against law. And from that learned profession, who are supposed to be well acquainted with the English Constitution, and have the best means, and are under the greatest advantages to defend the rights of society, and who have been famed as the greatest supporters of English liberties, for any of them to make a sacrifice of their all to this Pagod of vanity and fulsome adulation, is mean, vile, and unpardonable, and cannot be accounted for upon any other principles but those of their master, who would sacrifice his country to be the independent head of a respectable Province, and the few leaders of this infamous law band, would, it seems, give their aid and support therein to obtain the first places in this new Kingdom. The addressing Clergy we leave to the reproaches of their own consciences, but lament to find they are the first in their ignominious homage to their idol.

RICHARD HENRY LEE TO SAMUEL ADAMS.

Chantilly, Va., June 23, 1774.

SIR: I did myself the pleasure of writing to you, from this place, before my departure for our Assembly, in May last, and again, from Williamsburg, immediately after our dissolution, enclosing the order for a fast, which produced that event; and an account of the subsequent conduct of the members after the political death inflicted on them. The day before we were dissolved I had prepared a set of resolutions, the two last of which were thus expressed;

"Resolved, That the blocking up, or the attempting to block the harbour of Boston, until the people there shall submit to the payment of the taxes imposed upon them without the consent of their Representatives, is a most violent and dangerous attempt to destroy the constitutional liberty and rights of all British America.

"Resolved, That * * * * * * * * be appointed Deputies from this House, to meet at * * * * * * * * * such Deputies from the other Colonies as they shall appoint, there to consider and determine on ways the most effectual to stop the exports from North America, and for the adoption of such other measures as may be most decisive for securing the rights of America against the systematic plan formed for their destruction."

I have not a remaining doubt that these resolutions would have been agreed to had they been proposed. I was prevented from offering them by many worthy members, who wished to have the public business first finished, and who were induced to believe, from many conversations they had heard, that there was no danger of a dissolution before it had happened. It seems Government were alarmed at the spirit which the order for a fast denoted, and, fearing the consequences, interposed a dissolution. The consequent conduct of the members was surely much too feeble, in opposition to that very dangerous and alarming degree to which despotism had advanced. So thinking, I did propose to the dissolved members the plan of a general Congress; but they made a distinction between their then state, and that when they were members of the House of Burgesses.

Most of the members, and myself among the rest, had left Williamsburg before your message from Boston had arrived. Twenty-five of them, however, were assembled to consider of that Message, and they determined to invite a general meeting of the whole body on the 1st of August, to consider the measure of stopping the exports and imports. Since that an Indian invasion of our frontier has compelled the calling a new Assembly, for which purpose, writs, returnable to the 11th August, are now out, at which time it is thought the House will meet; when, I think, there is no manner of doubt they will directly adopt the most effectual means in their power for obtaining a redress of grievances. In the mean time, the sense of some counties is taking, and two have already declared their desire to stop the commercial intercourse between Great Britain and the West Indies, and this Colony. It seems very clear to me that there will be a general agreement. Do you not think, that the first most essential step for our Assembly to take, will be an invitation to a general Congress, as speedily as the nature of things will admit, in order that our plan, whatever it may be, may be unanimous, and therefore effectual? I shall be in Williamsburg the 1st of August, and shall continue there until the meeting of Assembly on the 11th. It will be exceedingly agreeable to me to know your sentiments fully on this most important subject. I am sure it will be of real consequence to the cause of liberty that your Committee of Correspondence write fully your sentiments to ours at the same time. It will be well so to time the matter, as that your letters may be in Williamsburg before the 1st of August at which time a meeting of the late Representatives will take place, notwithstanding the return of the writs to the 11th instant.

I hope the good people of Boston will not lose their spirits under their present heavy oppression, for they will certainly be supported by the other Colonies; and the cause for which they suffer is so glorious, and so deeply interesting to the present and future generations, that all America will owe, in a great measure, their political salvation to the present virtue of Massachusetts Bay.

I am, sir, with very singular regard, your most obedient and humble servant,

RICHARD HENRY LEE.

To Samuel Adams, Esquire, Boston.