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of us, only for dissenting from them in opinion; a right which we shall claim so long as we hold any claim to freedom or liberty.
| Benjamin Gridley, | Francis Greene, | Harrison Gray, |
| Benjamin Clark, | Nathaniel Coffin, | Joseph Greene, |
| William Taylor, | Ezekiel Goldthwait, | George Erring, |
| Gilbert Deblois, | Silvester Gardiner, | John Vassall, |
| John Taylor, | Byfield Lyde, | John Timmins, |
| Benjamin Green, Jr., | Jonathan Simpson, | Benjamin Davis, |
| Thomas Knight, | George Bethune, | Benjamin Greene, |
| William Bowes, | Rufus Greene, | Stephen Greenleaf, |
| Peter Jobonnot, | William Coffin, | Isaac Winslow, |
| George Leonard, | Jeremiah Greene, | Richard Lechmere, |
| Thomas Apthrop, | James Boutineau, | Joshua Winslow, |
| James Selkrig, | Thomas Gray, | Daniel Hubbard, |
| David Greene, | Henry Lloyd, | John Erving, Jun., |
| Lewis Deblois, | Samuel Fitch, | James Perkins, |
| James Asby, | William Coffin, 3d, | Isaac Winslow, Jun., |
| John Inman, | Joseph Taylor, | Richard Smith, |
| Richard Sharwin, | Archibald McNeil, | John Atkinson, |
| Andrew Barclay, | Robert Jarvis, | Nathaniel Gary, |
| William Knutton, | James Hall, | Samuel H. Sparhawk, |
| William Perry, | John Berry. | Edward Foster, |
| David Mitchelson, | Hugh Tarbett, | Edward Cox, |
| Richard Hirons, | Abraham Ellison, | Thomas Aylwin, |
| Nathaniel Coffin, Jr., | Patrick McMaster, | Ebenezer Bridgham, |
| Samuel Minott, | Joseph Wilson, | John Jarvis, |
| Archibald Wilson, | Frederick Roberts, | George Spooner, |
| Hawes Hatch, | John Agling, | William Blair, |
| William Codner, | Benjamin M. Holmes, | Harrison Gray, Jun., |
| Edward King, | Henry Leddel, | James Anderson, |
| William Burton, | Jonathan Snelling, | Philip Dumaresq, |
| Hopestill Capen, | Theophilus Lillie, | John Cotton, |
| Gregory Townsend, | John Semple, | George Brindley, |
| Ziphion Thayer, | William Dickson, | Thomas Brindley, |
| Henry Lee, | Henry Laughton, | John Coffin, |
| Peter Hughes, | John Greenlaw, | Colborn Barrell, |
| Samuel Hughes, | John Winslow, Jun., | James Forrest, |
| Benjamin Phillips, | Edward Stow, | William Apthrop, |
| Nathaniel Greenwood, | John White, | John Gore, |
| Job Wheelwright, | Nathaniel Hurd, | Adino Paddock, |
| John Burroughs, Jr., | William Gazneau, | John Joy, |
| George Leesh, | Martin Gay, | Joseph Scott, |
| William Hunter, | John Haskins, | A. F. Phillips, |
| Samuel Greenwood, | William Jackson, | Samuel Rogers, |
| William Hutchins, | William McAlpine, | Joseph Greene. |
PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
By the GOVERNOUR.—A Proclamation for Discouraging certain illegal Combinations.
