their lord and master’s example, taught to look upon and treat the good people of this Country with the greatest indignity and contempt. Add to all this, that we had just heard that many of our worthy and noble friends, the guardians and zealous supporters of our liberty, were on the black list of American victims, destined to sacrifice, in order to appease those sanguinary wretches in power; and that, farther, we had received the long-feared and melancholy news, that the sword was now drawn by the King’s Troops against our brethren the Bostonians, who were then bleeding in the common cause. Thus unhappily circumstanced on all sides, what does Mr. Henry to deserve those inglorious epithets, which are, though obscurely, yet most certainly aimed principally at him, not only by his Lordship’s candid and liberal Address to the Council, previous to the issuing of a former Proclamation, but by those also in exalted station, who, it was hoped from their affinity to our wrongs, and having received their birth here, would have entertained sentiments of a more generous and liberal kind, of those who are the produce of the same Country, and in loyalty and attachment to their gracious Sovereign, not an iota, I trust, inferiour to them. I repeat, what does Mr. Henry (matters being thus situated) to deserve the censure of his countrymen? Why, like the vigilant guardian and protector of their constitutional rights and liberties, he was resolved, with proper assistance, by the force of arms, to effect a restitution of the powder, or an equivalent thereto, which had been, by low fraud and artifice, removed out of the Country’s possession, and which he now was sorry to find pacifick measures were not likely to accomplish. This gentleman, therefore, by the advice and determination of the Hanover Committee, held at Newcastle the second instant, accompanied by many of his respectable and worthy countrymen, set out from Newcastle on their way to the capital, and were joined on their way down by several spirited gentlemen from different Counties. With what prudence and penetration Mr. Henry took his measures, and what they eventually produced, may be fully known by a reference to a publication of his conduct at large, in the proceedings of the Committee of Hanover County on the ninth instant; and, as the matter stands represented there, and which is incontrovertibly consistent with the real truth of the case, how then does his Lordship get his intelligence that this movement of Mr. Henry was to the great “terrour of all His Majesty ’s faithful subjects?” From whence does he learn that Mr. Henry had committed “acts of violence?” Have any of those terrified “faithful subjects,” on whom those acts of violence were committed, preferred their complaints before his Lordship, in order to obtain redress? Or are these words inserted only to heighten or aggravate this supposed guilty conduct of Mr. Henry, in the opinion of those who cannot be, in all probability, from the remoteness of their situation, furnished with an impartial and fair state of the case? The guilty, perhaps, might fear and tremble at an apprehension of the just vengeance of the incensed people, roused and provoked as they were by reiterated acts of oppression and tyranny; but whether the innocent Americans (of which, I thank Heaven, there is by far the greater majority) were terrified and frightened by this attempt of Mr. Henry to regain their property, I leave the candid part of mankind to determine, from the publication of the proceedings of the many Committees which have sat on this occasion, as may be seen in the papers subsequent to this step taken by Mr. Henry.

Thus much I have thought proper to lay before the publick, in vindication of the conduct of a gentleman who is now absent, and, as the advocate and steady friend of his Country, contending, I doubt not, for all that is precious and worth the preserving, to those who are by nature free, and who, by their laws and Constitution, have an indubitable right to remain so, in opposition to every power on earth to make them otherwise.

Had his Lordship, at this perplexed and unhappy juncture of affairs, steadily pursued that noble line of right which prudence and his duty had marked out to him; had he evinced from his actions, in accordance to his professions, that the happiness of the people which he ruled was his great object and care; had he, like a good, virtuous, and great man, stepped in as a mediator in this unnatural struggle between Great Britain and her Colonies, and attempted to close, rather than by disingenuous misrepresentations, to widen the breach, I trust he would still have continued to receive that grateful tribute of applause which the people here have, on some late occasions, so cordially offered up to him. But from his late conduct, as held up to the world, what confidence can they place in him who has declared himself to be (and his actions manifest he is not in jest) their opposed and dangerous enemy?

BRUTUS.

TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE MANOR OF CORTLANDT, NEW-YORK.

Manor of Cortlandt, May 19, 1775.

GENTLEMEN: The dangerous innovations and infringements attempted by certain mercenary Ministerial tools and infamous traitors (in this Manor) to their Country, who assume to themselves the name of loyalists, on the liberties of their fellow-subjects, have greatly alarmed the impartial friends of liberty herein. A fool, says an author, has great need of title; it teaches men to call him Count and Duke, and to forget his proper, name of fool.

In a day when American pulse beats high for liberty; when it is the subject of almost every publick paper, as well as topick of discourse, it might justly have been expected that no American would be so hardy as to violate the rights of his fellow-subjects; and if any such monster should appear in this land of liberty, that there would not be wanting advocates for so glorious and important a cause, as to expose those of its members who are trampling on the sacred rights of the people.

I have waited with great impatience, expecting that some able hand would have undertaken the benevolent task to warn you to beware of the conduct of some of the basest villains that ever disgraced any society, and draw the attention of the inhabitants to its danger; but finding that although now some months are elapsed since the commencement of the measures of these traitors, &c., yet none has appeared to sound the friendly alarm to the very indolent inhabitants, I have attempted what I so ardently wished might have been done by some more able hand. While we are straining every nerve to baffle foreign attempts to enslave us, surely it must be very criminal in the descendants of Britons, who ought to love life and liberty alike, to be so assiduous in exerting themselves to enslave their fellow-subjects.

It may not be improper to inform you, gentlemen, of the springs and motives which induce these principal movers to forget their duty to God, their fellow-countrymen, and their posterity.

They, anxious to secure to themselves and their posterity power and authority, and to engross some offices or pensions from or under the Crown, have made a sacrifice of all publick virtue on the altar of self-interest. This desperate spirit it was that induced these traitors or mercenary hirelings to exert their influence to bring about the detestable measures proposed by a certain paper handed about here last winter, entitled “The Loyalists ’Test.” But, happily for this Manor, this very dangerous scheme was disconcerted by some lovers of loyalty and liberty. For the men who would make such inroads on the liberties of the people, as they were aiming at, to gratify their thirst for power, and give Administration a high idea of their influence in this Manor, would, from the same principle, exert every nerve of influence to carry any ministerial mandate into execution, at the expense of the liberties of their fellow-countrymen.

Can any judicious American son of liberty behold these traitors of their Country without the utmost abhorrence, by whose influence the more illiterate, and those who are unacquainted with the principles of the present dispute, are so besotted as to resign their liberties into the hands of the most ambitious and designing fellows, who are aiming to make a merit with the Ministry by enslaving their fellow-countrymen, and to aggrandise themselves and their posterity? Surely he cannot. If Charles the First deserved the axe, and James the Second the loss of his Kingdom, for changing the Constitution, and thereby trampling on the rights of their subjects, I leave you, my countrymen, to judge what punishment would be adequate to the crimes of these loyalists and their tools, who are aiming at the same by a sacrifice of all publick virtue, and the liberty of their Country.

AN INHABITANT.