ADDRESS FROM THE COMMITTEE OF MECHANICKS OF NEW-YORK, PRESENTED TO THE DELEGATES WHO REPRESENTED THIS CITY AT THE GENERAL CONGRESS.

GENTLEMEN: We, being actuated by a real regard for the interest and prosperity of our injured and oppressed country, and influenced by a principle of gratitude, embrace this early opportunity to testify our most grateful and unfeigned acknowledgments for your readiness in accepting, and fidelity in executing the high and important trust reposed in you by your fellow-citizens and countrymen; and for the wise, prudent, and spirited measures which you have adopted (in conjunction with the worthy and respectable Delegates of the neighbouring Colonies) for obtaining a redress of grievances, and a restoration of our violated rights; and thereby re-establishing (upon the most permanent basis) that harmony and confidence between America and the parent state so ardently wished for by all good men, and so essentially necessary for the mutual advantage and security of both countries.

At the same time permit us to assure you that we are determined, as far as our influence extends, to exert ourselves in support of the common cause, and shall ever be ready to aid and assist in carrying the salutary measures of the General Congress into execution to the utmost of our power and ability.

That you may long live to enjoy the fruits of your labours, and receive, from a grateful people, the applause and honour which is justly due to the preservers of their country, is the sincere wish of, gentlemen, your obliged humble servants and fellow-citizens,

Signed by order of the Mechanicks' Committee,

DANIEL DUNSCOMB, Chairman.

To Philip Livingston, James Duane, Isaac Low, John Jay, and John Alsop, Esquires.

New-York, November 18, 1774.

To which they were pleased to return the following polite Answer:

GENTLEMEN: The polite and respectful terms in which you are pleased to communicate your approbation of our conduct, in an important office, demand our most sincere and grateful acknowledgments.

Honoured by the united suffrages of our fellow-citizens, and animated by a sense of duty, and the most cordial affection for our oppressed country, however unequal to the delicate and arduous task, we undertook it with cheerfulness, and have discharged it with fidelity.

While, from abundant experience, we bear testimony to the unshaken for constitutional liberty, which has ever distinguished the worthy inhabitants of this metropolis, and is nobly exerted at the present alarming crisis, your anxious solicitude for the restoration of that harmony and mutual confidence between the parent state and America, on which the glory and stability of the British Empire so absolutely depend, cannot fail of recommending you to the esteem of all good men, and of holding you up as an example worthy of imitation and applause.

To soften the rigour of the calamities to which, in this tempestuous season, we may be exposed, let us all, with one heart and voice, endeavour to cultivate and cherish a spirit of unanimity and mutual benevolence, and to promote that internal tranquillity which can alone give weight to our laudable efforts for the preservation of our freedom, and crown them with success.

We are, gentlemen, with the most affectionate regard, your obliged and very humble servants,

To Mr, Daniel Dunscomb. Chairman, and the Committee of Mechanicks in the City of New-York.

TO THE PEOPLE OF NEW-JERSEY.

MY FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN: I had once some hope that the Resolutions of the Congress would have been such as to produce some good to the Colonies, but I find my fears verified by their proceedings; chosen, on one side, they seem to have had no other view than to please their electors, and to forward confusion among us. They have formed no system by which the present differences might be solved, and future contentions avoided, but deliberatively have made bad worse, left us no retreat, nor the mother country any opening to advance to a reconciliation.

With sovereign contempt they have overlooked the Legislature of Great Britain, and appealed to the People; will not this people take offence at the indignity so manifestly shown to their Legislature, and receive the appeal with disgust? especially when they see that we have forbid all intercourse with them, and that with as much seeming authority as if we were an independent state, and determining on a rupture with them? Nay, will not this conduct be construed as open enmity to the British name?

Again, with the greatest assurance they have arraigned the Lords and Commons of the highest injustice, in altering the form of one Government, though perhaps for the better, and yet have taken upon themselves to declare the old established forms in others, unconstitutional, dangerous, and destructive to the freedom of American Legislation, because they have a Legislative Council. Thus, by raising new contentions, and drawing us into new controversies, what end can this serve but to create confusion? From confusion, my countrymen, is to be reared the new Republick.

Again, they have warmly resolved against the Laws of Trade, the Officers of the Customs, the authority of Judges of the Admiralty, &c. Perhaps in some instances the Laws of Trade may be severe, and the appointment and exercise of the offices of Judges of the Admiralty, and of the Customs, may be real matter of complaint; but why did they not ask redress of the Legislature of Great Britain? I suspect, that feeling their influence, and elated with power, new and unconstitutional, they apprehended the application would be successful, and their authority at an end; they, therefore, have made their appeal to the people, hoping to stir up rebellion and strife again; they have tickled you by increasing the number of your Committees, that you may appear to have a great share in this new Government, and at the same time that they hold cut to you an abhorrence of the Laws of Trade, and take upon themselves to give power, to Heaven knows who, to inspect the entries at the Custom House, and by the eleventh article of the Association, these Committee men have a large field to range in, and may hold up the most respects able characters among us to contempt, and turn him over to be treated as an enemy of his country.

Had an Act of Parliament formed such an inquisition, by giving power to any man, or set of men, to observe the conduct of their fellow-subjects, and, as a majority should determine, their neighbour should be exposed to insult and contempt at their pleasure, how should we have heard of the liberty of the subject, his right to trial by his peers, &c., &c. Yet these men, at the same time they arraign the highest authority on earth, insolently trample on the liberties of their fellow-subjects; and, without the shadow of a trial, take from them their property, grant it to others, and not content with all this, hold them up to contempt, and expose them to the vilest injuries.

View again the conduct of these men while they declare a Non-Importation from Great Britain and Ireland, of any Goods, Wares, and Merchandises,—of Molasses, &c., from the West Indies,—of Wines from the Madeira and Western Islands, and thereby, in effect, prohibit an exportation of the Iron, Lumber, Wheat, Pork, Beef, Flour, and Corn, of the middle Colonies, and particularly of this, as the places to which all these are shipped can give us no return but in the articles our Congress prohibit us to import. Yet Rice, the staple of Carolina, is to be exported without restraint or limitation. Why this distinction? Is it because the Delegates of that Colony had more regard for the interest of the people they represented? Or that our Delegates could take what liberties they pleased with us? Or what was the reason?

When unreasonable partiality appears in men—when they take much pains, use studied language, and appeal to Heaven for the uprightness of their intentions, we have just cause to suspect; for the sincerity of our intentions is best shown by our actions, it wants not the parade of words; the plainest language is best, and requires no appeal to Heaven to induce our belief. Yet this Congress, in all their publications, (except the letter to Gen-