Permit us, therefore, (attached to you by the noble ties of gratitude and fellow-citizens,) to entreat you in the warmest manner to be particularly attentive to your own safety, as you regard the interests of this Country. We now proffer to you our services, to be exerted at the expense of every thing a freeman ought to hold dear, as you may think most expedient, in the defence of your person and constitutional liberty, and will most cheerfully hazard our lives in the protection of one who has so often encountered every danger and difficulty in the service of his countrymen. May Heaven grant you long to live, the father of your Country and the friend to freedom and humanity.

To which he was pleased to return the following Answer:

GENTLEMEN: The affection you have expressed for me demands the warmest returns of gratitude. I feel very sensibly the happiness resulting from the kind attention of my worthy fellow-citizens to my security and welfare. Your apprehensions for my personal safety arise from reports which, I hope, have no foundation. Such unjust and arbitrary proceedings would bring on the authors of them the resentment and indignation of every honest man in the British Empire. I shall endeavour to deserve the esteem you have expressed on this occasion, and shall think it the greatest misfortune that can attend me if ever my future conduct should give you any reason to be displeased with the testimony you have now offered of your approbation.

WESTMORELAND COUNTY (VIRGINIA) COMMITTEE.

At a meeting of the Committee of Westmoreland County, held at the Court-House the 23d of May, 1775, present the Rev. Thomas Smith, Chairman, and fifteen other members of said Committee.

This Committee having taken into consideration the Address of the citizens of Williamsburgh, presented to his Excellency the Governour, on the 21st of April last, and his Excellency’s verbal answer thereto, as also his Lordship’s Speech to the Council, the 2d of May, and the Proclamation issued the next day, in consequence of the advice given him by a majority of the said Council, look upon themselves as indispensably bound to declare their sentiments thereon, as well to expose the inimical measures of men in high office, for a long time steadily pursued against the just rights of a loyal people, as to take off the odium they have endeavoured by some late proceedings to fix upon this Colony.

The seizing the powder, confessedly placed in the Magazine for the defence and protection of this Colony, by order of his Excellency the Governour, was a step by no means to be justified, even upon the supposition of its being lodged there from on board a man-of-war, as his Lordship has in his Proclamation asserted, although in his verbal answer to the Address of the citizens of Williamsburgh, he has tacitly acknowledged the powder to belong to the Country, by agreeing to deliver it up: that is, the same powder they demanded as the Country’s; and we have been informed that the Country had powder in the Magazine, which cannot now be found there: We therefore consider the removing the powder privately, and when that part of the Country was, as his Lordship confesses, in a very critical situation, to be a part of that cruel and determined plan of wicked administration to enslave the Colonies, by first depriving them of the means of resistance, and do Resolve,

1st. That the dissatisfaction discovered by the people of this Country, and late commotions raised in some parts thereof, proceeded, not as his Lordship in his Proclamation has injuriously and inimically charged, from a disaffection to His Majesty’s Government, or to a design of changing the form thereof, but from a well grounded alarm, occasioned altogether by the Governour’s late conduct, which clearly evinced his steady pursuit of the above mentioned ministerial plan to enslave us.

2d. That so much of his Excellency’s Proclamation which declares “the real grievances of the Colony can be only obtained by loyal and constitutional applications,” is an insult to the understanding of mankind, inasmuch as it is notorious that this and the other Colonies upon the Continent have repeatedly heretofore made those applications, which have ever been treated with contumely, and as his Lordship, since the late unhappy differences between Great Britain and the Colonies have subsisted, hath deprived us of the constitutional mode of application, by refusing to have an Assembly.

3d. That so far from endeavouring or desiring to subvert our ancient, and to erect a new form of Government, we will, at the risk of our lives and fortunes, support and defend it, as it existed and was exercised until the year 1763, and that his Lordship, by misrepresenting the good people of this Colony, as well in his letter to the British Minister as in his late Proclamation, has justly forfeited their confidence.

4th. That His Majesty’s Council, who advised the Proclamation before-mentioned, have not acted as they were bound to do from their station in Government, which ought to have led them to be mediators between the first Magistrate and the people, rather than to join in fixing an unjust and cruel stigma on their fellow-subjects.

5th. That the thanks of this Committee are justly due to the Delegates of the late Continental Congress, and to the Delegates from this Colony particularly, for their prudent, wise, arid active conduct, in asserting the liberties of America; and that the design of Government which, in some instances, we are informed, has already been carried into execution, to deprive them of all offices, civil and military, tends manifestly to disturb the minds of the people in general; and that we consider every person advising such a measure, or who shall accept of any office or preferment, of which any of the noble asserters of American liberty have been deprived, as an enemy to this Country.

Ordered, That the Clerk transmit a copy of the foregoing Resolutions to the Printer as soon as conveniently may be, in order that the same may be published in the Gazette.

JAMES DAVENPORT, Clerk Com'tee.

At a Committee held for Westmoreland County, May 23, 1775,

Resolved, That every Merchant or Factor who shall import European Goods into this County from any other Colony or District, shall, before he be permitted to sell such Goods, produce to the Chairman, or any one of the Committee, a certificate from the Committee of the Colony, County, or District from whence such Goods were purchased, of their having been imported agreeable to the terms of the Association of the Continental Congress.

JAMES DAVENPORT, Clerk.

TALBOT COUNTY (MARYLAND) COMMITTEE.

At a meeting of the Committee of Observation for Talbot County, on the 23d of May, 1775, at the Court-House of the said County,

The Rev. Mr. JOHN GORDON, Chairman.

A Letter from the Committee of Observation in Baltimore Town, bearing date May 20, 1775, and signifying that the Ship Johnston, belonging to Mr. Gildart, of Liverpool, was loaded with Salt and Dry Goods, by the house of Messrs. Ashton, and bound to Chesapeake Bay, was read.

In consequence whereof, a deputation, consisting of eleven gentlemen, was appointed to wait on Mr. James Braddock, agent and store-keeper for Mr. Gildart, owner of the said Ship Johnston, to advise him of the information received, to request him to give a satisfactory account and state of all goods now in his hands, and not to assist or countenance, directly or indirectly, the landing of any goods from the said ship, or in any way to promote the sale thereof. On the whole, the deputation aforesaid had it in charge to require an answer from Mr. Braddock, as to the part he meant to act on this occasion, and whether he would comply with their requisition, and to report the same to the Committee on Tuesday, the 30th instant, on which day they agreed to meet, unless the deputation should think it necessary to call a Committee sooner, in which case they were requested to give publick notice.

On the 30th instant the Committee, as above, met according to appointment, when the deputation aforesaid appeared, and reported that they went to Mr. Braddock’s store, but not finding him at home, they left a copy of the letter from the Committee of Baltimore Town, together with a copy of the order of this Committee, to be delivered to him when he should return.

In consequence of this Mr. Braddock appeared before the Committee, and informed them “that he did expect