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forty men, including officers, who have borne their share of camp duty since the 17th of last month; but the want of fire-arms not only prevents their perfecting themselves in military exercises, and is the reason why the company is not now complete, but leads those who are enlisted to fear they will soon be dismissed from the service: Your petitioner therefore humbly prays the honourable Congress to take this matter into consideration, and afford such relief to a number of men whose situation is peculiarly distressing, as in your wisdom and goodness you may deem meet; at the same time assuring your Honours, that it will be their grand aim to be as much distinguished by their exertions for the common cause of their Country, as they have been by their sufferings, and that, as in duty bound, shall pray, &c. LEMUEL TRESCOTT, in behalf of a Company. Cambridge, June 13, 1775. NEW-HAMPSHIRE COMMITTEE OF SAFETY TO MASSACHUSETTS CONGRESS. In Committee of Safety, Exeter, June 13, 1775. GENTLEMEN: By a gentleman of undoubted veracity, (who left Boston last Friday, and who had frequent opportunity of conversing with the principal officers in General Gage’s Army,) we are informed there is a great probability there when the expected re-enforcement arrives from Europe, that General Gage will secure some advantageous posts near Boston, viz: Dorchester and Charlestown. We are unacquainted with the importance of those posts, but if this hint should be in any decree useful, it will give us pleasure. COMMITTEE OF EXETER, N. H., TO COMMITTEE OF CONWAY. In Committee of Safety, Exeter, June 14, 1775. GENTLEMEN: In compliance with your request, we have agreed to spare you twenty-five pounds of powder out of our small stock, which is all we can possibly spare at present. Have advised Mr. Burbank to purchase lead, as we suppose he will be able to procure that article without any difficulty. As to arms, its out of power to supply you, nor do we think they are to be had in the Province. If the Indians should have any design to trouble our frontiers, we flatter ourselves we shall have such notice of their designs, as to be able to guard ourselves against them. We have determined to employ three companies at present on the frontier for the purposes of observation, which will, we suppose, afford you both necessary information and security for the present. You may rest assured that it was merely an oversight, unless, as we rather suppose, the letter failed, that your Town was not desired to send a Delegate to the Congress. If you think proper, we think it quite suitable that you choose some person or persons to represent you at the next meeting of the Congress, which will be the 27th of this month. We have enclosed a copy of the letter on which the other Towns have acted. EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM ONE OF THE VIRGINIA DELEGATES TO HIS FRIEND IN WILLIAMSBURGH, DATED PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 14, 1775. Col. Washington has been pressed to take the supreme command of the American Troops encamped at Roxbury, and I believe will accept the appointment, though with much reluctance, he being deeply impressed with the importance of that honourable trust, and diffident of his own (superiour) abilities. We have determined to keep ten thousand men in Massachusetts-Bay, and five thousand in different parts of the New-York Government, at the expense of the Continent; and probably a larger sum of money will be emitted in order to carry on the war, preparations for which go on rapidly in this place. It seems likely that some of the newly arrived Generals were intended for the Southern Colonies, but no Troops can be spared from Boston. The Provincials talk much of storming that Town, and it is expected by many. The Congress will sit long. Adjusting the expenses of each Colony for the common cause, and settling proper funds for the Army, are subjects fruitful of debate, and of the utmost consequence.
TO THE INHABITANTS OF NEW-JERSEY. Friends and Fellow-Subjects: How fashionable soever might have been the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance in those dark times of ignorance and barbarism, when the laity had no more instruction than to repeat the Lord’s prayer, nor the clergy any more reading than would save them from hanging; it is, in this lettered and enlightened age, so generally exploded, that save a few Tories, who are pensioned out of their consciences, or a few gowns and cassocks who are looking for an American mitre, no man is fond of broaching so gross an absurdity. It is certainly the voice of unbiased, uncorrupted reason, that whatever one man has a right to enjoy, no other man has a right to take from him; and that, consequently, the first has an undoubted right to repel the invasion of the latter. And what does it matter whether this invasion is made under the character of king, highwayman, or robber? since it is not from the person of the invader, but from the nature of the invasion itself, that the injury receives its complexion, and on which the right of the resistance is founded. And as this is the undoubted right of all mankind, it is, with respect to Englishmen, reduced to absolute certainty by a most memorable clause in the Great Charter, whereby four out of twenty-five Barons may show the King his miscarriage; and on his not amending it, may, with the residue of the twenty-five and commonalty, redress themselves by force. It is true the Americans have no Barons to shew the King his miscarriage; but the Barons appointed for that purpose by Magna Charta being thereto appointed as representatives of the people aggrieved, it is evident, from the nature of our local circumstances, that we must have a right to appoint, in the room of such Barons, a representation for the same purpose; and that such representatives must have the same right to lay our grievances before the throne, and the aggrieved, in default of redress by the Prince, have a right, in the same manner, to redress themselves. In the light of this representation I consider the Continental Congress, being expressly chosen to present our grievances to His Majesty, and to supplicate him to remove our complaints. To this purpose they are undoubtedly the Barons of North-America, on whom the united confederated Colonies depend for counsel and protection, agreeable to the security granted to the subjects by the 64th section of Magna Charta above referred to, and which, it being probably in few of your hands, I choose to give you at large: The Security for the Rights, Privileges, and Immunities of Magna Charta. Section 64. “And whereas we have granted all these things for God’s sake, and for the amendment of our Government, and for the better compromising the discord arisen betwixt us and our Barons, we, willing that the same be firmly held and established forever, do make and grant our Barons the security underwritten, to wit: that the Barons shall choose five-and-twenty Barons of the Realm, whom they list, who shall, to their utmost power, keep, and hold, and cause to be kept, the peace and liberties which we have granted and confirmed by this our present Charter; insomuch that if we or our justice, or our bailiff, or any of our ministers act contrary to the same, in any thing against any person, or offend against any article of this peace and security, and such our miscarriage be shown to four Barons of the said five-and-twenty, those four Barons shall come to us, or to our justice if we be out of the Realm, and shew us our miscarriage, and require us to amend the same without delay; and if we do not amend it, or if we be out of the Realm, our justice do not amend it within forty days after the same is shewn to us, or to our justice if we be out of the Realm, then the said four Barons shall report the same to the residue of the said five-and-twenty Barons, and then those five-and-twenty Barons, with the commonalty of England, may distress us by all the ways they can, to wit: by seizing on our castles, lands, and possessions, and by what other means they can, till it be amended, as they shall judge, saving our own person, the person of our Queen, and the persons of our children; and when it is amended, they shall be subject to us as before; and whoever of the Realm will, may swear that, for the performance of these things, he will obey the commands of the said five-and-twenty Barons, and that together with them,
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