DOCUMENTARY HISTORY, &c.

CORRESPONDENCE, MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS, PROCEEDINGS OF COMMITTEES, &c.

LETTER FROM THE GENERAL COMMITTEE, AT CHARLESTOWN, S. C., TO THE NEW-YORK COMMITTEE.

Charlestown, South-Carolina, March 1, 1775.

GENTLEMEN: It was with equal surprise and concern that we read in the publick prints what passed in your House of Assembly on the 26th of January, with respect to the proceedings of the General Congress. It is impossible for us, at this distance, to conjecture the reasons which induced the Assembly to refuse their formal assent to the Solemn Agreement of all these Colonies. We are obliged to suspend our judgment until we hear from you; and will not even permit ourselves to conclude that it is owing either to a neglect of the united voice of America, or to want of spirit in the cause of freedom.—In the midst of the pain that we feel at this singular instance of Provincial policy, we console ourselves with the apprehension that it was intended, not as a declaration of their real inclinations, but only as a prudential measure: that they having been chosen antecedent to the present dispute, and therefore not with a particular view to it, might suppose the necessity of their interfering, superseded by a posterior choice. We console ourselves with the thought that the legal Representatives of your respectable Colony, by refusing to act, did not mean to hold up to the world the opinion of their Constituents, but have only left it to another representation, not so much according to the letter of the law, but equally respectable, and as much to be depended on.

We only beg leave to make this remark upon their policy: that they have therein, singled themselves out from the rest of the Colonies; who, as far as they have had the opportunity, have come unanimously into the measures of the General Congress. And we cannot but think it would have been much more happy for the whole, had there been no exception. Indeed, although the House of Assembly in this Colony hath nobly and unanimously adopted the Proceedings of the General Congress, yet they have not had it in idea to take the matter wholly into their own hands, independent of the Provincial Congress; but even now, while that Assembly is sitting, the General Committee of the Colony also sits and does business, independent of the House. A measure this, necessary in the Royal Governments, where the liableness of the Assembly to sudden prorogations and dissolutions, renders their proceeding in business wholly dependant on the creatures of the Crown. Much, therefore, as we are surprised at the conduct of your Assembly, we are not so ignorant as to imagine it is the definite voice of the Colony; and, indeed, we do not allow ourselves to entertain a suspicion that your Resolutions would not be the same with those of the rest of the Colonies, if you only had a full and free representation of the whole Colony elected on the present occasion: such a representation we hope to hear of in due time.

We are not insensible of the consequence of your Colony in the great chain of American Union.— Nor do we imagine the Ministry insensible of it; we are well aware of your unhappy situation, and of the many artful measures that have been, and now are; taking, if possible, to throw you into confusion. We are well aware of the poison that is daily distilling from some of your pensioned presses, and the hireling writers that have crept in among you. We are not ignorant of that crowd of placemen, of contractors, of officers, and needy dependants upon the Crown, who are constantly employed to frustrate your measures. We know the dangerous tendency of being made the head-quarters of America for many years. All these things, though they necessarily tend to clog the wheels of publick spirit, yet do not cause us to doubt of your publick virtue, as a Colony: nay, we assure ourselves, that your love to Constitutional Liberty, to justice, and your posterity, however depressed for a little while, will at last surmount all obstacles, and do honour to New-York.

The present struggle seems to us most glorious and critical. We seem to ourselves to stand upon the very division line, between all the blessings of freedom, and the most object vassalage. The very idea of an earthly power which shall bind the present and future millions of America in all cases whatsoever—in the direction of which we are to have no more voice than our oxen, and over which we can have no constitutional control, fills us with horrour;—to hold not only our liberty and property at will, but our lives also, as well as the lives of all our posterity!—to be absolutely dependant for the air in which we breathe, and the water which we drink, upon a set of men at the distance of three thousand miles from us—who, even when they abuse that power, are out of the reach of our vengeance, is a proposal which this Colony hears with indignation, and can only submit to when there is no possible remedy. By the late detestable Acts of the British Parliament respecting America, all mankind will judge whether that body may be safely entrusted with such a power. We have now appealed to the remaining justice of the Nation; we have endeavoured to arouse them to a sense of their own dangers; we have appealed to their mercantile interests for our defence. Our hopes of success are not yet damped by any thing but the possibility of disunion among ourselves. We have the pleasure to inform you that in this Colony the Association takes place, as effectually as law itself. Sundry Vessels from England have already been obliged to return with their Merchandise, or have it thrown overboard as common ballast.

We may assure you of our fixed determination to adhere to the Resolutions at all hazards, and that Ministerial opposition is here obliged to be silent. We wish for the day when it shall be silenced among you likewise. And whatever noise is made by the friends of arbitrary rule about the design of those proceedings in your House of Assembly, we cannot and will not believe that you intend to desert the cause.

Three things, however, oblige us to write to you.

First. The general alarm which the proceedings above-mentioned have given, that we may obtain from you certain intelligence of the disposition of your Colony, whether those proceedings are to be understood as the general sense of the good people of New-York, or only of bare majority of the House.