is worded somewhat different from that which stands upon the Committee’s minute-book, occasioned by our not taking a copy of the preamble or summons, at the time we copied the affidavit and resolve. However, to do Mr. Gordon all the justice he can require, we will give the publick an opportunity of judging for themselves how much he was injured by that unfaithful publication, as he calls it, and for that purpose, herewith send you an extract and verbatim, copy of the proceedings from the Committee Minutes, signed with the Clerk’s own hand, by which will also appear what credit is due to Mr. Gordon’s assertions. Your inserting this, together with the proceedings in your next paper, will much oblige your humble servants,

PAT. HAMILTON, NAT. RAMSEY, JOHN HAMILTON, THOS. HUGHES,

Committee for Charlestown Hundred.

At a meeting of the Committee for Cecil County, at Elk-Ferry, on the sixteenth day of May, 1775,

JOHN VEAZEY, JUN., Chairman:

Whereas great complaints have this day been made against Charles Gordon, Esq., Attorney-at-Law, for that he hath infamously reflected on the members of this Committee, and the Deputies of this County, who lately attended the Provincial Convention: These are therefore requiring the said Charles Gordon that he appear before this Committee at the house of Thomas Savin, at Elk-Ferry, tomorrow, at two o’clock, P. M., to answer unto said complaint; hereof fail not at your peril. Returnable tomorrow, at two o’clock, P. M.

JOHN VEAZEY, 3D,
Acting Clerk.

To Charles Gordon, Esq., Attorney-at-Law, near Warwick.

On which said Summons was thus endorsed,

CECIL COUNTY, ss.

On this seventeenth day of May, 1775, personally came William Savin before me, the subscriber, one of his Lordship’s Justices of said County, and made oath on the Holy Evangelist of Almighty God, that he served Mr. Gordon with a copy of the within summons in time for him to have observed it; and that he told him (this deponent) that he would not meet, and if the Committee wanted him they must come to his plantation, but not inside his yard-gate; that he asked why they did not come or send some of their head men; that upon his (this deponent) saying that he believed if he did not comply with their request, that they would all come, he (Mr. Gordon) said he was ready to receive them; that his plantation was large enough to hold them, but they must not come inside his gate, or there would be lives lost; that Mr. Gordon told him that he had said, and does still say, that there are a parcel of damned scoundrels of the Committee, and that if they have any thing to say to him, they must come to him, for he is at all their defiances. Sworn before

DAVID SMITH.

Which being taken into consideration, the Committee came to the following determination:

Whereas Chas. Gordon, Attorney-at-Law, in this County, hath treated this Committee with great contempt and insolence; and whereas the general tenour of his conduct hath, for a long time past, been such as, in their opinions, declare him to be an enemy to the general cause of liberty, for which they are now contending; and he hath this day been duly summoned to appear and answer unto the above charge, to which he hath returned an impertinent and insolent answer, even menacing this Committee with destruction, if they attempted to proceed any further against him:

It is therefore Resolved, That the said Charles Gordon lie under the imputation of being an enemy to this Country, and as such, we will have no dealings or communication with him, nor permit him to transact business with us or for us, either in a publick or private capacity, which shall be commenced after the date hereof, until he appear before this Committee and fully satisfy them with respect to the above charge; and we do earnestly recommend to all the good people of this County to observe the same line of conduct.

Ordered, That this be published in each Hundred.

True copy from the Minutes :

JOHN VEAZEY, 3D, Acting Clerk.

TO LORD NORTH.

London, June 15, 1775.

MY LORD: Whilst I feel the deepest anguish and sensibility for the loss of our hapless countrymen who lately fell in the action with the Americans, near Boston, suffer me to entreat you to stay the sword, and suspend any further operations against the Colonies, until some happy conciliating means may be devised, some fortunate expedient may be hit upon, to heal the bleeding wounds and reunite us again with that unfortunate and distracted Country. It is, my Lord, the sincere wish of every true friend of freedom, who are too sensibly afflicted, adequately to express their feelings on the above most melancholy event.

As a well-wisher to your Lordship and all mankind, I entreat you, from every motive of humanity, to listen to the dictates of sound reason and policy, and you cannot fail of being convinced of the justice and expediency of a measure so essentially requisite to stop the further effusion of the blood of our countrymen, and prevent us from being engaged in all the horrours of a civil and intestine war; the bare apprehension of which, my Lord, fills me with the most poignant anxiety, and makes me dread the impending consequences with a torture of mind utterly impossible to be described.

If, by those extraordinary exertions which have often proceeded from people contending for their liberties, or by any of those accidents which have frequently decided the fate of battles and of empires, taking the victory from the strong and the race from the swift, we should be repulsed, to what a state of humiliation should we be reduced? Such is the insuperable absurdity of the measure, that whether victors or vanquished, we are sure of being sufferers.

With ties so strong to bind us to each other, is it not strange, is it not deplorable that we should differ? Do they who talk of chastising our Colonies and reducing them to obedience, consider how much we hazard when we dissolve those ties? What, are we to substitute in their place force and fear, which Tacitus wisely tells us are insecure restraints, and always succeeded by inveterate hatred? When these consequences follow from the coercive measures we are now pursuing, will the counsellors who have impelled us to them by representations, (not, I am sure, very fair,) defend us from their fatal effects?

It is from experience only, my Lord, that men learn wisdom; but, unhappily, sometimes the injury of the experiment is irretrievable. We have too much reason, I think, to apprehend that this will be the event of our present contest with America.

I acknowledge I admire the bravery of our Troops. What men can do they will do; but in a Country furnished with fastnesses and defiles without number, intimately known to the enemy you are to combat, where discipline is unavailing or embarrassing, and valour useless, it requires more than human power to succeed to any permanent purpose. Heaven forbid that the bravery of such troops as the English should be so vainly, so fatally employed. They who remember the fatal overthrow of Braddock by a few Indians in ambush, an overthrow incurred by the very discipline in which he vainly put his trust, will be apt to doubt the facility of reducing the Colonies by military force. They who reflect that the united aid and efforts of all the Colonies were necessary to give success to our arms in the late war against the Canadians, will be still more doubtful of this expedient.

But, my Lord, so much having been already said on the subject, I will not take up more of your valuable moments, which I am persuaded must now be fully employed. Indulge me, however, once more to entreaty our most serious attention to the true interest and happiness of this Country, aad to the welfare of our brethren in America; so shall you be revered and esteemed by all good men, your name deservedly transferred with honour to posterity, and the tribute of gratitude, affection, and esteem, be echoed from every quarter of this great and extensive Empire.

MEMENTO.

BRITISH SETTLEMENTS ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

New-York, June 15, 1775.

We have authority to communicate to the publick, from his Excellency Montford Browne, Esq., Governour and