but add to our strength and prosperity. As soon as they know it is against law to detain them in the Army, the ministerial army, there will be no obstacle to their desertion. Then, but not before, sycophants, paid to calumniate and betray the British Colonies, will in vain attempt to persuade the instructed and less credulous soldiers that we shall deliver them up to facilitate our reconciliation with the British Parliament, who will not hear of any proposal of accommodation, unless this, their sine qua non condition, be first complied with. If we adopt this generous measure, we shall enjoy the purest pleasure that can affect freemen—that of rescuing our fellow-creatures, our brethren, from disgraceful bondage. And if experience can teach us wisdom, we shall so cautiously grant temporary acts for preventing mutiny and desertion, should ever the safety of the British Empire make it again necessary to grant such acts, that the abominable project of reducing us into a state of slavery, by the means of a Standing Army, cannot enter the head of any future Minister.

The virtuous part of the British Officers themselves impatiently wait for this manifestation of our prudence. They will secretly rejoice, as Britons, at the mutiny and desertion of whole battalions, whatever they may do in their publick character to the contrary. And General Gage, whom his weakness and incapacity recommended to a perfidious Administration, who emulously extol his abilities, though they would not have employed him if a sensible man, of an established military reputation, had accepted the dishonourable command; that General, whom they have decorated but as a bound victim, may be brought to justice, and answer for the many crimes which his thirst of power inspired him to perpetrate, or patronize, as the most acceptable offerings which could propitiate to him his tutelar Deity at St. James’s.

It is not yet too late to pursue this plan of philanthropy and self-defence; but we must exert ourselves with activity and constancy. If we lose time, the soldiers, not knowing the local nullity of an edict made for the purpose of detaining them against law, on an unnatural service which they abhor, will be afraid of being treacherously delivered up, in case they desert. They will not cease to be awed by illegal Courts-Martial, though if they were properly instructed they would not fear, but despise, the authority usurped by those Courts; and the soldiers who have been injured by them, or by any military officer, would obtain legal redress, should they make proper application.

If we suffer them to be misled by a sacrilegious interpretation of their military, oath, from which they are released as soon as the Army is kept against law; if we scandalously forsake them, in vain shall we cry out to them in the strain of the Roman Patriot,

Whither, oh! whither do you madly run?
’Tis not that Britons, with avenging flame,
Might burn the rival of the British name;
But that the Stuarts should their vows enjoy,
And George, with impious hand, himself destroy!

When they are ordered to butcher us, and destroy our habitations, then they will not listen to us; self-preservation, and even revenge, must impel them to imbrue their hands in our blood, and our destruction or slavery, attended with the curses of posterity, may be the fatal consequences of our infatuation, in neglecting to seize an opportunity to vanquish our enemies without shedding the blood of our friends.

AN ANTI-DESPOT.

ROBERT AND JOHN MURRAY TO THE NEW-YORK CONGRESS.

New-York, June 2, 1775.

SIR: Herewith you have a memorial to the Congress now assembled, together with a copy of the papers laid before the Continental Congress. We should take it as a favour, if you would lay the whole before the gentlemen as soon as possible. Your compliance will much oblige your humble servants,

ROBERT & JOHN MURRAY.

P. V. B. Livingston, Esq., President of the Congress.

Memorial of ROBERT MURRAY and JOHN MURRAY, to the Honourable the Provincial Congress of NEW-YORK.

GENTLEMEN: The annexed papers are copies of what we laid before the honourable Continental Congress, in consideration of which they came to the following Resolution:

“In Congress, May 27, 1775.

“Upon motion, the Memorial of Robert Murray and John Murray, desiring to be restored to their former situation, with respect to their commercial privileges, was taken into consideration, and after some time spent thereon,

“Resolved, That where any person hath been, or shall be, adjudged by a Committee to have violated the Continental Association, and such offender shall satisfy the Convention of the Colony where the offence was or shall be committed, or the Committee of the Parish of St. John’FSs, in the Colony of Georgia, if the offence be committed there, of his contrition for his offence, and sincere resolution to conform to the Association for the future, the said Convention or Committee of the Parish of St. John’s aforesaid, may settle the terms upon which he may be restored to the favour and forgiveness of the publick, and that the terms be published.

“A true copy from the Minutes:

“CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary.”

From the foregoing it appears, that to procure restoration to publick favour, we have no tribunal but yours to appeal to. The annexed papers exhibit a full state of our case, which we humbly submit to your consideration, not doubting but that in your wisdom you will afford us such relief as will be consistent with humanity and the publick good.

ROBERT MURRAY,
JOHN MURRAY.

June 2, 1775.

MEMORIAL OF ROBERT AND JOHN MURRAY TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

To the Honourable the Continental Congress now sitting at PHILADELPHIA:

The Memorial of ROBERT MURRAY and JOHN MURRAY, of the City of NEW-YORK, Merchants, humbly sheweth;

That the memorialists being owners of the ship Dutchess of Gordon, and expecting she would be in London by the time their orders could arrive there, did, on the 7th of September last, by a letter to Philip Sansom, direct him to put certain articles on board the said ship, on account of the memorialists, together with what freight he could procure for her, and to despatch her immediately for New-York, as may appear by an extract of the letter hereunto annexed, marked No. 1.

That the memorialists, so far from entertaining any design to counteract the measures recommended by the late Continental Congress, did, as soon as they were informed thereof, countermand the above-mentioned orders, except as to such goods as might, in consequence thereof, have actually become the property of the memorialists and their partner, the said Philip Sansom; for the truth of which they beg leave to refer to the annexed extract of a letter to the said Philip Sansom, dated the 5th of October, 1774, marked No. 2.

That in pursuance of the above directions, there were shipped on board the Beulah, (a vessel belonging to the memorialists) at London, sundry goods, on account of the memorialists and their partner, with which goods the said vessel sailed for New-York on the 5th or 6th day of December last, and arrived there the 16th or 17th of February following.

That on the arrival of the said vessel and cargo, which happened after the time limited by the Congress for the continuance of our importations, the memorialists having no intention to land their goods contrary to the terms of the Association, would have cheerfully submitted to what they conceived to be the spirit and design thereof, and were therefore willing, and did offer to unload their cargo and ship it in another bottom, under the inspection of some of the Committee here, and to send it to some place not within the restriction imposed by the Congress; and the memorialists beg leave to refer to the annexed copy of their letter, sent to the Committee upon this subject, marked No. 3, containing more at large their proposal, and the reasons on which it was founded.

The memorialists beg leave further to observe, that they did verily believe their construction of this part of the