We cannot but remind your Lordship of the General Congress held in America, with the royal approbation, in the last war. The united interest, indeed, of Great Britain and the Colonies, might have then demanded it. In imitation of so laudable an example, America resolved on a like measure, as equally, if not more necessary, at this critical juncture. Your Lordship’s account of the effects the Association is likely to produce, considering it as a matter of opinion, we are little concerned to interfere with: time only can discover the consequences of it. But your heavy charge against those called people of fortune, “that they supply themselves and negroes for two or three years, to the distress of the middling and poorer sort,” must have proceeded from your giving too easy credit to ill-founded reports. Some, but very few, may have supplied themselves, as opportunity offered, for the present year; this, we believe, is the most that has been done. And we are persuaded of a material mistake in another respect, it being the general opinion, founded on good grounds, that the middling and poorer sort will fare much better than those of fortune, who have large numbers of slaves to provide for. Engaged on this topick, we cannot refrain from observing how strangely our views have been misrepresented. By the Association we intend nothing that is illegal. We are only resolved to be content with our homespun manufactures, however mean in quality, unless things can be restored to their former channel; the only security we desire for what we know our excellent Constitution entitles us to. What your Lordship is pleased to represent as the arbitrary proceedings of the Committees, we trust will produce none of those very dreadful effects you have painted in such alarming colours. The whole Colony, very few excepted, is united; and from such union of sentiments, expectations must be exceedingly sanguine, indeed, in supposing that discord will arise.

How the proceedings of the General Convention, in the month of March last, may have been represented, we know not; but, from the foregoing specimens, it is to be presumed in no very favourable light. These meetings, my Lord, unless it can be supposed that a whole Country could entirely lose sight of its security and most essential interests, were rendered absolutely necessary; first, by the dissolution, and afterwards by repeated prorogations of the General Assembly. Upon inquiry into the state of the Colony, it was found that there had been almost a total inattention to the proper training and disciplining of our Militia. Various subsequent Acts of our Legislature, amendatory of the law of 1738, had expired; the Act providing against invasions and insurrections was near expiring, and it was uncertain whether an opportunity would be given the General Assembly to revive it. Taking a further view of our situation, it was found that our inhabitants were exposed to the incursions of a barbarous and savage enemy. From the best accounts received from Great Britain, there was too much reason to be convinced that His Majesty’s Ministry were prosecuting the most rigorous and arbitrary measures towards subjugating the whole Continent of America to their despotick rule; which measures, it was more than probable, had been suggested from hence, and the other Colonies: that a scheme, the most diabolical, had been meditated and generally recommended by a person of great influence, to offer freedom to our slaves, and turn them against their masters. The Convention, to guard against these dangers not clearly seen into before that time, recommended a strict attention to the Militia Law of 1738; but, thinking this defective in many essential points, and considering that, under this law, the whole Militia were not obliged to exercise so frequently as might be necessary, it was recommended that volunteer companies should be formed in each County, for the better defence and protection of the whole Country. These proceedings, according to an usual style, it is more than probable, have been represented as designed to oppose Government: whereas, we are persuaded that nothing was farther from the intentions of the Convention. A review of their resolutions must convince every unprejudiced mind that the utmost respect was paid to His Majesty aud his legal Government, and that the Convention had much pleasure in expressing their obligations to your Lordship for your late services. The truth is, my Lord, that His Majesty’s dutiful subjects in this Colony have the utmost attachment to their Sovereign; they admire, they love the Constitution, and will risk every thing most dear and valuable in support of it. These are principles imbibed in their infancy, and their constant care is to inculcate them upon the minds of their children; they meditate or design nothing in the least offensive; but, if it is expected that they should sit down supinely, and submit to yokes which neither they nor their forefathers were able to bear, they must acknowledge that they have the sensibility and feelings of freemen actuating them to a proper and justifiable defence of those rights which are guarantied by the laws and principles of the Constitution.

We have, my Lord, made the strictest and minutest inquiry into the causes of the late disturbances. We find, from the examination of many respectable merchants, natives of Great Britain residing in different parts of this Colony, and from other gentlemen of character, that the Country was in a perfect state of tranquillity till they received an account of your Lordship’s removal of the gunpowder from the publick magazine to one of His Majesty’s ships-of-war, and of your irritating and most unjustifiable threats.

The inhabitants of this Country, my Lord, could not be strangers to the many attempts in the Northern Colonies to disarm the people, and thereby deprive them of the only means of defending their lives and property. We know, from good authority, that the like measures were generally recommended by the Ministry, and that the export of powder from Great Britain had been prohibited. Judge, then, how very alarming the removal of the small stock which remained in the publick magazine for the defence of the Country, and the stripping the guns of their locks, must have been to any people who had the smallest regard for their security; the manner and time of doing it, made no small addition to the general apprehension of your Lordship’s views. The reason assigned by your Lordship for taking this step, we should have thought the most likely, at any other time, to have directed a very different conduct. We should have supposed that a well-grounded apprehension of an insurrection of the slaves ought to have called forth the utmost exertions to suppress it. The world will probably judge your Lordship’s method of doing this the least likely to effect the necessary purpose. Your Lordship having represented this powder as the King’s peculiar property, supposing it to have been brought from one of his ships, we have made inquiry into that matter, and cannot find that there ever was any powder brought either from the Rippon or any other man-of-war; so that we presume your Lordship must have been misinformed as to this fact since the powder was removed, as it was not relied on in your answer to the Address of the Corporation of the City of Williamsburgh; be this, however, as it may, we conceive the case would not be materially altered. We must remind your Lordship, that by a very ancient law of this Country, enacted so long since as the thirty-second year of the reign of His Majesty King Charles the Second, for raising a publick revenue, and for the better support of this Government, amongst other provisions, an impost of one-half pound of gunpowder and three pounds of leaden shot, or one shilling and three pence sterling, was imposed on all ships or vessels coming into this Colony. In the ninth year of the reign of Queen Anne, the impost of one shilling and three pence on the tonnage of vessels was continued, for port duties. It is evident, my Lord, that the original and chief design of this particular impost was to provide, from time to time, a proper stock of munition for the defence of the Country. We have examined the produce of this fund for thirteen years past, and find that it yielded in that time twenty-eight thousand five hundred and three pounds, three shillings and nine pence sterling; which, on an average, amounted to two thousand one hundred ninety-two pounds eleven shillings sterling per annum; and it is observable, that for the four last years it yielded considerably more than three thousand pounds in each year. It may from hence be fairly submitted, whether it was not incumbent on the Executive part of Government to have provided, in the first place, from so large and ample a fund, a proper stock of arms and ammunition, which was so essentially necessary for the security of the Country. If, my Lord, instead of applying a reasonable