and it is not doubted but the institution will be patronised and properly regulated by the Continental Congress. Several of the old Postmasters have resigned their appointments and engaged in the new plan, and others may follow their example. Messrs. Peets and Hurd, and Adams and Hyde, are also employed as riders in the service of their Country.

GODDARD’S POST-OFFICES.

POST RIDERS.

From FALMOUTH to PORTSMOUTH, Mr. . . ...

From PORTSMOUTH to CAMBRIDGE, Mr. Trobb.

From CAMBRIDGE to HARTFORD, Messrs. Adams and Hyde.

From HARTFORD to NEW-YORK, Messsrs. Peet and Hurd.

From NEW-YORK to PHILADELPHIA, Mr. James Van Brocket.

From CAMBRIDGE to PROVIDENCE, NEWPORT and NEW-LONDON, Messrs. Peter and Benjamin Mumford.

From NEW-LONDON to NEW-YORK, lower road, Messrs. Peet and Hurd.

From CAMBRIDGE to PROVIDENCE, NORWICH and NEW-LONDON, Mr. Nathaniel Bushell.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CONGRESS.

Boston, May 8, 1775.

HONOURED SIR: The printed paper which I now send you, was brought to me by a kind neighbour who picked it up in the street, and as it is mine by the gift of the finder of it, I have thought it my duty to send it unto you, that so, as the Province is interested in it, it may by you be communicated to the Provincial Assembly over which you preside.

This “Circumstantial Account,” as if is called, of the late engagement, has been so privately printed that some of their own officers have not the knowledge of it; and as this is the account which is most probably sent home, it is here currently “reported that above thirty depositions upon oath, to the truth of it, have been sent along with it.

You will see, by this account, that the people of our Province are represented as the blamable causes of all that occurred. They attacked; they fired first; they committed cruelties. The British Soldiers only did their duty; and having done it they did not properly retreat, but marched back to Charlestown.

I wish you, sir, and the Provincial Congress, the happiest direction from above in all your counsels and managements for the publick weal, and prosperity and the blessing of the Lord of Hosts in the prosecution of them; and am, with my most cordial respects to yourself and all our Delegate with you, your faithful friend and most obedient servant,

SAMUEL MATHER.

SELECTMEN OF WORCESTER TO THE MASSACHUSETTS CONGRESS.

Worcester, Massachusetts, May 8, 1775.

The Committee appointed by the inhabitants of the Town to take into their consideration what is requisite to be done with, a number of people who have shown themselves disaffected to their Country, do report:

That in their humble opinion, as William Cambell has broke through his engagements with the fathers of the people, and presumed to go out of the Town and Province before the Resolve of the Provincial Congress was known, in order to injure the good people of this place, and has been, and by his conduct still appears to be, an inveterate enemy to the rights and privileges of this Country, notwithstanding his declarations to the contrary, he should be sent to Watertown or Cambridge, to be dealt with as the honourable Congress or the Commander-in-Chief shall think necessary, it being judged highly improper that he should tarry any longer in this Town.

And whereas Mr. Samuel Paine, of Worcester, has been found guilty of propagating a report, viz: “that the goods, &c., taken out of the dwelling house of Ebenezer Bradish, of Menotomy, was not taken by the Regular Troops, but by our people; and furthermore, that our Troops quartered

* A Constitutional Post-Office is now kept at J. Holt’s Printing Office in Water Street, near the Coffee-House, New-York, where Letters are received in, and carefully despatched by riders who may be depended upon for the faithful performance of duty, and execution of the most important trusts that business may require, as none but men of property and approved characters, will be employed.

The Posts for Philadelphia and the Southwestern Colonies set out about eight o’clock every Monday and Thursday morning, proceed that day, through the Towns of Newark, Elizabethtown, Rahway, Woodbridge, Bonumtown, Piscataway, and Brunswick, to Princeton, where they meet and exchange mails with the Posts from Philadelphia, who pass through Frankfort, Bristol, Trenton, and Maidenhead. These Posts the next day (Tuesday) return with the mails to the above office in New-York, and to Mr. Bradford’s, at the Coffee-House, in Philadelphia; from whence other Posts set out for the Westward and Eastward at the usual times. Those from New-York for the Eastward, set out about nine o’clock on Monday, about noon on Thursday, and return to New-York with the Eastern mails, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

The rates of postage for the present, are the same that they used to be under the unconstitutional Post-Office, and accounts are carefully kept of all the moneys received for Letters, as well as expended on riders, &c. That where rates and rules are affixed, and offices regularly established throughout the British Colonies, by each Provincial and by the Continental Congress, what shall be done before that time may be taken into the account, and properly adjusted.

The subscriber having at all times acted consistently, and to the utmost of his power in support of the English Constitution and the rights, and liberties of his countrymen, the inhabitants of the British American Colonies, especially as a printer, regardless of his own personal safety or private advantage; and having always, both by speech and publications from his press, openly, fully, and plainly denied the right of the British Parliament to tax, or make laws to bind Americans, in any ease whatsoever, without their own free consent; and done his utmost to stimulate his countrymen, with whom he is determined to stand or fall, to assert and defend their rights against the encroachments and unjust claims of Great Britain and every other power; and as he has, by this conduct, incurred the displeasure of many men in power, and been a very great sufferer (the greatest, he believes, in this Country) by the stoppage and obstruction given to the circulation of his newspapers by the Post-Office, which has long boon an engine in the hand of the British Ministry to promote their schemes of enslaving the Colonies and destroying the English Constitution, (the vary institution and existence of this office afforded the Ministry one of the most plausible arguments in favour of their protended right to tax the Colonies, and was a precedent of their admission of that right, and of the exercise of it;) and as the Colonies are at length roused to defend their rights, and in particular to wrest the Post-Office from the tyrannical hands which have long held it, and put it on a constitutional footing; and many gentlemen among the most hearty and able friends to America, in this and the neighbouring Colonies, both in and out of the Continental Congress, having encouraged the subscriber to hope that they think him a proper person to hold the office of Postmaster in this Colony, with the business of which he is well acquainted, and will favour his application for the same: He humbly requests the favour, concurrence, and assistance of the honourable Convention of Deputies for this Colony, in his appointment to the said office, the duties of which it will be his constant care to discharge with faithfulness, and to general satisfaction, ever grateful for favours conferred, and studious to deserve them.

JOHN HOLT.