City of NEW-YORK, ss.

Personally appeared before me, Benjamin Blagge, one of His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace, for the City and County of New-York, Isaac Sears and Paschal N. Smith, of the said City, merchants, who, being severally sworn, depose and say, that since the shutting up of the Port of Boston, neither of them have directly or indirectly, nor any other person for or under them, supplied, or caused to be supplied, the Army at Boston with any manner or kind of provisions whatsoever; and that neither of them have received, nor in future expect to receive, any kind of emolument or advantage, in any respect, from the Flour, Peas, and other provisions shipped for the use of the Army at Boston, since the shutting up of the said Port of Boston.

Sworn this 17th of April, 1775, before me,

B. BLAGGE.

ARTHUR LEE TO JAMES KINSEY, SPEAKER OF THE. HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, NEW-JERSEY.

Gardan Court, Middle Temple, April 17, 1775.

SIR: Your letter, containing the Petition from the House of Representatives to the King, arrived here after Doctor Franklin had sailed for Philadelphia. The Petition was therefore put into ray hands to deliver to Lord Dartmouth. I accordingly gave it to his Lordship, informing him of these circumstances, and of the wish of the House that it might be presented to His Majesty. But his Lordship returned it to me this morning, with a declaration, that as I was not authorized by the House, he, as Secretary of State, could not receive, it from me for the purpose I desired. To deliver it to the King, in the common way, if I were authorized so to do, would be ineffectual, because there is no certainty of his reading it; and he never gives an answer but from the Throne, or through one of his Secretaries of State. The Petition will therefore remain here, to wait the further pleasure of the House. They who know and lament that Petitions for redress of grievances from the different Assemblies have been repeatedly rejected, cannot but be persuaded, that the promise of their being now attended to is only a Ministerial manœuvre to divide the Colonies, and draw off their attention to, and confidence in, that which is their great shield and defence—union in General Congress. Your Constitution was so framed as to mortify that hope. To divide and to destroy, or to fix this merciless tyranny upon us, is their only endeavour. But I trust in God, that the wisdom and virtue of our countrymen will continue to render it ineffectual, and give us, at length, a happy issue out of all our troubles, by obtaining a full redress of grievances.

I have the honour of being, &c,

ARTHUR LEE.

GOVERNOUR TRUMBULL TO REV. ELEAZER WHEELOCK.

Lebanon, April 17, 1775.

REVEREND SIR: On the 7th instant, I received your letters of the 16th and 22d of March last, and return my thanks for your intelligence. The ability and influence of Mr. Dean, to attach all the Six Nations to the interest of these Colonies, is justly to be considered as an instance of Divine favour for us, and proper authority and encouragement to him will undoubtedly be easily obtained for that purpose. When he returns, it will be very acceptable to me to hear the intelligence he brings.

If the Indian scholars are called from you in a manner that shews a design of hostilities, please to give the earliest intelligence of it. You may depend on my care to do nothing that may tend to injure you or your cause. Our safety consists in the blessing of Heaven, a firm adherence to our constitutional rights, and an union in religion and virtue; in the pursuit and practice of these, we may hope for the relief of our distresses and redress of grievances. It is the prayer of good men, that the Spirit of grace, as to its converting influences, may be poured out upon the people of this land. The late awful restraints of the Spirit are a terrible token of God’s righteous judgments.

I am, with much esteem and respect, reverend Sir, your obedient humble servant,

JONATHAN TRUMBULL.

Reverend Eleazer Wheelock.

Boston, Monday, April 17, 1775.

A, letter from Taunton, dated last Friday, mentions, “that on Monday, the 10th instant, parties of Minute-Men, &c., from every Town in that County, with arms and ammunition, met at Freetown early that morning, in order to take Colonel Gilbert; but he had fled on board the Man-of-War at Newport. They then divided into parties, and took twenty-nine Tories who had signed enlistments and received arms in the Colonel’s Company, to join the King’s Troops; they also took thirty-five muskets, two case-bottles of powder, and a basket of bullets, all which they brought to Taunton the same afternoon, where the prisoners were separately examined, eighteen of whom made such humble acknowledgments of their past bad conduct, and solemn promises to behave better for the future, they were dismissed; but the other eleven, being obstinate and insulting, a party was ordered to carry them to Simsbury Mines; but they were sufficiently humble before they had got fourteen miles on their way thither; upon which they were brought back the next day, and after signing proper articles to behave better for the future, were escorted to Freetown. There were upwards of two thousand men embodied there last Monday.”

TO THE INHABITANTS OF NEW-ENGLAND; GREETING.

Men, Brethren, and Fathers:

Is the time come, the fatal era commenced, for you to be deemed rebels by the Parliament of Great Britain? Rebels! wherein? Why, for asserting that the rights of men, the rights of Englishmen belong to us; that the King of Great Britain has pledged his Royal faith to protect us in the enjoyment of all these rights of solemn compact as our King; for meeting in Congresses, and resolving that no man, nor body of men under Heaven, has any just right to dispose of our properties without our consent! Then surely the time is come when we are loudly called upon to consider whether we will defend these our rights and properties, or surrender them to Lord North and the test of the reigning tyrannical British Ministry, and content ourselves for the future, not only to pay just such faxes as Lord North and his bribed tools in Parliament Shall please to order to be laid upon us, but to be sold—we, our wives and children—as other slaves are; and all our houses, lands, and fruits of our industry to be at the disposal of our lordly masters! But this you will not, you cannot submit to. Heaven forbid that we should be so tame, so base, so unlike the sons of God, so much like the vassals of the Prince of Darkness! Awake, therefore, and let us show ourselves men, and not asses! Let us all repent and turn every one from his sins, his provocations against Heaven, and, God Almighty will awake to our help as in ancient time; he will ride On the clouds in his excellency, and smite our enemies on their cheek-bone; divide their counsels, and turn their enterprises headlong, for he is mightier than) the noise of many waters; he brought our forefathers into this land, and made it to them an asylum from oppression, tyranny, and persecution, and was for walls and bulwarks round about them; and had not the Lord been on their side, they would have been many a time swallowed up quick. And he will he for walls and bulwarks unto us, if we don’t forsake him; for it is our God who says, “Fear not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God; I will help thee, I will strengthen thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” But as to our being in a state of open rebellion, “the Lord God of Gods, the Lord God of Gods, he knoweth,” and Great Britain shall know; if it be in open rebellion against our rightful Sovereign, against the constitutional authority of the British Parliament, or the good and wholesome laws of our land, we have acted, and for which we are now declared to be in a state of open rebellion, “and in transgression against the Lord, let the Lord himself require it, and save us not this day!”

I am much mistaken if Lord North has not acted against his own life, and will not soon lose his own head, if not bring destruction oh the Kingdom of Great Britain, and King George the Third and His family, by his late measures in the British Parliament relative to our being declared to be in a state of open rebellion! Time was, (an opportunity given him,) by the Petition of the grand Continental