Whereas certain persons, calling themselves a Committee of Correspondence for the town of Boston, have lately presumed to make, or cause to be made, a certain unlawful instrument, purporting to be a Solemn League and Covenant, intended to be signed by the inhabitants of this Province, whereby they are most solemnly to covenant and engage to suspend all commercial intercourse with the Island of Great Britain, until certain Acts of the British Parliament shall be repealed. And whereas printed copies of the said unlawful instrument have been transmitted by the aforesaid Committee of Correspondence, so called, to the several towns in this Province, accompanied with a scandalous, traiterous, and seditious letter, calculated to inflame the minds of the people, to disturb them with ill-grounded fears and jealousies, and to excite them to enter into an unwarrantable, hostile and traitorous combination, to distress the British Nation, by interrupting, obstructing and destroying her trade with the Colonies, contrary to their allegiance due to the King, and to the form and effect of divers statutes made for securing, encouraging, protecting and regulating the said trade, and destructive of the lawful authority of the British Parliament, and of the peace, good order and safety of the community. And whereas the inhabitants of this Province, not duly considering the high criminality and dangerous consequences to themselves, of such alarming and unprecedented combinations, may incautiously be attempted to join in the aforesaid unlawful League and Covenant, and thereby expose themselves to the fatal consequences of being considered as the declared and open enemies of the King, Parliament, and Kingdom of Great Britain.
In observance, therefore, of my duty to the King, in tenderness to the inhabitants of this Province, and to the end that none who may hereafter engage in such dangerous combinations, may plead, in excuse of their conduct, that they were ignorant of the crime in which they were involving themselves, I have thought fit to issue this Proclamation, hereby earnestly cautioning all persons whatsoever within this Province against signing the aforesaid, or a similar Covenant, or in any manner entering into, or being concerned in such unlawful, hostile and traitorous combinations, as they would avoid the pains and penalties due to such aggravated and dangerous offences.*
And I do hereby strictly enjoin and command all Magistrates and other officers within the several counties in this Province, that they take effectual care to apprehend and secure for trial all and every person who may hereafter presume to publish, or offer to others to be signed, or shall themselves sign the aforesaid, or a similar Covenant, or be in any wise aiding, abetting, advising, or assisting therein.
And the respective Sheriffs of the several counties within this Province, are hereby required to cause this Proclamation forthwith to be posted up in some publick place in each town, within their respective districts. Given under my hand, at Salem, the 29th day of June, 1774, in the fourteenth year of his Majesty's reign.
THOMAS GAGE.
By his Excellency's command, T. FLUCKER, Secretary.
GOD save the King.
RICHMOND COUNTY (VIRGINIA) RESOLUTIONS.
At a respectable Meeting of the Freeholders and Freemen of the County of Richmond, Virginia, after due notice to attend at the Court House of the said county, on Wednesday, the 29th of June, 1774, in order to give their sentiments to their late Representatives, invited to meet in Williamsburg on the first day of August next, to deliberate on matters of the utmost importance to this country, they, after making choice of the Reverend ISAAC WILLIAM GIBERNE as Moderator, came to the following Resolutions:
1st. That it is the undoubted right of the people of British America to be taxed only by their respective Provincial Assemblies, which right they claim from Charter, natural justice, and constant usage, ever since their first settlement in America; and that an attempt to force one Colony to pay a tax imposed by the British Legislature, where they had not, nor could have, any Representative, is a violent attack on their constitutional rights.
2d. They do respect the Bostonians, in their sister Colony of Massachusetts Bay, as suffering in the common cause of British America; and that the hostile attack now made on them by the Parliament of Great Britain, in blocking up their harbour, and violently taking away the property of many individuals, by preventing them the use of their wharfs, quays, &c., is an avowed intention to reduce all America to a state of slavery.
3d. It is the opinion of this meeting, that nothing will be more conducive to prevent such oppressions, than immediately to stop all imports from Great Britain, and at a short day, hereafter to be fixed, to stop all exports to Great Britain and the West Indies, until there is a total repeal of not only the Act called the Boston Port Act, but also of all the several Acts of the British Parliament laying taxes on the Americans for the purpose of raising a revenue, and those other Acts made against the rights of the people of Massachusetts Bay, on account of their virtuous opposition to the said Revenue Acts.
4th. It is also the opinion of this meeting, that immediately on the non-exportation plan taking place, the gentlemen of the bar shall not bring any suit for the recovery of any debts, or prosecute further any suit already brought, during the continuance of the former resolution, it being utterly inconsistent with such scheme for a man to be compelled to pay without the means wherewith he may pay.
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