These are objects worthy a Congress; measures that will confer lasting benefits on your country, and immortal honour on yourselves.

If, on the contrary, like independent states, you arrogate to yourselves the sole right of judging and deciding in your own cause; if you persist in denying the supreme power of Parliament, which no Parliament will ever renounce, like independent states, we have no appeal but to the God of Battles. Shall we dare lift up our eyes to that God, the source of Truth and Justice, and implore his assistance in such a cause? There are causes, where, in spite of the ridiculous tenets of pious, deluded enthusiasts, or of the wicked and monstrous doctrines of slaves and tyrants, the very principles, the original principles on which civil society depends, require, where God and nature call aloud for resistance. Such causes existed in the horrid catalogue of oppressions and crimes under a Philip the Second, a Catharine of Medicis, and in the list of grievances during one period at least, of the reign of the ill educated, the ill advised, the unhappy Charles. On such melancholy occasions, men of sentiment, spirit, and virtue, the only genuine sons of liberty, engage in the honourable cause of freedom, with God on their side, and indignantly sacrifice every advantage of fortune, every endearment of life, and life itself. Do such causes exist now among us? Did they ever exist? Are they likely to exist?

Open, if it be not too late, the eyes of our infatuated countrymen; teach them to compare their happy situation with the wretchedness of nine-tenths of the globe; shew them the general diffusion of the necessaries, the conveniences and pleasures of life, among all orders of people here; the certain rewards of industry, the innumerable avenues to wealth, the native unsubdued freedom of their manners and conversation; the spirit of equality, so flattering to all generous minds, and so essential to the enjoyment of private society; the entire security of their fortunes, liberty and lives; the equity and lenity of their civil and criminal justice, the toleration of their religious opinions and worship.

Teach them to compare these invaluable privileges and enjoyments with the abject and miserable state of men debased by artificial manners, lost to all generous and manly sentiment; alternately crouching and insulting, from the vain and humiliating distinctions of birth, place, and precedence; trembling every moment for their liberty, their property, their consciences, and their lives; millions toiling, not for themselves, but to pamper the luxury and riot of a few worthless, domineering individuals, and pining in indigence and wretchedness; save them from the madness of hazarding such inestimable blessings, in the uncertain events of a war, against all odds, against invasions from Canada, incursions of savages, revolt of slaves, multiplied fleets and armies; a war which must begin where wars commonly end, in the ruin of our trade, in the surrender of our ports and capitals, in the misery of thousands. Teach them in mercy, to beware how they wantonly draw their swords in defence of political problems, distinctions, refinements; about which the best and the wisest men, the friends as well as the enemies of America, differ in their opinions, lest while we deny the mother country every mode, every right of taxation, we give her the right of conquest.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER. FROM GOVERNOUR MARTIN TO THE EARL OF DARTMOUTH, DATED NEWBERN, NORTH CAROLINA, SEPTEMBER 1, 1774.

Your Lordship will not be surprised to hear that the people of this Colony have followed the example of the rest of the Continent, in caballing and forming resolutions upon the late measures of Government, with regard to the divisions in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. The readiness with which the intemperate declarations of the Virginia Assembly were adopted and re-echoed here, will have shown your Lordship, that this people are of but too congenial disposition. What system the other Continental Assemblies have formed by their Committees of Correspondence, which your Lordship must know have been appointed, I cannot tell, having never understood that their proceedings have transpired more than those of the Committee here, of which nothing appears upon the Assembly's Journal, but the resolves entered into on the first establishment of that Committee, and that letters had been received from the Committees in the other Colonies, the contents of which are held secret. Whatever measures may have been taken, the combination is assuredly at least indecent and inglorious.

The first intimation that I received, except from vague rumour, of the measures lately taken here, was from the enclosed letter of a Committee at Wilmington, to the freeholders of Craven County, where my residence is fixed. Whereupon I immediately ordered the Council to be summoned, that I might advise with them on the measures proper to be taken to discourage and prevent such unlawful and indecent proceedings. Your Lordship will see, by the minutes of that Board, herewith transmitted, that on the 12th of last month, I laid the letter before them, and that I issued with their advice, a Proclamation the next day; apprehending however, that under the total inability of Government to enforce even what common decorum required, the proposed meeting of Deputies at Newbern, the seat of Government, that was ultimately agreed to be the place of rendezvous, would be accordingly held, and considering it would be my duty to be at hand, to discourage their proceedings as much as lay in my power, and to take such measures as circumstances should require, for the maintenance of order and government, I resolved there to wait, until the time of meeting was past, although the very impaired state of my health made it highly expedient to remove, at that season from so unwholesome a situation; whence, at the very time, I was compelled to send my family to New-York, as the only chance of preserving it from destruction.

Boston, September 5, 1774.

On Thursday morning, September 1st, half past four, about two hundred and sixty troops commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Maddison, embarked on board thirteen boats at the Long Wharf, and proceeded up Mystic River to Temple's farm, where they landed, and went to the powder house on Quarry Hill, in Charlestown bounds, whence they have taken two hundred and fifty half barrels of powder, the whole store there, and carried it to the Castle.

A detachment from this corps went to Cambridge, and brought off two field pieces, which had been lately sent there for Colonel Brattles regiment. The preparation for this scandalous expedition caused much speculation, as some who were near the Governour gave out that he had sworn the Committee of Salem should recognise or be imprisoned; nay, some said be put on board the Scarborough, and sent to England forthwith.

The Committee of Boston sent off an express after ten, on Wednesday evening, to advise their brethren of Salem of what they apprehended was coming against them, who received their message with great politeness, and returned an answer purporting their readiness to receive any attacks they might be exposed to for acting in pursuance to the laws and interest of their country as became men and Christians.

From these several hostile appearances the County of Middlesex took the alarm, and on Thursday evening began to collect in large bodies, with their arms, provisions, and ammunition, determining by some means to give a check to a power which so openly threatened their destruction, and in such a clandestine manner rob them of the means of their defence. And on Friday morning some thousands of them had advanced to Cambridge, armed only with sticks, as they had left their fire-arms, &c., at some distance behind them. Some indeed, had collected on Thursday evening, and surrounded the Attorney General's house, who is also Judge of Admiralty on the new plan of Nova Scotia; and being provoked by the firing of a gun from a window, they broke some glass, but did no more mischief. The company, however, concerned in this were mostly boys and negroes, who soon dispersed.

On perceiving the concourse on Friday morning, the Committee of Cambridge sent an express to Charlestown, who communicated the intelligence to Boston, and their respective Committee proceeded to Cambridge without delay. When the first of the Boston Committee came up,